Handgun Mag Release Modifications

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Of all the possible modifications you can do to your defensive firearm, I think an oversized magazine release is one of the most commonly useful modifications that I've seen over and over again on the range. One of the things that happens when a pistol is designed is that the magazine release is always going to be designed for reliability of releasing the magazine. But one of the things that manufacturers can't do is always design the magazine release so that it works conveniently with your hand size on that firearm. Making the firearms mag release oversized is almost always going to make it easier for you to actually hit it, especially under stress. So this modification is one that I'd highly recommend. If you want to do any modifications to your firearm this should probably be one of the first ones, and there's almost no downside to it. Obviously, if you make it too large, then it can get in the way, or you could run the risk of actually hitting it when you don't want to, ejecting the magazine in the middle of a fight. Definitely not something we want to do. But the three oversized magazine releases that we're going to look at today shouldn't pose that problem. Anytime you look at any modification, you're going to want to make sure that you get to a training class or you at least spend some intense time on the range making sure that you actually haven't modified your firearm in a way that's going to be detrimental. Let's take a look at the magazine releases that come standard on firearms first. Now this heavily modified 1911 has not had much modification to the actual magazine release. Now we've done a lot of things here to make this firearm smoother and easier to carry. It's of course had the Clark Meltdown done to it so that all the surfaces are smooth, but we still have some raised edges on the magazine release. We always want to make sure that we have some friction there because of course in the stress, maybe when we're sweaty, maybe when we're in a situation where the environment's wet or slippery, we want to make sure that we can feel that magazine release and get good traction on it when we want to actually articulate it. The other thing here is with this hole grip, which is another modification, we have an opening here that's going to allow our thumb to come down in and hit that magazine release reliably. But in the big picture, this is a small magazine release. This is a standard size 1911 magazine release, and there's really not a lot of purchase area there if we want to think about hitting that magazine release under stress in a dynamic situation. We take a look at this Smith and Wesson Performance Center 945 and we see a much larger surface area, we see much more high friction, and if we take a look at it from this angle, you can see that that magazine release actually comes way out from the gun, comes way out from the side of the frame, and we don't need that cutaway on these grips. Now, these grip panels are particularly slim anyway. So we see on the cross section here that what we end up with is a very high likelihood of our thumb being able to hit this reliably. This one is actually right on the edge of what I would consider too large. You want to make sure that in normal firing grip, your two handed grip, you're not bumping into that magazine release as this finger comes around under the trigger guard. This undercut puts our middle finger of the strong hand dangerously close to that oversized magazine release, and that's the kind of thing you're looking for that you don't want as a detrimental modification. So I've used this firearm a lot. I know it works for me, but if you had particularly meaty hands, you may be actually hitting this when you don't want to, and that's the kind of modification we want to avoid. Other than that, the larger the better when it comes to our magazine release. Now the trick with a 1911 is it that magazine release that comes standard usually is going to need to be drilled and tapped in order to modify it so that it's a larger style magazine release. If we take a look at this product from Ed Brown, this is actually an oversized magazine release catch that's going to be inserted into the existing magazine release. We're going to drill that out, tap it, place it over the top, and then drive that screw right into the existing mag catch. Now, obviously that's something that you're going to want to do only if you have the knowledge of how to use those tools and you're not worried about potentially screwing up your existing magazine catch. What you want to do is probably take this to an experienced gunsmith who knows about modifying firearms, who knows about using the tools involved, and that's not something that we're going to do here today on video. If we take a look at the Glock firearm, however, we can actually do this modification very simply and very easily ourselves. Now, I've been through the Glock armorer school. It's something I recommend you do if you have the opportunity. Also, it's going to be relatively easy for you to find someone who's been through a Glock armorer school and who can do this modification for you if you aren't interested in doing it yourself. Now of course, all the firearms have been cleared. We'll double check this one, make sure that there's no ammunition inside of the firearm, inside of the chamber. Of course, there's no magazine here. Pull down on those releases, send that forward, pull the trigger, and we have our disassembly done. I can put that out of the way. And when we take a look at the Glock frame, of course it's designed to be easy to work on, and all I need is this small flathead screwdriver, and I'm going to be able to get right inside and actually manipulate the spring that both applies the resistance that we need for the magazine release to work and actually captures the magazine release inside of the firearm. So we take a look, there's one spring in there, one straight spring that actually is connected to the frame of the firearm. It looks just like this spring right here, very simple, straight piece of metal. And what it does is it actually holds that magazine release and provides the tension for the magazine release to operate properly. And we're going to move it to the side with this flat screwdriver. We're going to move it to the side actually over to that little notch, and we're going to go ahead and pop it out of that notch, and that's gonna allow us to completely remove the magazine release from the frame. Then we're going to insert this oversized magazine release. Of course, before we insert the oversized magazine release, what we need to do is use this screwdriver to remove the face, the actual oversized face that we're going to be pushing on once we have this installed. Now we can see the difference between this size and the original size that we actually have, and if we think about the manufacturing, the ease of manufacturing the Glock and assembling it, it makes all the sense in the world that this is the size of the face of the magazine release. that wasn't designed necessarily because it was the best size to have as a magazine release for the thumb, it's designed because that's the size of the hole in the frame. Now, those two things will probably work together so that you can push this straight through and it just sits there. Now, if we wanted to, just like on the 1911, we could drill and tap, go through that time, effort, and energy to drill and tap through the plastic magazine release and insert the screw right here and drill that out, tap that, insert the screw in, screw that in, and have an oversized release just like we do on the 1911, but it's obviously much more efficient to just get rid of that original manufacturer equipment and insert this aftermarket piece in that we can use consistently and we know that it's a good product. This one comes from JP Enterprises, and it's called the Glock Extended Mag Button. So what we're going to do now is go ahead and I'll remove the original magazine release, just got to bring it up here and it's not overly difficult once you see the light and you know how it's gonna work, just going to push it all the way over to the right, pop it out, and once that's out of there, I can remove that original equipment and get rid of this. Now this particular Glock I've had for over 15 years. It's been through an armorers course with me, I've replaced the springs, I replaced different pieces, and in fact, because it gets chewed up every once in a while, these magazine releases can actually be replaced with original equipment as this one has been. I've never actually put an oversized magazine release on there, so this is a great modification for me for this particular firearm. And we know that it's going to be very simple to do, so I'm going to insert that screwdriver in, put a little backward pressure on there, insert this piece in. Now, as I said, I've been through the Glock armorer school, so technically I am authorized to make this modification. The fact is that you may be comfortable doing this, you may not be comfortable doing this yourself. It's going to be relatively easy to find a Glock armorer that will do this for you. Most places that have Glock armorers working for them will also have these parts or other similar parts from other manufacturers that you may want to go ahead and use. Now, at this point, we could use this firearm. If I needed to, obviously this magazine release is going to work. It's obviously a little bit larger than the standard one. It sticks out a little bit further. And in fact, some Glock aftermarket extended magazine releases are simply like this. They just stick out a little bit more, give you a little more purchase area. And the fact is that these edges are kind of sharp and some people don't like those types of extended magazine releases. This is an extended and oversized magazine release. I'm going to pick up this screwdriver again, place that right over the top, simply screw that down. Now, I could put some Loctite on there if I wanted to, and it certainly would not be a bad idea, probably something I would do if I had it here. If I were going to leave this in place the way it is and actually use this defensively, I would want to put some Loctite on there and make sure that it was not going to come out under stress under the dynamic situation of actually shooting the gun repeatedly. Once again, the firearm is empty and now I can make sure that this oversized extended magazine release on this Glock isn't going to cause me to inadvertently release a magazine when I don't want to. And the main thing that would cause that would be if it got in the way of my one-handed grip or if it got in the way of my two handed grip. And the fact is that I do feel a little bit of pressure inside of my hand. So this is going to be something that we want to take to the range and make sure that when I put this second hand on there, I'm not inadvertently pushing on the magazine release, and it doesn't feel like it's going to come anywhere close to doing that, but it's always something that we want to check anytime we modify a firearm. It's very easy to see that that extended oversized magazine release really comes way out from the firearm, and that you're going to notice that. Now you want to make sure that's not going to interfere with your holster. In other words, if you put the gun into your holster and the holster actually hits that button, ejects the magazine, and when you reach for your firearm to defend yourself, that magazine falls out, that's not going to be a good idea either. So there's a couple of things you do want to worry about when you put these oversized magazine releases on. Those are the two main ones, inadvertent release because of your hand, inadvertent release because of the holster. If you can get away with the oversized extended magazine release without those two problems, you're probably gonna find that your magazine reloads are actually going to be much, much easier. It's going to be much easier for you to hit that magazine release, get that old magazine out of the way, get the new magazine in there, overhand rack, and get back into the fight, get back into your training scenario. Oversized magazine releases are an excellent modification for a defensive firearm. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.