Alongside AR-15s, Glocks are some of the easiest firearms to work on. They come apart and go back together easily, they’re simple to clean, and for literally every single part in the pistol, there is an aftermarket variation. Glock can even be disassembled down to their bare components using nothing but a Glock tool or similarly-sized punch—a testament to the elegant simplicity of the design.
For cleaning and maintenance, most users will never need to take their pistol farther than simple field-stripping. Few users will actually rack up the round counts required to wear out any of the internal parts and require their replacement.
If you want to dive into the world of tuning and customization, though, you’re going to need to know how to take apart your gun more thoroughly. Below, we’ll walk through both processes, as well as some best practices for keeping your Glock pistol clean and running well.
How to Field Strip a Glock
Field stripping a Glock is easy, toolless, and can be done anywhere. It’s an essential operation every Glock owner should know how to do, whether for cleaning, adding lubricant, or inspection.
The first thing you’ll need to do is get your slide off your frame.
To start, clear the firearm of all ammunition. Even if you store it empty, even if you already know it is empty, do not skip this step. One of the most common causes of negligent discharges is attempting to disassemble a loaded firearm, so we cannot stress enough how important it is to take the extra thirty seconds to avoid being a statistic.
Remove the magazine, rack the slide a few times to clear anything in the chamber, then visually inspect the chamber to verify that it is empty. Stick your little finger in there as well for tactile confirmation. When you are absolutely certain that the firearm is clear and safe, point it in a safe direction and pull the trigger—the striker has to be released for disassembly to be possible.
Next, wrap your fingers around the top of the slide, just in front of the rear sight, and place your thumb under the beavertail. The standard procedure to remove the slide is to then pull it back 1/4-1/3rd of an inch, pull down on the slide lock, and pull the slide forward off of the handgun. But, there is a better way.
The trouble with the traditional method is that it takes a bit of practice to get it right reliably. Pull the slide back too far—around half in inch instead of a quarter to a third—and you’ll reset the striker, locking the slide onto the frame. To avoid this and disassemble your pistol flawlessly every time, you’ll want to reverse the order of operations.
Assume the same fingers-over-slide grip on your pistol. Then, before inching back the slide, pull down on the slide lock. It won’t move much, if at all. Maintain strong downward pressure on the slide lock and begin inching your slide back. You’ll feel the slide lock begin to slip downward as you do. Once it reaches the bottom of its travel, release the slide and pull it forward off the frame. By using this method, you can guarantee smooth disassembly every time.
With the slide removed, you can now set the frame aside; it doesn’t get disassembled any further during field stripping. Turn your attention instead to the slide assembly.
The next part you’ll remove is the guide rod assembly, consisting of the guide rod and recoil spring. Place your thumb on the back of the guide rod where it presses against the barrel lug and push forward to compress the spring slightly, then lift it out of the slide.
Your barrel should then easily slide slightly up and forward. Lever it up slightly and pull it out of the slide as well. If you have a muzzle device installed, you’ll usually need to remove it in order to do so.
With the barrel out of the slide, your Glock is now fully field-stripped. In this condition, you can clean it, perform routine maintenance, and inspect most of the internal components for wear or damage.
How to Detail Strip a Glock
But what if you want to do more? Perhaps you want to replace a failing extractor depressor plunger spring or upgrade your trigger with an aftermarket Glock-compatible trigger. For those operations, you’ll need to take your disassembly a step further.
This brings us to our next topic: detail stripping.
Detail stripping is the process of breaking down the pistol into each of its components, fully reducing it to nothing more than a pile of parts. You won’t often need to truly detail strip your pistol—most maintenance and customization can be done by only partially disassembling the pistol. But by learning to do so, you arm yourself with the skills to replace any part in the firearm, should you ever need to do so.
It doesn’t matter whether you start with the slide or the frame; both will be fully stripped by the end of this process, and neither way is more correct than the other.
We’ll start with the slide. The first component to remove is the slide cover plate, also sometimes called the back plate. For this operation, you’ll need a Glock tool or a similarly-sized punch.
Grip the slide with your fingers around the rails and your thumb on the slide cover plate. Insert your Glock tool between the lug of the firing pin and the firing pin spacer sleeve and press down on the sleeve. This will relieve the locking tension on the cover plate, allowing you to slide it down and off the slide.
Keep your thumb over the area as you do so; several of the parts underneath are under spring tension and it’s not unheard of for them to go flying when the slide cover plate is removed.
With the plate removed, slide the firing pin assembly out of the back of the slide, followed by the extractor depressor plunger assembly. Next, place your thumb on the firing pin safety and press it into the slide slightly, then use your Glock tool to gently pry the extractor out.
You aren’t trying to remove it yet, only unlock it from the firing pin safety. You may have to wiggle it a bit to get them to unlock. Once they do, both the extractor and firing pin safety will drop out easily. Take care not to lose the firing pin safety spring.
This is typically as far as you will go when detail stripping your slide. You can break down the various assemblies into their individual components, but it’s seldom necessary; often, it’s easier to just replace the entire assembly rather than an individual spring or small part. You can also remove your sights if you like, but that will require either a hammer and punch or a sight pusher tool, as well as a Glock front sight tool.
Removing the sights is not required for any maintenance other than replacing the sights themselves.
With the slide fully stripped, we can now move on to the frame. To strip the frame, we’ll start by removing the primary pins holding the internal components in place. The exact number of pins will vary depending on the generation of your Glock—Gen 3 & 4 have one more pin than Gen 5.
These pins need to be removed in a specific order, and should always be removed from left to right. You’ll notice that a hammer or mallet is not on the list of tools required to disassemble a Glock; that is not an oversight. Do not use a hammer or any significant impact force to disassemble your Glock. Doing so can damage the pistol.
If you have a Gen 3 or 4 Glock, start with the top-most pin above the trigger. This is the locking block pin. This pin can simply be pushed out using your Glock tool.
Next, move on to the trigger pin, which is located just slightly below the locking block pin. If you have a Gen 5 Glock, this will be the only pin located above the trigger.
This pin is also pressed out with your Glock tool, but doing so requires one extra step. The trigger pin is retained partially by the slide stop lever, also known colloquially as a slide release. To remove the pin, wiggle the slide stop lever up and down while maintaining pressure on the trigger pin with your Glock tool until the pin pops free. This may require some moderate pressure, but you shouldn’t need a great deal of force, and will never need to drive it out with a hammer.
Pull the pin out of the right side of the frame and lift the slide stop lever out of the top. Next, push the last pin, the trigger housing pin, out of the frame. This is the pin located at the back of the grip, just below the beavertail.
With the pins free from the frame, use your Glock tool to pry the locking block out of the frame. The easiest way to do this is to slide the tool between the locking block and the trigger shoe and lever the block up out of the frame, then pull it free.
Now the trigger assembly, consisting of the trigger shoe, trigger bar, housing, connecter, and spring, can be lifted out of the frame easily. This assembly is quite intuitive to disassemble; the parts largely just fit together, with little pressing or punching required to take them apart. Twist the trigger bar out of the housing, then unhook it from the spring. Unhook the spring from the housing as well, then push the trigger connector out of the housing using your Glock tool.
Next, turn your attention to the magazine catch. The catch is retained by a simple rod spring. Remove it by holding the catch in place from the right side of the frame and pressing the spring to the right using your Glock tool, then popping it out of its slot. The magazine catch can then be pulled out of the frame. The spring can be removed as well, but you may need a pair of needle nose pliers if it is in tightly.
If your gun is equipped with an aftermarket magwell, you can remove that now, too, but the exact process to do so will vary depending on the make and model.
Lastly, we’ll strip the slide lock. Press down on the slide lock spring, again with your Glock tool, and slide the slide lock out the side of the frame. Gen 5 Glocks can then simply dump the slide lock spring out of the frame by turning it over and giving it a little shake; Gen 4 Glocks will require a Glock tool to be placed under the exposed leg of the spring and then gently levered out.
With this final operation complete, your Glock is fully stripped and ready for whatever maintenance or customization you may have in mind.
How to Clean a Glock
Glocks are some of the lowest-maintenance firearms on the market, but even they need to be cleaned every once in a while. Luckily, it’s a straightforward process.
The details of the cleaning process will vary with each individual owner. Some like to use solvents to dissolve every scrap of brass and carbon from the slide and barrel, while others simply scrub away the excess with CLP. Some keep their guns functional, others make them spotless. We won’t wade into that debate here.
The basic function of cleaning a firearm is removing any excess fouling from the key operational areas. Chief among those is the barrel, so that’s where we’ll begin.
Start by spraying or wiping the interior of the barrel with your cleaning agent of choice. Some will then need to be left to work at dissolving the fouling for some time; others can be damaging if left too long and should be scrubbed and wiped away immediately.
Run one or more clean patches through the barrel to remove any loose fouling, then scrub it with a bronze bore brush. Note that scrub in this context does not mean any back-and-forth motion; simply run the brush from bore to muzzle as many times as necessary to loose the built-up fouling.
Run a few more clean patches through the barrel, then one dampened with CLP or your preferred cleaning agent. If the wet patch is still black with fouling, repeat the above steps until it is not.
When the interior of your barrel is satisfactorily clean, run one or two dry patches through it to remove any leftover cleaning agent. You want your bore and barrel dry when firing, so it’s best to remove any fluids fully when you’ve finished cleaning unless the firearm will be stored without firing for a long time.
Next, wipe the outside of the barrel with a patch or rag dampened with a cleaning agent. You may need to use a brush to scrub away any caked-on fouling—here, you can use a traditional back-and-forth scrubbing motion without fear, so long as your brush bristles are made of a softer material than your barrel.
Next, wipe away any loose fouling from the rail channels of the slide, then scrub them clean in the same manner as the barrel. Do the same for the rails themselves. How thoroughly you want to clean these areas is up to you, but removing most of the visible fouling is perfectly sufficient to keep the firearm functional, even if there is still some carbon in the nooks and crannies.
With the fouling removed, you can turn your attention to lubricating the pistol. Place a drop of lubricant inside each of the rail channels, on the hood of the slide, the contact surface of the firing pin safety, and the lug of the barrel. Place another drop on the top of the barrel and use your finger to spread it over the surface, making sure the area where the breech locks against the slide is adequately covered.
Wipe away any excess oil that runs or drips away from the desired areas.
With that done, your pistol can be reassembled and is ready for use.
Conclusion
Glocks maintenance is easy, simple, and pain-free once you know how to disassemble your pistol. Understanding the steps to fully strip your pistol enables you not only to maintain it but also customize it to better suit your needs with any aftermarket parts or accessories you may desire.
For more information on customizing your Glock, check out our guide to How Common Mods Actually Affect Your Pistol.
