More with Less? Krytos Industries Titanium Glock Slides

Look, we all know the Glock is popular. Why shouldn’t it be? It’s affordable and it goes bang every time you need it to. But, notwithstanding Glock’s whole “Perfection” marketing theme, there is always room for improvement, right? So, what could we add to the design to make it better? Well, what if we could improve it by taking something away? Confused yet? Stick with me, here.

Krytos Industries’ titanium slides for the Glock give you less and more at the same time. Titanium G17 slide is shown in front of standard Glock 19 steel slide.

Less is More

Enter Krytos Industries. Seemingly emerging from a mad scientist’s lab, these alchemists have come up with a way to give you less with your Glock, but at the same time give you more. The company has developed a series of Glock slides for the G17 and the G19 machined from solid billets of 6AL4V, aerospace grade titanium and finished with the company’s own “ArmorTi” finish. The result is a lightweight, corrosion-resistant slide.

The fact the slide is titanium and topped with the company’s “ArmorTi” finish gives you the dual benefits of light weight and corrosion resistance.

So what, right? What’s a few ounces here and there in the big picture? Wrong. Let’s make it more real. According to the company’s website, one of their titanium slides weighs roughly half that of a steel Glock slide. Another way to consider it is this. Krytos claims that in many cases their slide brings the weight of a fully loaded gun to about the same as that of an empty steel-slided standard Glock.

Shown is a G17 fitted out with a Krytos slide topped off with a reflex optic.

A Krytos T19 slide fitted on a G19 Gen3 pistol frame.

Hands On

I had a chance to chat with Ben Cook, Krytos’ president, at the NRA Annual Meetings in Dallas this year. He let me go hands-on with some samples of their slides on complete guns and explained some of the strengths and benefits of the product. In picking up the guns, I immediately noted the difference in overall weight.

This Glock 19 with the standard slide weighed in at just over 23 ozs.

To really show me the effect of the weight difference, he placed an empty stock G19 with a steel slide on a scale and showed that it weighed just a hair over 23 ozs. He then showed me a full-size G17 equipped with a reflex sight, and it weighed just a hair over 21 ozs. He explained that in their testing, they found that they can do the same test and get a weaponlight along with the optic on the G17 and have it come in at around the same weight as the steel-slided G19. I asked if the lighter weight of the slide required a heavier recoil spring, but Ben told me they have found it works just fine with the stock one. Nice!

A G17 with a Krytos slide and a reflex sight weighed just over 21 ozs, two ounces less than the stock G19 with nothing on it.

I am really looking forward to testing one of these myself. Be sure to keep an eye out for a full review in the coming weeks. To learn more, visit https://www.krytosindustries.com/.