Battle Werx LLC is a custom firearms machine shop out of Durham, Connecticut. This Veteran owned and operated company has produced some of the best looking cuts on a custom Glock slide that I’ve seen. Despite owning nearly a dozen over the years, I’ve never ventured into custom cut slides before. Until now. Having written a little about the Battle Werx slide cuts in my Glock Mods article, I thought the product deserved a little more individual attention.
My reasons for having the OEM Glock 17 slide chopped up were threefold: One, to provide a mounting spot for my Vortex Venom. Two, to provide more (and more aggressive) grip cuts. Three, to reduce the weight of the slide which is a little controversial: some say it reduced felt recoil and improves round-to-round split times while others say it messes with the mass-to-spring ratio, possibly affecting reliability.
The exact package I picked out was the Battle Slide cut with porting (like in a Glock 17C but one large port rather than 2 small ones) and serrations. The serration option adds around 7 new sharp-boomerang slices up front (on each side of the slide). This adds a tremendous amount of grip to the area, whether you’re press checking or using a pant-leg to snag on during an injured manipulation drill. The Vortex Venom mount necessitated moving the rear “iron” sight directly in front of the red-dot sight (RDS). The tritium sights are still visible through the RDS though. The slide was cerakoted over at Mad Pig Customs, and they did a great job. Very clean lines and even application of the ‘kote.
Once I received the slide back in the mail, I reassembled the barrel, recoil spring and frame. Installing the new XS Sights tritium night sights (suppressor height) and the RDS took only a couple minutes, plus some waiting for the thread locking goo to cure. After that, it was off to the range with the last couple hundred rounds in my stash.
I set up an IPSC E-type cardboard target at 8 yards to get a quick zero. Next were a few injury manipulation drills, using one hand and a pant leg to manipulate the slide. After that, I worked on speed hits between 8-50 yards on various pumpkins left over from Halloween. While the RDS took a few mags to get used to, it’s easy to see how there is a much greater speed-potential there than with irons. Even more noticeable was the ease with which I could hit a medium pumpkin out at 30-50 yards. An RDS makes that a pretty routine shot so long as your trigger squeeze is on point.
With regards to the weight of the slide, there are two things to discuss. As far as affecting reliability, ~240 rounds is a really small sample size, but for what it’s worth, 100% reliability both suppressed and unsuppressed so far. The other matter is the effect of a lightened slide changing the felt recoil. Given that I had already installed the RDS prior to shooting, I’d negated the change in mass already. Below are two videos, each showing shooting until lockback, then unzipping my jacket and drawing a mag from the Gadsden Dynamics Partisan chest rig and reloading.
Suppressed, above. Unsuppressed, below.
While the excellent machine work of Battle Werx may not speed up my reloads, the addition of forward grip serrations and a RDS mount have certainly improved accuracy, speed and one-handed manipulation of my firearm. The Battle Slide package is currently listed at $249.99, with the Vortex Venom optic cut adding another $124.99. Cerakote options are listed on the website, usually running around $60. If you’re interested in having your slide modified but don’t want to break the bank or wait half a year, do yourself a favor and check out Battle Werx’s website!
