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Well thanks to @kmk1012 I came into a Robin egg blue Polymer 80 Glock subcompact kit. He evidently switched gears and I was in the right place at the right time. Bless his heart he would not take anything for it and shipped it to my door. It showed up on my porch this afternoon and I had a few hours to burn so out to the shop I went.
I planned on using my milling machine and did so for 95% of the top rail sections that need to be cut down flush. When it came to the channel for the recoil rod/spring assembly there was no way to get the supplied end mill down to the area to be cut without the tool holder hitting the jig. My guess is the jig is universal for the compact and subcompact models and the area to be cut is further recessed with the sub model and therefore the tool is to short. Story of my life. Not to worry as I dug around and found some appropriate sized grinding stones for my air die grinder and hogged most of the material out. Now you have to be careful doing this so as not to lay waste to needed areas of plastic but go slow and you will be fine. I then drilled the 2 holes for the jesus pins that hold the guts in. I then filed the slight amount of material left on the top rails and sanded them smooth with fine sandpaper. To finish recoil spring channel I honestly found my sharp drop point folding buck knife worked great followed by sand paper.
This gun is going to be for the better half and I consulted with her on slide color to match the blue hue frame. She had picked stainless to match and I was going to order the slide and necessary parts to finish it off in the new year.
Well at this point I was pretty excited at getting the lower finished and decided to steal the slide and lower guts out of a G27 I have to make a working piece to show my wife. I stripped the G27 down and proceeded to put the guts in the p80 lower. There are a few differences to note but it is all pretty straightforward if you can detail strip a glock. The locking block and front rails are all one piece and comes with kit. The slide removal bar has a coil spring that goes in a blind hole instead of the stock leaf style spring and also comes in kit. The supplied rear rail/ejector assembly pins in with the rear trigger mechanism housing. I did debur and smooth out this supplied part before assembly, as it is known to cause trigger reset issues.
Once together everything was fine except the slide travel got interupted and would not lock back. A bit more work with a knife to clearance the recoil spring/rod assembly and I was in business. After this everything seemed to work as it should!
I am glad I completed the assembly with the parts I had as now my wife decided she likes the look of the black slide. Tomorrow I will go shoot it and prove function. When the other parts come in I will clean the recoil rod/spring channel a bit more with fine sandpaper before final assembly with new parts. After that I will run several hundred rounds through it before I will trust handing it to my wife. All in all it is a pretty straightforward process and took me a bit over 2hrs. start to finish. Now don't expect to save any money going this route unless you are given the kit
. Still the benefits are tangible. Thanks again to kmk1012, I will get even with you my friend. Happy new Year and Glock on! Oh and don't make fun of me if you see me at the range shooting this baby.
I planned on using my milling machine and did so for 95% of the top rail sections that need to be cut down flush. When it came to the channel for the recoil rod/spring assembly there was no way to get the supplied end mill down to the area to be cut without the tool holder hitting the jig. My guess is the jig is universal for the compact and subcompact models and the area to be cut is further recessed with the sub model and therefore the tool is to short. Story of my life. Not to worry as I dug around and found some appropriate sized grinding stones for my air die grinder and hogged most of the material out. Now you have to be careful doing this so as not to lay waste to needed areas of plastic but go slow and you will be fine. I then drilled the 2 holes for the jesus pins that hold the guts in. I then filed the slight amount of material left on the top rails and sanded them smooth with fine sandpaper. To finish recoil spring channel I honestly found my sharp drop point folding buck knife worked great followed by sand paper.
This gun is going to be for the better half and I consulted with her on slide color to match the blue hue frame. She had picked stainless to match and I was going to order the slide and necessary parts to finish it off in the new year.
Well at this point I was pretty excited at getting the lower finished and decided to steal the slide and lower guts out of a G27 I have to make a working piece to show my wife. I stripped the G27 down and proceeded to put the guts in the p80 lower. There are a few differences to note but it is all pretty straightforward if you can detail strip a glock. The locking block and front rails are all one piece and comes with kit. The slide removal bar has a coil spring that goes in a blind hole instead of the stock leaf style spring and also comes in kit. The supplied rear rail/ejector assembly pins in with the rear trigger mechanism housing. I did debur and smooth out this supplied part before assembly, as it is known to cause trigger reset issues.
Once together everything was fine except the slide travel got interupted and would not lock back. A bit more work with a knife to clearance the recoil spring/rod assembly and I was in business. After this everything seemed to work as it should!
I am glad I completed the assembly with the parts I had as now my wife decided she likes the look of the black slide. Tomorrow I will go shoot it and prove function. When the other parts come in I will clean the recoil rod/spring channel a bit more with fine sandpaper before final assembly with new parts. After that I will run several hundred rounds through it before I will trust handing it to my wife. All in all it is a pretty straightforward process and took me a bit over 2hrs. start to finish. Now don't expect to save any money going this route unless you are given the kit
. Still the benefits are tangible. Thanks again to kmk1012, I will get even with you my friend. Happy new Year and Glock on! Oh and don't make fun of me if you see me at the range shooting this baby.
Last Edited:
. This with a Glock 27 upper with a Storm lake 9mm conversion barrel and G26 mags. The extractor was the one the G27 came with stock. It shot to point of aim and felt good in my hand. I actually shot it better than my regular stock G19 carry piece that I brought along for comparison. I attribute this to the comfort in my hand with the different grip angle and a better beaver tail with the P80 design. Best of all, nobody was openly mocking the smurf frame 
