The Best Glock Upgrades for Upping Your Glock Game

As you may have discovered, Glocks come with plastic sights. The Ameriglo Hackathorn Night Sight Set is a great set of steel sights that work for all types of shooting.

Obviously, the first big win about these sights is that they’re steel. They’re durable enough for one-handed weapon manipulations. And they’ll hold securely in your slide for the life of your gun, whereas the plastic sights tend to warp and loosen over time.

Additionally, the steel has a better matte finish than plastic. And the backside of the rear notch is serrated. These features reduce glare and give you a blacker, crisper rear notch for faster and more precise sight alignment.

At the other end, the front sight has a high visibility insert that makes it super easy to pick up and focus on your front sight. So you can get your sights lined up and on target faster for a quicker first shot.

The high visibility front sight and flat black rear notch are ideal for defensive use. 

Glocks are known for their mediocre trigger. It’s not terrible. But there are plenty of guns with better triggers. The Overwatch Precision Polymer DAT Trigger Kit massively improves the trigger press on your gun, without altering any of the key internals.

Since you’re not changing any springs or internal safety parts, this trigger won’t change the pull weight. All you’re really changing is the trigger shoe (the included trigger bar is a stock Glock trigger bar). So your gun remains almost entirely stock, which is necessary for competition and defensive guns in some states.

Also, the trigger shoe is the same polymer that Glock uses in their stock triggers. So the trigger surface feels about the same.

The big difference is the shape of the trigger. The flat-face trigger slightly reduces the length of pull, minimizes the travel and overtravel, and gives you more consistent trigger finger placement.

The standard Glock magazine release is very streamlined, which is good in many ways. However, many shooters find it difficult to reach the magazine release without breaking their grip on the gun. Glock recognized this and produced the Glock Extended Magazine Release.

The first selling point of this upgrade is that it’s a genuine Glock part. So you know that it’s made just as well as the original magazine release. And it’s guaranteed to fit, as long as you get the one that matches your Glock model.

In terms of design, this magazine release is well thought-out.

It’s just a bit longer than the standard magazine release. So you can reliably release your magazine without compromising your grip on your gun, even if you have short thumbs.

But, Glock rounded the front edge of the magazine release. So it doesn’t catch or snag on things.

If you prefer a metal magazine release, the Tyrant Designs Gen4 & Gen5 Glock Extended Magazine Release is one of your best options.

The obvious upgrade you get from this magazine release is more durability. Aluminum construction is more rigid and durable than the standard polymer Glock magazine release.

The main benefit here is that you’ll get a lot more positive operation from your magazine release. Your magazine will seat more positively and lockup more securely in the magazine well, which is nice.

Additionally, when you press the magazine release, the aluminum won’t flex the way polymer does. So you get a faster, more positive magazine release when you drop your magazine.

Then there’s the texture. This magazine release is cut with a chevron texture on the contact surface.

This is a minor upgrade. But it’s one that you are pretty much guaranteed to use. The Lone Wolf Distributors Extended Slide Lock Lever for Glock makes it much easier to disassemble your gun.

The stock Glock slide lock can be difficult to get a hold of when you’re taking your gun apart.

This slide lock is 3mm longer than the factory slide lock. This makes it much easier to get your fingers on, even when your fingers are oily or wet.

However, the slide lock is low profile enough that it won’t snag or scratch things.

It’s made of the same steel as the factory slide lock. And you can install this part in less than a minute.

The only thing to watch out for is the serrations on the ends. The factory slide lock has fairly rounded-off serrations. 

Glocks are extremely well-designed, streamlined guns. There’s almost nothing to catch or snag. The downside to this is that some of the controls can be tricky to reach. The TangoDown Enhanced Slide Stop for Glock makes it much easier to use your slide stop to lock the slide open or release the slide, if you use it for that.

First, this slide stop has more aggressive serrations on the face of the lever. That way you can get a better purchase to push it up or down. This is especially helpful for those who use their slide stop to release their slide.

Also, the top edge of this model protrudes just slightly more than the stock slide stop. This makes it much easier to actuate the slide stop, even with short or slippery thumbs.

But this slide stop is still very streamlined. It won’t snag on stuff. And it fits in almost any holster just fine.

This model is stamped from 4130 steel and heat treated to ensure that it’s just as durable—if not more durable—than the factory slide stop. 

If you want a more aggressive texture for your slide stop, the Tyrant Designs Glock Extended Slide Release offers a more aggressive texture, along with a few other perks.

This slide stop is machined with a chevron texture. The texture gives good tactile feedback. And it’s grippy enough to provide good traction for those who use the slide stop to drop their slide.

Additionally, this model is slightly beveled outward, which makes it easier to reach for locking the slide open or dropping the slide. However, the tiny bit of extension on this slide stop won’t interfere with your holster or anything. That way you won’t have to change or modify your gear.

Then, this slide stop looks cool.

It comes in multiple colors. So you can match your slide stop to whatever color scheme you’ve got going on.

The Glock grip features a hollow pocket under the palm swell. This makes the gun lighter. But it also attracts a lot of dust and dirt. And it’s unused space. The TangoDown Grip Plug/Takedown Tool for Glock keeps your grip from getting stuffed with dirt. And it uses the space for a handy tool.

In addition to the tool and sealing your frame against dirt, the grip plug has a performance benefit: it helps with reloads.

The grip plug provides a ramp that pushes the magazine into the magazine well if you don’t have it perfectly lined up. That way your magazine never catches on the back of the magazine well during a reload, even if you don’t nail the magazine insertion.

Then, this grip plug includes a takedown tool so you can completely disassemble your gun, if need be. And we mean completely. The takedown tool enables you to remove the trigger, trigger mechanism, and all the other frame components for a complete disassembly.

A compensator is at the bottom of this for a combination of two reasons:

1. It’s an entirely optional upgrade.
2. You may need to change or modify your holster to fit the compensator.

So you may need to buy new gear to use this upgrade. However, the Tyrant Designs Uni-Comp will reduce felt recoil and keep your muzzle flatter in rapid fire.

And this is one of the best compensator designs I’ve found. Most pistol compensators require a relatively complex installation, with timing and stuff. And sometimes the compensator will cause reliability issues if your handgun has an articulating barrel.

This compensator doesn’t have any of those issues. The installation is super easy. And—at least with Glock pistols—this compensator won’t affect the reliability of your gun.

The installation doesn’t require any complex timing or anything.