Handgun question, is this legal? (Glock 17)?

Question

I own a Glock 17 Gen 3 and i have a question. I have always admired the looks of the Glock 18 im not too sure why just a gun that i think looks nice. Now if i bought a spare slide for my 17 and put it on a milling machine to cut the hole to expose the barrel, the lowered area between the ejection port and rear sight and got rid of a few of the grooves on the side of the slide to put on a FAKE selector switch. However i want to make it clear that these are ONLY visual changes and the gun WOULD REMAIN semi auto ONLY! The only changes would be to how it looks ALSO NO trades will be altered (Glock, 17, 9x19). The only changes would be the visual changes listed above the exposing the barrel, reduced area between ejection port and rear sight, and fake selector switch. Is that legal? If so i have one more question: does anyone sell a barrel like that of the 18 with the vents in it?

Answer 1

Okay, pay attention.



1) The ported barrel is not exclusive to the Glock 18. In fact, Glock discontinued the 18C because when they made the 18 full auto, it balanced so well cyclically that compensating the barrel actually made it harder to shoot.



But a compensated barrel, even fully functional, is perfectly legal and the choice of competition shooters everywhere.



2) I'm not getting "the lowered area between the ejection port and the rear sight" -- do you mean the top of the slide? I don't see a difference between the 18 and the 17 from this picture:

[URL=http://media.photobucket.com/user/BADMAN2006/media/g18e.jpg.html][IMG]http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f222/BADMAN2006/g18e.jpg[/IMG][/URL]





3) How are you planning on "removing" those grooves? On tenifer coated steel, this will be quite a trick. Probably more trouble than it's worth.



What you are proposing is cosmetic and technically legal, but ask a guy about when he put a "fake" selector on his M1A to fill in the selector hole on his M14 Stock. The ATF was not happy with him. Granted, this was 20 years ago, but the ATF still has no sense of humor about things...might want to check with them, as well, not us. We're not lawyers.



It sounds like a great mock-up. Just make sure your parts are durable, match the finish, and are absolutely NOT operable under ANY circumstances.



Storm Lake makes compensated barrels, as does Lone Wolf. Those would be my two primary choices.

Answer 2

Yes, what you say is legal. But, personally I would think about this. There are " setup " changes that can be done to AKs, Ar15s, and others. Some do require milling or making special cuts to remove areas that were purposely placed there to thwart easily changing out parts back and forth, from semi auto to functional full or select fire mode.



Would you not think that if ever questioned, a modification that indicates that parts could be or have been at times inserted, would cause a problem. Why are this areas cut out ? And when dealing with ATF I bet cha they would want to do some searching for illegal parts. It only takes someone to make a phone call, your name ends up on the desk of our ATF, and you sir, WILL be spoken with, and well investigated. You do not want to mess around, an ATF agent has NO SENSE OF HUMOR.



Yes, changing the " looks " is perfectly legal, BUT, I personally would be very careful about making a modification that even in the least bit could indicate you have illegal parts in your procession. The other thing is why put a bunch of money into altering a perfectly good gun, so it " looks " like what could get you in a heap of trouble.



Just my thoughts. Not worth the time involved to possibly have a major confrontation that is not going to turn out well. As LGM said some have had problems in the past, not unusual. And do you really want to answer a knock at the door one day, to find you have to produce all your firearms ? RIGHT now, or take a ride to the office while your place is being searched. I bet it would be very unpleasant.

Answer 3

Yep, it's legal, and the easier way would be to buy a Glock 35 with a Lone Wolf barrel with a longer length. (I'm sure they make a 6") Good luck with gluing a selector switch on it - tennifer finish is not easy to adhere to.



Thinkingblade

Answer 4

yes legal.....as for a ported barrel and slide lone wolf as well as several other companies make them....



as for the fake selector parts would guess could order any number of safety levers for various handguns and drill and tap a hole and a couple spring loaded detents.....





as long as it is still just semi auto it's legal......tho you cannot legally put a stock or foregrip on it without paying the $200 stamp and registering it as a NFA item.....

Answer 5

The looks of a gun does not matter. Most liberal idiots can not tell the difference between an AR-15 and an M-4 but they function quite differently.

Answer 6

It's legal, since you're not altering the performance of the gun turning it full auto. I have to wonder where you would find the parts though.