I have a Glock 30 (45acp) that I have customized to be a summer carry gun. 

It has proven to be a good shooter after I modified it for both reliability and my tastes. But 45acp is getting too pricey for me, and I have been shooting my Ruger Mk III 22 pistol a lot lately to keep up my skills. That is a great help, but obviously the limitations of training with the Ruger has me mainly working on fundamentals of sight picture and trigger management. I cannot work on my draw or other typical gun manipulations (such as reloads) because the grip and controls are different. Heck, I don't even have a "concealed carry" Ruger 22 holster!

Recently on the forum there has been talk of the Advantage Arms conversion kits for Glocks. I decided to give it a try, and bought a 22 conversion kit for my Glock 30. I figured it was a good choice because I wanted to practice with a concealed carry piece. My Kimber 1911 22LR pistol and the Ruger pistol can suffice for full-sized pistol training in 22LR.

The Advantage Arms 22 conversion kit comes in a nice box with instructions, a slide assembly, magazine and loader, and a cleaning rod, oil and patches.

The whole kit is well made and seems to be high quality. The price was a little steep: $265, which is actually fair considering the gun shops I have spoken to say that the kits are currently unavailable at any cost because Advantage Arms cannot keep up with demand. The kits are model specific, and the Glock 17 and 19 versions are most popular. The Advantage Arms website sells extra magazines and springs at fair prices.

With the conversion kit installed the Glock 30 retains the same profile and operation. This means it fits the same holsters and the trigger pull is the same. Handling is exactly the same, and only a difference in weight is noticed because the slide is machined from aluminum. Even the magazine capacity is the same: ten rounds!

Compare the magazines, slides, barrels and recoil springs side by side and you can see the Advantage Arms units are high quality. The fit and finish is excellent!

   
(click on thumbnails for full size pop-up images) 

In the picture below you can see the clever engineering in the AA top end. There is no firing pin block in the pure sense, and the instructions caution against dry-firing even though pulling the trigger is required for Glock disassembly. Perhaps they are just trying to prolong striker life, because the striker hits home with authority!

Shooting the AA conversion equipped Glock 30 was a ball! The gun functions perfectly, although I was bit disappointed that the slide sometimes did not lock open when empty. OTOH, I must admit I expected malfs when firing, and there were NONE in 100 rounds through a brand new kit. Yay!

It is an absolute blast to shoot. The slide snaps back smartly, cleanly ejecting the empty and snapping fully shut on a fresh round. Advantage Arms recommends CCI Mini Mags, so that is what I used. They say any good quality high velocity 22LR ammo with a 40gr bullet should work properly. They specifically do NOT recommend the Federal bulk ammo (it is 36gr and it does not have enough punch to work the slide reliably). I will experiment with different loads, but I was thrilled with the Mini Mag reliability and accuracy.

Speaking of accuracy, here is the first fifty rounds fired through the kit, indoors, off-hand, at 35 feet:

I will take full blame for the four fliers I jerked out of the main group! The awesome recoil had me a little blinky.

I am satisfied with the accuracy. The conversion has the standard chunky Glock sights, and every conversion kit I have previously tried had crummy accuracy for a 22. This kit shoots as well as my Ruger Hunter. Obviously the trigger is Glock, not a Ruger single action 22, so I think that is outstanding. It really did exceed my expectations.

I like this Advantage Arms equipped Glock. I think it will be a great training partner.   (15May09)

JerryWebb

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