One Weird Trick For Detail-Stripping GLOCK 42 & 43 Receivers

Here’s a little something I learned this weekend while installing a new trigger in my GLOCK-brand GLOCK 43 . . .

The beauty of Gaston’s design lies in its simplicity. To take the “Safe Action” pistol down to its 34 (ish) component parts, one needs mechanical skill on the level of “successfully removing and replacing a car wheel without causing injury or damage.” Coupled with a mentor who’s been there/done that (if you can).

While most GLOCKs generally work the same, the single stack G42 and G43 are slightly different creatures. When it comes to stripping the receiver, there’s one little step you need to know ahead of time. Here it is:

Press down on the middle of the slide stop lever as you’re pushing out the the trigger pin in the receiver.

Press on the area indicated by that red pen while pushing the trigger pin out (left side to right, naturally) with your $8.00 GLOCK Armorer’s Tool or your favorite 3/32″ punch. If you’ve done it right, the metal pin will slide out when you apply minimal pressure.

By “minimal” I do not mean “press hard like you do on your GLOCK 17.” We’re talking the level of force you use to snap the cap back into place onto your favorite ball point pen. If you think to yourself, “Gosh, I don’t think I’m pressing hard enough,” you’re doing it wrong.

Whatever you do, if the trigger pin doesn’t come out on the first few tries, don’t do something crazy like reach for a ball peen hammer and try to force the thing out. All you’d be doing is risking damage. (I’m not naming any names, I’m just going to say that data online is persistent.)

The slide stop lever has a different design in the single-stack GLOCKs versus their big brothers.

The slide stop lever for all GLOCKs sits in a groove on the trigger pin, which holds in both the pin and the locking block (the big silver piece in the middle of the receiver that looks a little like a Honda “H” from the top).

Unlike the bigger GLOCKs, however, the G42/G43 slide stop lever has a captured spring that keeps everything locked into place. Pushing down on the lever relieves the pressure, and allows for easy dissasembly.

The rest of the stripping proceeds in line with how you’d take apart one of the bigger GLOCKs.

If you own one of Gaston’s plastic fantastics, you should learn how to take it apart if you don’t already know how. It really doesn’t take much mechanical skill, the resources to help are available, and knowing more about how your firearm functions is a good thing.

[NOTE: Death threats due to the author’s use of the “One Weird Trick…” clickbait-ish headline that are not submitted in iambic pentameter in the comments section below will be ignored.]