Video Transcript
Over the years, there have been a lot of good and different options out there for mounting a red dot your pistol. Specifically two Glocks. Before the MOS existed, you would send slides off to get milled specifically for a certain optic, and then certain companies started to make slides that were already milled, ready to go, that you could buy as an upgrade to your existing non MOS Glock. And I've used a bunch of these, you know, in the past few years and also had slides milled. But one of the best slides out there that I've used, uh, that's already cut for an optic ready to go outta the box, is the ZEV Duty Slide. This is one that came onto the market a couple years ago. I've been using it quite religiously on my main gun. And what I really like about this slide is the optic cut for RMR footprint optics sits very low, which is particularly useful for the SRO if that's an optic that you're wanting to run for carry or competition or duty or whatever you're doing.
There's fronts. There's nothing crazy blingy about this slide. There's not a bunch of top windows. It's not a crazy shiny Anodized Cerakote color. It's just a nice plain slide. And the other thing that I really appreciate about is the iron sites that are included, already mounted. So, you know, it's a little helpful for you guys. Sit lower in the window of the optic than a lot of the other suppressor heights sites on the market. So right outta the box, you're good to go. All you have to do is move your guts over from your existing slide into the ZEV Duty Slide, attach your optic and you're good to go. Another feature that I really like about this particular slide is the little bosses that they have that are part of the slide itself. They do come with their own screws.
They are a proprietary screws. You're not gonna be able to just go out there and use like a screw or the MOS screws. But the other thing that I really like about it is when you go to change out the battery on your RMR the optic typically returns to zero. I haven't had to make very many adjustments when I've had to, when, you know, when I go to put the RMR on, because you have the two front little boss little witness marks or not witness marks witness positions for the RMR itself. And then you have the bosses that actually stick up through the RMR or your SRO and that really puts the optic in that same position or at least very close to it. So you don't really have to zero the pistol again. But I do recommend shooting a group just to confirm, Hey, did anything shift? And, uh, in my experience, I haven't had to make, uh, any adjustments, like one or two clicks and I'm good to go. So that's something I really like. So let's go ahead and show, uh, what this looks like in the package and how to assemble it and upgrade your stock Glock, your non MOS Glock to a red dotted pistol using the ZEV duty slide.
There's a couple options out there. After you buy the ZEV Duty Slide, you can go buy slide parts kit off of a place like, rock, I think it's rock here, Glock. And then there's a another place out there that sells kits for all of these slide internals. They're not stocked very often. This is one reason that we're not selling. One is they are kind of hard to actually source. But that is one option. If you're building a Glock from scratch, you're going on gun broker buying a frame, and then you're buying a ZEV Duty Slide and then you're going and buying a slide parts kit and then you're buying your aftermarket barrel or your stock barrel. That is a way to build out a Glock. You can sometimes save a little bit of money than buying a stock lock and upgrading it. It is a little trickier. You have to spend more time sourcing everything. But in this case, I'm just gonna remove the guts out of this stock 19 slide, to put into this duty slide, and that's what a lot of folks are probably gonna be doing. And then they just have their stock slide, you know, if they want to go shoot irons or they could always resell it to someone or, you know, use it for maintenance on guns. It's a nice little hammer. Uh, that's, that's how I use Glock slides. So, let's go ahead and take this apart. Nice.
So I've got the slide all built, all the internals drop right in. It's super simple. You don't have to be a certified Glock gunsmith to do this. I'm not one full disclaimer. and so I've opened up the two screws that come with the slide. We also have replacements on our site if you somehow lose these or they break or something. What I wanna do, these are not Loctite, out of the out the box. I like to use blue lock tight. I don't really do anything uh, beyond that like the green or the red. I just stick to the blue Loctite and I re-Loctite generally when I do a battery swap or I check it to see if I need to add more. The best thing to do is also let the Loctite. If you wanna be proper, sit for like a full day before you actually put the screws into the slide. But let's face it, most of us are impatient and we're not gonna do that and I've never done that, but that is technically what you wanna do if you really want to get the proper thread locked engagement, but we're not gonna mess around with that.
If you're slowly upgrading your pistol and you wanna purchase the slide and maybe you haven't afforded a red dot yet and maybe that's a purchase you wanna make in the future or you're waiting for Black Friday or something like that. But you wanna run the slide as it is and start getting reps on it. You might wanna run an optic plate to protect everything going on here and also just kind of cleans up the overall look. So we also have, and ZEV makes a cover plate. I'll just show kind of how this works. if you're going straight to a red dot, I don't think you need one of these. I don't run these, I have used them before. Cuz I generally just go straight to putting a dot on the gun. But you have a little occu plate. Once again it comes with two screws and that is simply just going to drop right here into the slot. Again, it meets up with the bosses and the little marks here in the front, the little notches and it's just gonna give you that sleek appearance. I wish it wasn't quite as, fancy or decorated with all the little stuffs, but um, but it gets the job done and it will protect your screws and your bosses, for when you have a red dot and you've afforded one. But we're not gonna use that right now cuz we're gonna go straight to an RMR.
What you'll find with the duty slide is the tolerances are, at least in my experience, using a lot of these, like 10 of 'em, are just right to get the optic in there. There's not really any slop. There are a lot of optics companies out there who say that they like to cut a slide to a specific optic to get the exact same fit, right? And that was a thing that a lot of folks did in the past. It's not necessarily as vital if you have the bosses and you have the little marks up front that the optic can sit into, there can be a little bit of play forward and back. But on these duty slides, I've been very impressed with the toing. Sometimes you have to kind of play with the RMR the SRO and then it just goes ding right on and you're good to go. So that's something I really like. So now we're gonna take the two screws, which have been sitting in Loctite. We'll use the supplied torques wrench.
So what I like to do is hand tight plus like a half turn or quarter turn, uh, just to get it in there with the Loctite. I've never had one of these come loose on the duty slide. You can also get like a torque wrench and actually, you know, figure out the inch pounds and all that good stuff. But I just do like quarter turn after I get some resistance and I'm good to go with that. And as you'll see, the optic does sit nice and low in the slide. That's something I just prefer. I don't like my optics sitting really high like on MOS slides, and the included backup iron sites do sit lower with the RMR than a lot of other sites out there. Some of the like MOS sites and other things like there. So they can kind of sit in that lower third. It's not like an absolute co witness right in the center of the window. It sits a little bit lower and that's something that I really like. The included sites are around $90, so you do get that value in this slide and they're already installed so you don't have to worry about getting a bunch of sight tools and things like that. You're good to go right outta the box. And then I can take this slide with the RMR,
Throw it right onto my Gen 4 frame and now I have an upgraded red dotted pistol. That is not an MOS that is in my opinion a little better than the MOS. The MOS has a lot of extra parts going on. You have to go get a plate for it. Everything sits taller. You have to go get special sites for it cause they don't generally come with sites that'll co witnessed properly with the optic you then use. So it's just a little bit easier to get a higher quality red dotted pistol you know, ready to go than the MOS, which takes a little bit more work setting up properly. So that's what this looks like. Now let's check out what the SRO looks like inside, the ZEV Duty Slide. So the main gun that I've been running at the range for all kinds of things, just training stuff's, not my carry gun, um, has on SRO and this is the same SRO that I've had for it's close to two years now.
Hasn't broken which is pretty awesome, but as you'll see, the SROs sits really low inside the ZEV Duty slide. On other slides like the MOS and like other guns out there, you'll have that sort of scoop in the front that, you know, that's really hanging out there. Uh, so I just really like that the SRO does sit really low. And then the included backup sights sit nice and low with the dots so it's not taking up, you know, half the window. So that's again, something I've really liked about the ZEV Duty Slide. I've been running them for a while, haven't had any issues with them, No issues yet that I've had. So this is why that we're you know, putting them out there for you guys. If you have a Gen 3, Gen 4 or a Gen 5 Glock, that's not an MOS.
You don't wanna send it off to a company to get cut, but you already know you want an RMR or an SRO. This is a great option out there. It's one option. It may not be the best out there. Getting your slides milled is still a great option. The lead times for the most parts are lower than they used to be at like the height of everyone getting into red dots. And now kind of the market's gotten a little more stable with MOS guns and stuff like that. Guns with plates, you know, out of the box. But this is, you know really the best aftermarket slide that I've used that comes ready for optics outta the box and that's why we're supporting it here at T.REX ARMS. If you have any other questions on these, ZEV Duty Slide's or optics, pistol optics in general, the iron sites, backup irons, just anything to do with a red dotted handgun because you wanna move into the future. Go ahead and email us at team@trex-arms.com.