krytos titanium slide
courtesy krytosindustries.com
Previous Post
Next Post

You can’t get around to everyone at NRA, no matter how hard you try. One of the exhibitors we managed to miss was Krytos Industries who there showing off their new titanium slides for GLOCKs.

Why a titanium slide? How about because it gives you a 40+% reduction in weight? Hold on, though. Doesn’t that mean cycling problems? Not according to Krytos’s Ben Cook, who tells us the increase in speed when cycling is offset by the weight reduction. That means Krytos titanium slides operate with standard recoil springs, though shooting hot loads may require a heavier spring.

What about recoil? Physics is a harsh mistress. You can’t reduce weight without an increase in felt recoil,, but not as much as you’d think, according to Cook. He said it’s equivalent to the difference you’d feel between standard range ammo and hot +P loads.

krytos titanium slide
courtesy krytosindustries.com

Then he told me about Krytos’s ArmorTi coating. Wait, it’s not a coating, because titanium tends not to play well with coatings. Instead, Krytos developed a patented diffusion process — that they call ArmorTi. It penetrates the first five to ten microns of the metal and reduces friction and resists abrasion. And you can get an ArmorTi coated slide in any color you want as long as you want black.

We’ll be getting one to test in the not-too-distant future to see for ourselves.

Here’s Krytos’s press release:

Krytos Industries launched a revolutionary titanium finishing process along with titanium slides for Glock handguns at the 2018 NRA Convention in Dallas, Texas on May 4th.  The new, patented finishing process, ArmorTi™, allows titanium to be used for numerous applications (like handgun slides and frames) that were not previously possible as it eliminates galling and other friction and impact related issues inherent to titanium.

Through extensive testing with ArmorTi™ treated titanium components,  Krytos has shown that many handgun slides can be replaced with one made completely of titanium to reduce the overall weight of the handgun by 25%, or more, while maintaining its performance. With titanium weighing roughly 45% less than steel, the felt weight reduction is dramatic. For example, a factory Glock 19 (Gen 3) slide weighs 11.5 ounces while Krytos’s G19 slide weighs in at a mere 6.4 ounces. Further, all participants involved in testing reported that the increase in felt recoil was negligible, but did state that sight recovery on target was dramatically faster (this was attributed to increased slide velocity and reduced slide mass resulting in less “muzzle dip” upon returning to battery).

The company’s first products to market, shipping now, are handgun slides for the Glock 17 and 19 (both offered with optional cuts for the Trijicon RMR®), titanium guide rods for the Glock 17 and 19, and bolt carriers for the AR-15 (.223/.556) and AR-10 (.308). All of Krytos’s titanium products are precision machined to exacting tolerances from solid billets of 6AL-4V, Grade 5 titanium and finished with their exclusive ArmorTi™ process for an extremely hard, black finish.

“This is an exciting time for our young company,” said the company’s President, Ben Cook. “We were overwhelmed by the reactions we received from attendees and our industry partners at the NRA Convention this year. ArmorTi™ has consistently amazed us with what it allows titanium to do and we truly believe it will change the face of material design considerations in the firearms industry and many others. ArmorTi™ was designed with aerospace and medical applications in mind, but since we are all firearms industry veterans, we couldn’t help but launch in this industry first. Using our team’s considerable industry experience, we have tested our products to extreme levels to ensure they live up to our standards, which are ridiculous.”

ArmorTi™is a state-of-the-art process that involves a precisely-controlled, forced diffusion to harden titanium’s surface that results in a black finish with unparalleled durability, far surpassing anodizing and even PVD/DLC finishes on titanium. Through a diffusion process, ArmorTi™ only affects the surface layer of the titanium leaving its integrity and all of the most desirable properties of titanium intact at its core.

ArmorTi™ allows titanium to now be used for applications it was not previously suited for due to titanium’s tendency to gall (a form of wear caused by friction welding between sliding surfaces) when sliding against another surface. ArmorTi™ completely eliminates any friction-related issues with titanium and dramatically improves titanium’s impact resistance while maintaining all of its most desirable properties. While the process itself is extremely different, aesthetically, ArmorTi™ produces a familiar black finish like those found on most modern polymer handgun slides.

Krytos’s titanium products available now are:

Glock 19 Ti Slide – $549.99

Glock 19 Ti Slide w/RMR cut – $599.99

Glock 19 Ti Guide Rod – $59.99

Glock 17 Ti Slide – $549.00

Glock 17 Ti Slide w/RMR cut – $599.99

Glock 17 Ti Guide Rod – $59.99

AR-15 Ti Bolt Carrier (5.56/.223) – $369.99

AR-10 Ti Bolt Carrier (.308) – $429.99

Previous Post
Next Post

21 COMMENTS

    • exactly. PERFECTION!!! im amazed at how so much after market products exist for something marketed as “perfect”. i guess ol Gaston isn’t big on definitions.

  1. “The increase in speed when cycling is offset by the weight reduction”

    That’s exactly what *causes* the cycling problems with an overdriven recoil action; excessive slide velocity. It also causes battering (which the Ti could possibly tolerate depending on the material used, but which I suspect the frame would not appreciate).

  2. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

    Not sure why you need a 40% lighter Glock slide, when the Glock is already fairly lightweight for what it is. On top of that, adding another $600 to the cost of the gun to make it more prone to failure. So lighten the slide 40%, increase speed of cycling (which will cause extraction and feeding issues), and will cause unnecessary wear on the slide rails and frame.

    What do I know, I’m just a guy on the internet who’s “too cheap to buy high end things” and don’t understand who this product is for.

    Carry on with ridiculousness.

  3. Eh, compare the weight of an AL/steel gun like a 1911-type CCO, etc., and a polymer pistol to start with. Strictly speaking weight, the polymer pistol is already easier to carry.

    Now drop slide weight 40%, which is already probably at least half the weight of the gun, and you have a firearm that is even easier to carry.

    I don’t see advantages elsewise, but carry-wise, it would seem to make sense. Size is a factor as well, but for a carry piece, dropping weight might allow one to carry a larger firearm without the weight penalty.

    • I bet if you requested it, they would sell one like that.

      If you do, could you shoot some pics of it, before and after?

    • Or anodizing the Ti using Coke as the the anodizing bath, and varying voltage to get splashy hipster colors.

  4. Neat. Looks nice as well, glad they didn’t go for the extreme or edgy design so many aftermarket Glock slides seem to have.

  5. Heres the problem.

    On a carry gun, I’d be hesitant to make my glock anything but Glock.

    But that’s where the benefit really lies in its use on guns for carry. But then who wants to introduce that unknown variable.

    On a range gun, I’d rather have the weight.

    Also, its simple physics, if you use the same recoil spring assembly and nearly cut reciprocating mass by half, you WILL beat on the frame more than you would with the stock slide.

    If that means the frame will last 100,000 rounds rather than 200,000 then this problem is irrelevant.
    If it means the frame will last 5000 rounds rather than 30,000 rounds, then its a real problem.

    If I were to purchase one of these, I’d start out with a G19 and put a G23 recoil spring assembly in it. Then go from there. Then I’d test the crap out of it to confirm reliability. I’m talking 1000 rounds.

    Either way, a 15 ounce G19 sounds like the cat’s ass to me.

  6. I don’t think a millionth of a second cycle and lock up is worth $600. That’s what makes this country great, we can purchase anything we want however ridiculous it may be. Semper Fi

  7. Yeah but “its the latest and the greatest” and they know there are enough dumb asses out there that will buy it and find out it does not work as well as the original slide did.

  8. Titanium does poorly with metal on metal friction so unless they made the slide rails out of steel than they are screwed, metallurgy 101

    • I don’t understand the statement about Ti not taking kindly to coatings – that’s the very first I’ve heard that, and I’m pretty up on this stuff. AFAIK, Ti takes PVD coatings same as anything else – an example would be those OEM sources for titanium 1911/2011 frames and parts supplied as OEM to many shops. It’s a given that the slide rails need to be PVD coated (TiN, TiCN, DLC, NP3, NiBx, etc) and/or can be anodized same as alum. I’ve seen cerakoted ti as well. Plasma Vapor Discharges on a titanium surface same as it does any other, or so I thought.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here