{"id":4543,"date":"2016-02-04T14:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/?p=4543"},"modified":"2017-11-14T12:07:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T17:07:37","slug":"modify-self-defense-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/modify-self-defense-guns\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Modify Your Self-Defense Guns?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve never met a firearms enthusiast who didn&#8217;t enjoy modifying the guns in his collection. It&#8217;s a natural desire to have, and not necessarily a bad one. Whether it&#8217;s the addition of a simple user-installed\u00a0aftermarket accessory\u00a0or a full custom job, there&#8217;s often a lot of extra usefulness and enjoyment to be gained from a firearm that&#8217;s modified beyond it&#8217;s original configuration. But there is a vocal\u00a0contingent of shooters who insist that such modifications should\u00a0<em>never<\/em> be made to a gun that&#8217;s owned for personal protection. Personally, I think there&#8217;s often far more potential benefit than risk when it comes to making\u00a0intentional, well-reasoned tweaks to a self-defense gun. Watch the video below for my take on the subject.<\/p> <h2><strong>Video: Should You Modify Your Self-Defense Guns?<\/strong><\/h2> <p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hJkd1Q0Mgy4?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><br \/> If you&#8217;re not in a video watching mood, here&#8217;s the full transcript:<\/p> <hr \/> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whenever I start working with a new gun that I\u2019m planning to review, I will inevitably end up changing something. I might put in a different set of sights or change out a hammer spring or something like that. I just like to experiment a little bit when I\u2019m doing a review. \u00a0<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And whenever I talk about making these changes to a carry pistol or, any self-defense gun, really, I know I can count on at least a couple of people in the comments having some objections. And I get that. It can be easy to mess up your gun or make it unsafe if you modify the wrong parts without knowing what you\u2019re doing. And there is a possibility of some legal implications if you ever have to actually use a modified gun in self-defense. So some people would just prefer to just leave their self-defense guns exactly the way they come out of the box.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there\u2019s a problem with that approach. It\u2019s often based on the false assumption that when a gun is designed, every feature on it is put there in order to make it the best possible self-defense tool. And that\u2019s not really how things work.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mass-produced firearms are designed by engineers with heavy input from all kinds of other people in the company like marketing guys and accountants. On some very rare occasions, they might consult someone who could be considered an expert shooter or maybe even an experienced self-defense instructor. But even in those cases, those experts don\u2019t get the final say in what features go on the gun when it rolls off the production line.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A perfect example is the serrations that you sometimes see on the front of trigger guards. They were originally put there because some people would advocate wrapping the support hand index finger around the trigger guard for better recoil control. In reality, that really doesn\u2019t really help at all, and I don\u2019t know of any respectable self-defense instructor who has taught a technique like that in probably over 20 years. But you still see those serrations on a lot of new pistols. And it\u2019s not because it\u2019s a good idea to use them, but probably because somebody at the company thought it would help them sell a few extra units.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that\u2019s why I don\u2019t have any problem modifying my handguns. Most guns made by the reputable manufacturers are probably adequate in their stock configuration, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that they\u2019re optimized for the serious shooter, and a lot of times they have features that are really not all that well thought-out. \u00a0On top of that, every person is different. There\u2019s always going to be aspects of a gun that don\u2019t really fit well with my shooting style, or my hand size, or my eyesight, so I usually change a couple of things.<\/span><\/p><p><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, I don\u2019t like to modify stuff just to be different or out of sheer curiosity. You definitely want to be cautious when you\u2019re making any changes to a self-defense gun, so when I do make a modification, it\u2019s usually for one of three reasons.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, it has to offer some objective functional advantage. This would be things like increasing the magazine capacity, or making the gun more reliable, or more accurate. If I can improve the effectiveness or the functionality of a gun without spending a fortune or without compromising the gun in some other way, then I\u2019ll consider it.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second reason I might modify a gun is to make it easier to carry. These modifications are a lot more personal and subjective and they tend to be pretty small changes. Sometimes I\u2019ll swap out parts to make a gun less prone to snagging on clothing, or I might use a file to just lightly smooth over sharp corners on a rear sight or on a magazine basepad.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And finally, I sometimes modify a carry gun if it helps my performance with that gun. So if I want to be able to shoot faster or more accurately or reload quicker. This would be things like adding grip texture to make the gun less slippery, or changing the sights so they\u2019re easier to see, changing the magazine release so I can reach it with my thumb.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These modifications can also be kind of subjective and you have to be careful here because it\u2019s really easy to try and change the gun to compensate for bad technique or lack of ability. It takes some experience and discernment to know whether the thing you want to change is a reasonable modification, or just a way to cover up a bad habit.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Usually, when people tend to go overboard, it\u2019s with modifying the action &#8212; changing the trigger so it\u2019s smoother or lighter. That\u2019s where a lot of the legal anxiety comes from, too. I personally think the legal concerns tend to be a little overblown and I don\u2019t have any objection to modifying the trigger on a carry gun in principle, but I try to be really careful. I stick with drop-in parts from reputable manufacturers and I don\u2019t go cutting on springs and filing internal parts just to find out what happens. I also don\u2019t want a really light trigger pull. For me, on a carry gun, I want it at at least five pounds or more.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And of course, when you make <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">any<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> changes on the gun, you really have to go out to the range and run a couple of hundred rounds through it to make sure everything still functions before you carry it again.<\/span><br \/> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of us, myself included, give our gear way too much attention instead of focusing on more important things like technique and strategy and mindset. But sometimes, having the right gun configured the right way can make a measurable difference and give us some advantages that we\u2019re just not going to get any other way. So we have to strike that balance &#8212; we can\u2019t get too wrapped up in our gear, but we also have to be willing to change things up if that\u2019s what\u2019s holding us back.<\/span><\/p> <hr \/> <h2><strong>Legal Issues<\/strong><\/h2> <p>I know there&#8217;s a deeper legal argument to this question that I didn&#8217;t really dive into this time around, particularly in regards to modifying triggers. I&#8217;m far from an expert on those legal issues, so I&#8217;ll leave that debate for <a href=\"http:\/\/lawofselfdefense.com\/\">someone more qualified<\/a>. In general, I&#8217;d suggest that\u00a0if you have doubts about the potential legal implications of making changes to your guns, then just don&#8217;t do it until you have more information from a reliable source. But unless you have first hand legal experience on this issue,\u00a0think twice before you declare to the world what is and isn&#8217;t legally prudent. A lot of the conventional wisdom (even what you may have heard from your CCW instructor) on the topic of defensive gun uses and the law\u00a0is flat out wrong.<\/p> <p>Whether for legal or more practical reasons, do you have a &#8220;line in the sand&#8221; for the types of modifications you&#8217;re not willing to perform on a self-defense gun? Let us know in the comments&#8230;<\/p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve never met a firearms enthusiast who didn&#8217;t enjoy modifying the guns in his collection. It&#8217;s a natural desire to &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/modify-self-defense-guns\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47,162,22,270],"class_list":["post-4543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-toolbox","tag-concealed-carry","tag-custom","tag-gear","tag-self-defnse"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should You Modify Your Self-Defense Guns? - Lucky Gunner Lounge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chris from the Lucky Gunner team takes a look at the question of whether you should modify your self-defense guns with a video detailing the points.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/modify-self-defense-guns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should You Modify Your Self-Defense Guns? 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