The Roni Bunker Ep 4: Glock Upgrades, Vara Safety Reach

Hello friends!

Back yet again with another quarantined update documenting my slowly creeping loss of sanity induced by the continuing absurdity of the news headlines our pandemic hell world continues to churn out on the daily.

Also: Glock stuff! You can check the full crazy person video below.

Glock Upgrades

Jokes aside, the next big-ish project on the chopping block has been building out my otherwise stock Glock 17 to pass the time while awaiting the fabled day that we can all go outside again.

All of these upgrades have been done in a sort of cautious manner, however, as I don’t really want to get carried away with making all of these changes to my pistol only to find out that maybe I don’t enjoy all of them once I’m finally able to get it out to the range – but that’s why we save our OEM parts. Anywho!

Probably the biggest overall change to the form of the gun itself is the stippling job I’ve added to it.

For the unfamiliar, stippling is the process by which one uses a soldering iron or wood-burning tool to create a pattern by disrupting the smooth polymer surface with heat – giving you a rough texture that’s going to grip your hand that much better.

There are a ton of different ways you can go about this, and admittedly my job isn’t the cleanest out there, but I’m still pretty happy with the results!

I used a silver paint pen to mark off the areas I wanted to apply my pattern and then used a bladed edge on my wood burning tool to create a border.

From there, I set about the monotonous but oddly-soothing task of slowly applying hundreds of small bubbly holes to the frame itself, and overall, I’m pleased!

The gun now feels much more grippy in my hand compared to the sort of slippery grip found on Gen 3 Glocks.

I still plan on going back in and cleaning up some of my messier lines and plastic flash with an X-Acto knife, but I don’t hate it, and that’s an achievement when it comes to permanent modifications.

As you can see, I’ve also added a bit of stipple texture to the forward portion of the frame as well, as it’s where my off-hand thumb naturally rests. This gives me a little bit more purchase on the frame as I tend to grip the gun relatively high up.

Speaking of high grips, they can occasionally cause some minor problems.

Those of you in a similar boat probably know what I’m talking about, in that such a grip can sometimes cause the slide to fail to lock back on an empty mag considering your primary thumb might wind up riding the slide release.

I’ve added a Kägwerks Slide Release to mitigate that very problem, which gets the lever itself up and out of the way of your hand so that your slide can lock back as intended.

Below that, I’ve added a Zev Oversized Mag Release, which fits my hand a bit better than the OEM mag release, ensuring that I’m able to drop mags without canting the gun to the side and losing my sight picture or coming up off of the target.

Also silver, because gucci 😎

Internally, I’ve added an Apex Enhanced Glock Trigger and Trigger Bar, combined with a Ghost Inc 3.5lb Connector.

Together, this setup cuts down on trigger takeup and creep, and gives me a much cleaner break and reset as well.

Stock Glocks are a bit infamous for that mushy trigger pull, and although it’ll never be as crisp as a single action handgun, the difference is pretty substantial!

I’m likely going to wind up undercutting my trigger guard at some point down the road as well, but again, I want to get some rounds through this thing before any more permanent modifications are made.

But the project itself has been fun and a pleasant mental-getaway from, well, *gestures broadly at everything*

Vara Safety Reach

Up next! We’ve got a cool little combination holster and biometric safe sent to us by the folks at Vara Safety, called the Reach.

The Reach uses an integral thumbprint scanner to both secure and release your firearm, and is designed to be able to mount to a variety of different surfaces and furniture, allowing you to keep your gun secured discreetly while still retaining accessibility at a moment’s notice.

Comprised of the main body and mounting surfaces, the polymer holster shell itself, and the locking mechanism.

The Reach does require a little bit of assembly, but once set up it’s relatively intuitive to use.

You’ll need to spend a bit of time entering in your thumbprint information from multiple angles to ensure the device has the best data set possible for recognizing your thumb from different angles, as the scanning surface itself is relatively small.

That being said, I did still encounter a few incidents during the testing phase where The Reach failed to release my gun, even though I appeared to be doing everything right.

I probably don’t have to tell you why that’s unideal in a gun safe in the event you might need to access it in an emergency, as the last thing I’d want is to be fumbling with electronics while spiked full of adrenaline.

To be clear though, it is reliable the vast majority of the time, and the more I played and became comfortable with it, the less weirdness occurred – so it may just be another piece of kit that you need to drill with to make sure that it’s going to function correctly when you really need it to.

I will say though that it is a bit of a bummer that the polymer shell which locks on to the gun itself isn’t capable of accepting the gun with a light on it – at least not my TLR-1.

While the shells are modular, meaning that if you’ve got the locking and mounting portions of the Reach itself you can swap out the shells if you need to store a different handgun.

Light and laser options for the future would definitely boost my inclination to give this thing a solid recommendation, as having to choose between the features of the reach and the weapon light that lives on my Glock is a bit disheartening.

It does appear to work just fine for stock guns, however, despite the fact that my Zev mag release prevents the gun from locking into the shell without being depressed…

Meaning that I also can’t have a mag inserted securely if I chose to do so.

But it’s also worth pointing out that probably the vast majority of folks looking at a product like this might not be running an idiot spaceman gun either.

Overall, The Reach walks a neat (if thin) line between security and accessibility.

And if you’re in a position where you want your gun lightly secured while still having it handy when needed (and you aren’t spooked by electronic locking mechanisms), perhaps give the Reach a look and decide for yourself!

The core premise is certainly neat, but perhaps the execution could be a tad tighter.

I hope you enjoyed the update and are all doing the best you can to stay more or less sane and sound during these peculiar times. What have you been up to? What sort of weird DIY projects have you managed to bang out during the Roni? Comment below! For some more gun safe action, take a look at the Best Gun Safes for Pistols and Long Guns or the Best Bedside Gun Safes!

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