How to Save Money Building a Glock 34 Frame Up on a Budget
A bone stock Glock 34 retails for $629. This makes the Glock 34 a popular choice for budget minded competitive shooters. When compared against the Sig Legion for $1400, the CZ Shadow 2 which can cost somewhere between 2.5 to 3x more, or worse, a 2011 stacatto, where were talking as much as 5x more expensive than the Glock 34, the Glock 34 by comparison seems like a pretty budget friendly option.
However, all of those pistols have better triggers and better features that make them attractive options.
Parts List
How to Make the Glock 34 Competitive with Higher End Options
To elevate the Glock 34, one has to customize much about the pistol. Moreover, with budget options like CANIK’s TP9SFX, which I’ve reviewed in depth in another video, retailing for $549, and sometimes going on sale for even less, the Glock 34 begins to hold less and less appeal.
I think all of these factors has contributed to seeing the Glock 34 being used less and less in local matches. Not to mention because of its large size, as compared to Glock concealed carry options, the pistol has less utility from a practical standpoint.
The Glock 34 isn’t dead and building frame up can save you money
However I stand by the platform. I am contending that the Glock 34 isn’t dead for competition use, and further, I will make the case that building the Glock 34 frame up is the best option for those looking to getting into competitive pistol shooting on a budget.
So the question becomes, can I build a Glock 34 on the cheap, simply buying the upgraded parts up front and working from a stripped frame?
How to Build a Glock 34 with top tier parts for under $600
In this video, we’ll show you how that is more than possible by shopping sales. Be on the lookout for deals leading into black friday this year.
I started with a Stripped Frame for $89.99
We’ll start with the stripped frame. The Glock 34 uses the same exact frame as the Glock 17 with most of the same components, save for a few of the frame internals. The glock 34 ships with a lighter trigger connector, dropping the trigger pull weight out of box to about 3.5 lbs. I got my Glock 17 stripped frame from US Patriot Armory for only $89.99.
Another advantage of going with this a stripped frame is that you can choose the exact internals that you want to put into the frame. For example, if you want an extended slide release or magazine release, you can just buy those options up front. I used to run an extended slide release but I kept finding, because the spring is so light on glock frames, and because of my active grip style, I kept bumping the slide release with my support hand locking the slide back prematurely. So for me, the stock slide release + the extended mag release makes sense. All other internals are OEM.
OEM Frame Parts Kit can run $79.99 or You Can get a Kit without the Trigger and Upgrade ($49.99)
You could complete the frame with a complete OEM parts kit for $79.99 from MidwayUSA, but I suggest not going this route. Instead, you can save money by buying the kit without the trigger, and then putting those funds towards upgrading to a Glock Performance trigger.
Instead, I suggest buying most of the parts individually, and then springing for the Gen 5 Glock Performance Trigger, or the Timney Alpha Gen 3 trigger. The gen 5 trigger is not out of box compatible with the gen 3 Glock 34 officially, but the main difference is the tiny lips on the underside of the Gen 5 ejector housing. So with a little dremel work, you can get this to work in a gen 3. I’ll do a future video on getting the glock performance trigger to fit in Gen 3 frames later this month, so subscribe to the channel and hit the little bell notification to be notified when that video comes out.
Glock OEM Frame Parts Kit
If you buy the kit without the trigger, you can save money. OEM parts are recommended as they will last a long time, especially for ac competition build.
Glock Performance Trigger ($90)
The performance trigger is essentially all of hte fire controls, eliminating most of the parts from the frame kit. You could simply buy the slide lock, slide release, slide lock spring, frame pins, magazine spring, and magazine release individually, which will help you save money vs buying the $80 kit and help offset the cost of the performance trigger. Overall you’ll be spending around vs spending $80, but you get the performance trigger, which will really help the Glock 34 remain competitive versus competitor models.
Glock Performance Trigger
Excellent trigger, a huge upgrade for any gen 5 glock. Comparable to the Timney Competition trigger, except designed to be very safe with Glock’s safe action system.
Slide Completion Kit ($78)
An OEM Glock slide completion kit will run you $130, which you may want to do. You could technically get by with the cheap offbrand glock frame kits, as the frame parts aren’t as mission critical, although you might have some issues with those kits over time, but don’t skimp on the slide completion parts. In my experience, the striker / firing pins are always terrible and break on the cheaper kits. The extractors oftentimes don’t work either and cause stove pipes or other types of malfunctions. Go OEM on the slide parts, or buy a kit from a reputable brand. In my case because I was trying to go ultra budget, I went with shadow systems as their parts kit was $78.32. Considering most slide completion kits are around $50 for offbrands, you should just spend the extra money and go with shadow systems or OEM glock here.
Glock Slide Completion Kit
Lone Wolf Distributing Barrel (Blem, On Sale $55)
For the barrel, I went with a Lone Wolf Glock 34 threaded barrel. I got a blem model at a steal price of $55. The Lone Wolf barrel is about as good as OEM, so no complaints here. The fact that its threaded can allow you to play around with compensators. I tried playing around with an Agency Arms 417, but it didn’t run well with this setup unless I was shooting 147 grain ammunition. For now I’m keeping the compensator off and will review it in a separate video when I have more time to play around with it.
Lone Wolf Glock 34 Gen 3 Barrel
A high quality barrel at an affordable price. These barrels have excellent machining and comparable quality to the stock OEM barrel, threaded, and at a very low price point.
Brownells RMR Cut Slide with Recoil Lugs (Sale price, $179.99)
For the slide, I got the Brownell’s glock 34 RMR cut slide on sale for $179.99. This slide is awesome. It has a great finish. The RMR cut is cut with recoil lugs, just like more expensive slides. This is ultimately better for keeping the red dot mounted securely to the pistol. To get the Glock 34 cut to an RMR footprint would cost an additional $100 on top of the $629 MSRP. So ultimately, the Brownell’s slide is a steal.
Brownells Glock 34 Slide
Excellent glock 34 slide with great features
- Great machining
- Great finish
- Recoil lugs
- RMR Footprint
- None that I have discovered
Magpul Extended Magwell ($20)
Lastly, I purchased a $20 magpul extended magwell for Glock frames to finish off the build.
Magpul Gen 3 Glock Magwell
Make reloading easier with this low profile and affordable magwell
Optic, Bushnell RXM300
I topped it all off with a Bushnell RXM300, which is an amazing competition red dot that I’ll be doing a video on next month. Subscribe to the channel for more great content including the Bushnell RXM 300 review.
Bushnell RXM-300 Competition Red Dot
With a huge window, this red dot pairs amazingly well with the Glock 34.
Conclusion, a Glock 34 Build that cost less than a Factory Glock 34 with Upgraded Parts
So ultimately, for , we have a pistol that comes in well under the Glock MSRP of $629. To do the equivalent upgrades on stock Glock, the Pistol would cost over ~$1,000 when all said and done, but by building from sale parts, our build costs less than half of that. We end up with a Glock 34 build that is RMR optics cut, has a threaded barrel, has a Glock performance trigger, has quality internals, and has an extended magwell.
The money saved can easily go towards an optic and ammo, like the rock solid, competitive shooting focused Bushnell RXM-300 which I’ll be reviewing in detail in a future video. Additionally, that extra money saved can go towards ammo and practice, which is worth more than any upgrades you can do on the pistol.
Possible Downsides with Building your Own Glock 34
The main disadvantage of going down this route is that you will only be able to compete with this build in open divisions, meaning you’ll be competing against some of the fastest race guns out there. Its for this reason I will typically compete with the CANIK TP9SFX in open and carry optics divisions, and will compete with this Glock 34 in open.
There’s still some additional modifications that I’d like to do to this pistol including experimenting with compensating this pistol, as well as potentially even exploring adding frame weights. Right now shooting it with the TLR-1 actually helps control recoil. I also plan to stipple the frame. When I have this build fully tuned exactly how I like it, I’ll create another video.
Final Thoughts
However, with all of that said, I’m really happy with this setup, it allows me to be competitive, while competing with a pistol that still feels like my EDC pistol as well as my home defense pistol. I hope this video inspires you to get into competitive shooting and to strongly consider building off of the tried and true Glock platform. Glock isn’t dead for competition shooting.
