Glock17 Gen4 vs Gen5 Comparisons - which one is better?

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in this video we're going to be reviewing the differences between the glock 17 gen 4 in the glock 17 gen 5. now the reason why we're doing this video is currently in today's political environment there are a lot of new gun owners many of them are buying guns for the first time or they're maybe upgrading from previous version when they're coming in especially many of them have called me and asked me which what is the best handgun to buy and i always tell them the first handgun you should buy is always either a glock 17 or a glock 19 but preferably the glock 17 if it fits your hand and the reason why is it's one of the best values on the market today it holds its value really well it's highly reliable all these things making it arguably the best service pistol in the world for many decades now so this is always the the handgun that i recommend people buy when they start out however they're going into the stores and they're starting to see when they ask for a glock 17 which generation do you want do you want a three a four or five we don't see as many threes as in the market as much anymore but a lot of people are seeing the difference in their asking the question which one is better so one of the things i'm going to go through today is discussing some of the major differences between the gen 4s and the gen 5 so that you can make this decision for yourself as to which one's better for you in some cases you might find the gen fours as being cheaper a little bit cheaper than the gen fives or in some cases you might own a previous version of a glock and asking yourself whether or not you want to own a gen five so that's what we're going to be talking about today are some of the major differences between the gen fours and the gen fives now as i have linked to below we've done a previous review on the glock 17 just a little bit of history on the glock 17 the gen ones came out way back in 1982 with the gen 2s and 88 the gen 3 is in 98 the gen 4s in 2010 and then the gen 5s in 2017 with the gen fives even though aesthetically they might look very similar there were over 20 new design changes from the previous generations that took place with over 35 new and or upgraded parts in the gen 5. so for example the barrels recoil springs cannot be swapped out with earlier generation parts other changes include such as changes to the strikers the extractors the safety plungers the slide covers nearly every part of the trigger system so literally all of the parts that you would normally buy either aftermarket or oem for the previous versions like the gen 4 will not work on the gen 5s and the reason why this is important is there's a cottage market out there for people who buy parts and accessorize their glocks and you have to be really careful about which parts that you buy for your gen 5s because they might not be designed to work with this version of a glock now looking at some of the major differences between the two the first thing you're going to notice is all the previous versions of the glock were generally designed for righties so they had a slide stop on the left hand side for your right hand this has now been changed with the gen 5 where there is an ambi slide stop by the way all my guns have been safe to check before the video so if you're a left-handed shooter you're really going to like the change of having an ambi slide stop this also impact a lot of the internals that took place in the pistol the second thing is the finish it's a little bit hard to see i know in the video but the finish they use now on the gen fives is a black n dlc iron bonded coating which is different from the black matte melonite finish that you're going to see traditionally on the gen 4s and even the older glocks that have the old tennifer finish which a lot of people really love the old frying pan type finish that glock has evolved their finishes on their generations over the years and a lot of people either liked or or didn't like the black matte melonite finish some people in different models would carry these for example close to their body and the corrosion resistance was in question for a certain amount of people so they they changed that again i really like the black the the new iron bonded coating i like it even more than the old matte black finish on the gen fours but that's one of the things you're going to notice as well you're also going to notice there's no finger grooves now on the gen 5s now if you have an average size hand like i do again the the finger grooves were never an issue for me but people with larger hands apparently had an issue with the finger groove so ironically glock went right back to where they started which is having no finger grooves on the grip now you're going to also notice i added the glock 4 grip job as well i have a link to that below if you want to do that to your pistol as well but that's what you're going to notice i've done to all my glocks now you're also going to notice that on the earlier gen 5s when they came out they also had little cuts for to be able to strip out the magazines if they got caught in the mag well so that's one of the difference you're going to see as well as well as the fact that the gen 5 mag wells are now beveled and flared so the gen 4s were traditionally flat with the grip and now they're beveled so you can see the difference in the lard this is largely to allow for easier mag mag changes so you've got a larger mag well to mag change out of now speaking of that change you're also going to notice on the magazines the gen 5 magazine now has an orange follower so you can see whether you're empty as well as the base plate is a little bit longer than the traditional base plates for the gen 4s as well now early on when the glocks came out there were some issues around the cuts they had for for being able to strip off of the mag well as well as the fact that the base plates might not work on the earlier versions of the glocks now the current versions of the gem fives they've apparently fixed that problem this is a gen 5 magazine and now works on a gen 4 and of course the gen 4 magazines will work on your gen 5. so the nice advantage if you get a gen 5 is now you can use these magazines on any version of your glocks now as far as the you're also going to notice aesthetically one of the differences is on the slide the slide on the gen 5 now has both front and back serrations whereas the traditional glocks would only have the rear serrations this makes no difference to me i don't use the front serrations anyways but if that's important to you you're going to notice that difference now one of the other differences you're going to notice is on the trigger and the trigger pull and this has to do with the change in the striker safety plunger so in the gen 4 and before they used flat safety plungers and we're going to look at the difference here so on the gen 4 you're going to notice that the safety plunger here which is what your trigger will will run up against when you're pulling back on it is flat on the gen 4's which is why you're used to having a traditional glock pull and break now with the newer glocks the gen fives now you see a hump on the striker plunger and this changes how the trigger pulls as well as how it feels so for example on the traditional gen fours and before if you've ever fired a glock before it will fire and feel very familiar with you both at the reset as well as the trigger pull and the brake now on a gen 5 it will feel a little bit different for you because it's got a trigger pull that feels a little more spongier than a traditional glock and you'll also notice that the reset is a little bit different as well so again it just depends on what you prefer to utilize now one of the other things that i've noticed on the glocks is that the trigger pull on my gen 4 is lighter than my gen 5. now i put literally thousands of rounds through my gen 4 and the trigger pull is a nice crisp five pound trigger pull which is what i want on a striker fire pistol however trigger pull out of the box and i've only put a couple hundred rounds through the gen five pulls a little bit tighter at about seven and a half pounds so i'm literally seeing about a two and a half pound trigger pull increase on the gen five over the gen four now that might improve over time it's it traditionally does with glocks the more you shoot them the more the trigger pull and the system lightens up a little bit but if you have previous versions of glocks you're going to notice a difference at the trigger pull at least for me it was about two and a half pounds heavier on the gen 5 than the gen 4. now another thing you're going to notice has to do with the barrel now if your traditional glocks would use what's called a polygonal barreling so i've got a link below to another video we did describing the difference between traditional land and groove and polygonal rifling so in case you want to learn more about that you can do that below but one of the differences you're going to see on with the gen 5s now is the gen 5s have now moved to what they call a glock marksmanship barrel and the two major differences are they've changed from the traditional polygonal rifling to a lands and groove rifling with a recessed barrel now the nice thing about the recess cutting is it protects the barrel from getting potentially marred and impacting accuracy so that's a nice change but the other thing is glock claims that the new lands and groove rifling will actually improve accuracy over the traditional polygonal rifling so what i did is i did an initial test and i fired some rounds through both the gen 4 and gen 5 to see if i noticed any difference at least for myself so on the gen 4 this was the group i was able to produce at 50 feet and then at the gen 5 was the group i was able to produce at 50 feet so generally the groupings are about the same the only major difference i noticed was the point of impact so at a six o'clock hold this is what i would traditionally get as a point of impact on a glock polygonal barrel however with the new lands and groove rifling i'm getting a lower point of impact so if you're used to shooting a traditional glock and having that traditional glock sight picture for the polygonal barrels at least for me i've noticed that the new lands and groove rifling the marshman strip barrel has a lower point of impact so i have to take that into account when i'm firing my glock now as far as accuracy is concerned comparing the two for me i haven't noticed a difference which means i'm thinking that most people who buy the glock the glock gen 5 will not notice a difference in accuracy between the gen 4 and gen 5 most people won't but it is an improvement it is a change that they made now you're also going to notice something else on the frame you're going to notice the number of pins have changed on the frame for the locking block so in the gen fours they used to have two pins on here on here they would have the trigger pin and the locking block pin and then in this case we just have the trigger pin and the gen five the reason why they did this on the gen fours was because they want to utilize the frame to support 40 smith and wesson's which were a little bit hotter load so they put in an additional pin to support the locking block there has been a change now back to the nine millimeter predominantly as a as a preferred service round so as a result of that they've gone back to what they originally had which was one one trigger pin as well on the frame so that's one of the things you're going to notice the slot or the mag release is is swappable from right to left similar to what you would see on a gen 4 it's about the same now as far as holsters are concerned since we're a little bit wider with the gen 5 adding the new ambi slide release you have to be careful what holsters you choose to use for your gen 5 as well now in my experience what i found is that almost all my holsters i used on my gen 4 will work in the gen 5 with one exception if you've got holsters that are using kydex or tight-fitting holsters they tend to be a little bit tighter so this is for example a safariland holster that i've used for my gen 4 which has a nice snug fit but when i used to put the gen 5 in here it's really tight it works but it's really tight so just make sure you take that into account when you're picking holsters to make sure that they will work and help support your gen 5 because your gen 5 might work just a little bit tighter in these these holsters than are true you would traditionally see with the gen 4. so if you're a south paw shooter if you like shooting left handed or you like to switch off and use the slide release no doubt about it the gen 5 adds that additional capability that you will like for me it makes no difference the second thing is if you're firing non-jacketed hard cast ammo or you like to reload your ammo the new marksmanship barrel will be better for you because it tends to perform better in the lands and grooves than if you shot it out of a polygonal barrel now that is more of an issue for example with the 10 millimeters when you're shooting the glock 20s where people are shooting hard cast ammo which you traditionally don't want to do much of on a polygonal rifling that again is fixed by the land and groove rifling so again if you plan to use any non-jacketed hard cast type ammo out of your nine millimeter again this barrel will be preferred for you over the previous versions and then the final thing would be just if you have a larger hand and you don't like these finger grooves that in and of itself might be reason enough why you like the glock 17 gen 5. now personally one of the other things that you'll notice is i think the gen 5 is actually just a little bit better looking one of the knocks on the glock is it always kind of look blocky looking right and you can see some of the changes they made here where they where they smoothed out or they rounded off for example the front of the slide which actually makes it looks a lot nicer the front slide serrations also add to the look of the gun so aesthetically that and the finish i think make the glock 5 just a little bit more attractive looking than a gen 4 but i also like the trigger better in the gen 4 at least right now so you know that's why i kind of stick with the gen 4 and i continue to shoot it more than i will the gen 5 which takes me to the final point which is people accessorize got the these glocks you can buy aftermarket triggers and all different types of upgrades and what have you to the glocks but the reality is you know short of a couple minor changes i always make maybe with the sights or extended slide catch release or things like that i really don't like to change much on the glocks i think you know the platform is actually the way it is for a reason you know it's actually a very good platform short of polishing the internals on the trigger mechanism that's all i really like to do on a basic lock and that's all i really want to do when i get new glocks as well so the that is the major difference between the gen 4 and the gen 5. i think a lot of people would like either one of them but the reality is you do have an option and there are some some differences although they might be subtle to some people they are differences and either way i don't think you can go wrong but the good news is you've got two great options in both the gen 4 and the gen 5 and if you're new to buying a glock you can't go wrong with either one if you like this video or you like this channel please subscribe on youtube and thanks for watching

Channel: AZ Trigger

Views: 172,898

Keywords: glock 17 gen 4 vs gen 5, glock 17 gen 4 vs gen 5 accuracy, glock gen 4 and gen 5 compatibility, glock 17 gen 5 review, glock gen 4 vs gen 5 magazines, Glock 17 Review, Glock 17 gen 4 review, Glock 17 Gen 5 review, glock 17 gen 5 magazine, glock 17 gen 5 problems, Glock, Gen 5, Glock 17

Id: m0MVfSsPdwI

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020