Guns: Advantage Arms .22 GLOCK Conversion Kit review - Training Day

Introduction

Nowadays, Glock makes a .22 LR handgun (the G44), but for many decades, if you wanted rimfire practice with the Glock platform, you had to make do with conversion kits made by third parties.  One of the best of the bunch is the subject of today's review, the Advantage Arms .22 kit, which are still sold from their website for under $300 shipped (more if you need an optic cut).

Consisting of a conversion slide and a magazine, the Advantage Arms kit is a piece of cake to install (just field strip and switch out the slide/mag - no other parts have to be swapped), and it promises to give you inexpensive practice with .22 rimfire ammunition.  But does it?

First Impressions

Advantage Arms has been making conversions since 1997, so their Glock kit is a pretty mature product. I ordered one for the Gen 4 G19, and I found the overall fit and finish to be fairly decent - nothing "garage table gunsmith" about it. Sadly, the kit comes with just one magazine, but it does ship in a padded soft case that you can take to the range.

In a world where Glock makes a dedicated .22 pistol, is there any reason to use a kit like the Advantage Arms? Well, a conversion still allows you to take advantage of any work you've done to your centerfire frame, such as grip stippling, extended controls, flared magwells, and trigger jobs (within reason - aftermarket triggers may not work with the kit).  In my view, that's a lot simpler and cheaper than trying to modify a Glock 44 to be comparable to your carry gun.

Range Report

I have a specific progression I use when instructing a new or occasional shooter.  I first start them off with a Ring's Bluegun version of a GLOCK 19 to teach the Four Rules, grip, and sight alignment/sight picture (this part is actually best done off the firing line, away from any noise).  Then, when it's time to shoot, I hand them a G19 equipped with the Advantage Arms kit, which allows them to practice loading and trigger control without much recoil.  Finally, once they are comfortable and putting out good groups on target, I put on the 9mm G19 slide and have them go to work.

At the range, I found the conversion kit was mostly reliable, though it had its fair share of malfunctions (it's the nature of the beast when it comes to .22s).  Advantage Arms "highly recommend[s] Remington 'Golden Bullets' for everyday plinking and CCI MiniMags or Federal Automatch for better accuracy," and I found that advice to be generally correct, though the AutoMatch ran poorly in my particular kit and gun.  Here are some representative groups:

Winchester M-22 at 15 yards:

Federal bulk pack .22 at 10 yards

CCI Stingers at 15 yards:

Winchester bulk pack at 15 yards (this ammo did not run well):

Remington Golden Bullets at 15 yards - as Advantage Arms promised, reliability was good:

Federal AutoMatch at 15 yards - decent groups, bad reliability:

Conclusion

It's important to keep your expectations in check with an aftermarket .22 conversion, especially when the underlying 9mm pistol (a Gen 4 Glock) isn't exactly known for its accuracy. The Advantage Arms is not something I would use to hunt small game or shoot a target match unless I had no other options - it's just not accurate enough.  Nor would I ever use one for self-defense - setting aside the fact that it's a rimfire, it's not even as reliable as other .22s.  However, as a training aid, the Advantage Arms is a good kit and worth the money.