This is my trusty home protection weapon, a Glock 23 which is a .40 caliber. I bought this new in the late 80's and it has been a great gun. Now this is a generation 2 Glock and if you notice it doesn't have a rail to mount anything. The 3 gen Glock's and later all have a rail, which was a great improvement over previous models.

I've been thinking about how I could modify it to end up with a mounting rail and then it happened, I found a company that sells a kit to bolt one to your existing gun. This will be one of the upgrades that I'll be doing. The second thing I've been wanting to do is to change the plastic dovetail protectors, err... sights. This has to be one of the most popular upgrades for any Glock owner, second only to the heavy Guide Rod replacement. Now factory Glock sights are not that good but they work, however, there's always room for improvement. So what I'll be doing is switching to some night sights, which is long over due.

There will be some other upgrades as well but the major ones I've talked about above so let's get started.

Glock 23
 

Here are two more upgrades that are easy to do and they don't cost much either. The arrow on the left is pointing to the 'Slide Lock' which is what you move to remove the slide from the gun. This small part needs to be pulled downward using two fingers, one on each side of the frame. But getting a grip on this small part can be challenging so I'll be replacing it with an extended version making it much easier to grip.

The arrow on the right is pointing to the 'Slide Stop Lever' which is also hard to deal with because of it's size. Once the slide is in the open position and you're changing magazines, you need to move this lever with your thumb (for right handed people) but this can also be a slow and not an easy process. And again changing it for an extended version is what I'll be doing as well.
 

Here are some of the new parts I'll be installing on the model 23, but not all of them. Now all of these parts were purchased from the Glock Store which has all kinds of different items to choose from. And they have videos to help you install each and every part.

The Super Heavy Tungsten Guide Rod and the Double Diamond connector will be used for my other gun, a Glock 17 (9mm). But I did buy two of the other parts which will go into both weapons.
 

To remove the slide only takes a few seconds and once it's out of the way, I can start working on the parts that go into the frame. As you can see below, I've removed one pin, which needs to come out to remove the slide stop lever. That pin goes through a hole in the lever and the spring hooks around it too.
 

Here you can see the difference between the two slide locks. I know it doesn't look like much of a difference but it is. It can be tough get your fingers in just the right spot on the original one but this larger one makes it much easier.