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 Up Close and Personal
Part 5: Slides and Sights
©
2000 by John L. Marshall
The Glock slide provides for lockup of the
barrel’s chamber area into the ejection port, which is cut low on
the starboard side. The
pivoting extractor is massive and is powered by a coil spring bearing
on a plunger to its rear. Since
the Glock design is hammerless, the rear of the slide holds the
spring-driven firing pin and the firing pin safety plunger.
This plunger assures
that the pistol will not fire until the trigger is fully to the rear.
The slide is finished with Glock’s Tenifer™ process, which
assures a diamond-hard surface. The
finish looks a lot like parkerizing, but is nearly impossible to
scratch. The firing pin is rectangular in cross-section, so it’s
always easy to spot brass which has been fired in a Glock. The factory sights are 3-dot plastic of the classic Patridge
design. Optional, and
present on this particular pistol, are metal tritium night sights. This slide is the widest of
the four pistols, a tie with the H&K. However, it seems clunkier than the H&K slide, which is
scalloped along its forward area and beveled along the top edges.
The
H&K slide is so similar in dimensions to the Glock that the Glock
and H&K barrels will slip into either slide interchangeably.
Of course each needs to be mated with the proper barrel, spring
and frame to work. The
substantial extractor is pivoted around a roll pin, and spring-loaded.
It’s longer than that of the Glock, and has its top surface
painted red to serve as a loaded-round indicator.
The factory sights are metal, 3-dot, and give a good Patridge
sight picture. This pistol was retrofitted with tritium sights for night
work, but the sight picture is basically identical.
The graceful scallops along the forward half of the slide give
the illusion that the slide is slimmer than that of the Glock, and
there is a certainly a weight savings to be gained.
The slide contains the firing pin, firing pin retraction
spring, and the firing pin safety mechanism.
There is a recess at the rear of the slide for the pistol’s
bobbed hammer. The finish is H&K’s all-weather tough and durable matte
blue, similar to Glock’s Tenifer™ process.
It equals or betters stainless steel in moisture resistance.
The
Smith & Wesson slide is of blued steel, and features a
slide-mounted decocker-safety lever on the left rear, which increases
its width about 2/10 of an inch.
Instead of the rounded top which characterizes more expensive
S&W offerings, this slide utilizes two longitudinal flat bevels.
It’s not unattractive, and certainly results in cost savings
during manufacture. The
long, massive extractor is pivoted, but does not serve as a
loaded-chamber indicator. The
sights as the pistol comes from the factory are plastic, with the rear
being a close imitation of the Novak design. They were replaced on this pistol with Trijicon™ tritium
night sights. The slide
holds the firing pin, its spring, the rotating safety-decocker lever,
a firing pin safety mechanism, and a magazine safety mechanism.
This is the only pistol of the four to utilize a magazine
safety. The bluing on the
slide is with a matte finish, and is not nearly as durable as the
finish found on the Glock and H&K pistols.
It shows holster wear rather quickly.
There is a recess at the rear for the bobbed hammer, which fits
flush when the hammer is down.
The Springfield’s slide is the classic graceful
1911 design, in stainless steel.
The grasping grooves are slanted forward in the modern manner,
with 9 flat-bottomed cuts. The
ejection port is lowered, almost radically so, and scalloped for
better ejection of the expended brass.
The two compensator vent ports at the top front of the slide
measure about one and 1/10 inch long.
This makes for a very light slide.
The sights on this one are of the high Patridge design.
More recent examples from Springfield feature a Novak rear
sight. Originally the
sights on this pistol had 3 white dots, but these have been
preferentially blacked out by the owner.
This slide is of the original (Series 70 type) design, and
there is no firing pin safety. The
extractor is pure 1911 in which the spring is the extractor itself.
The slide also houses the firing pin, its spring, and the
firing pin retaining plate. Interestingly, the Springfield .45s use
9mm-size firing pins which are of a lesser diameter than the usual
1911 .45 size. Tritium
sights are not a practical option on this pistol, as the
compensator’s exhaust ports will quickly blacken the front sight.
There is, of course, a recess for the pistol’s
commander-style hammer.
Previous: Barrels
Next: Frames
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