How to Build a Competition-Ready Pistol

Customizing your pistol with aftermarket gun parts and accessories can take your gun from OEM to OMG. The right pistol upgrades can fine-tune your gun for better performance, whatever flavor of shooting competition you enjoy. From pistol modifications that improve your accuracy to giving you the lightning-fast target acquisition needed for tactical events, aftermarket parts and accessories help you build the shooting experience you’ve been looking for.

From Stock to Unstoppable

Most commercial pistols are engineered, manufactured, and promoted to the largest practical customer base because that’s where the money is. Producing fewer models that fit the needs of the majority of customers has a higher potential savings volume vs. cost of production than making multiple versions of a pistol tailored for different competition types and levels of skill. That’s why pricing a competition-ready gun from a commercial manufacturer or their pro shop tends to come with sticker shock.

They aren’t shy about the price.

The fact is that their bread and butter doesn’t come from competition pistol shooters. It comes from everyday gun owners who want a reliable pistol that’s readily available, reasonably accurate, and reliable. The good news is that means you can walk into almost any gun store and buy a commercial pistol you can count on. The better news is that the most popular of these models, such as Glocks, have a deep aftermarket parts and accessories ecosystem supporting shooters who need more from their guns.

Thriving with Third-Party Gear

Third-party gun components put you in the driver’s seat when it comes to building your competition pistol. You have complete control over identifying where improvements would help you excel in your sport, what parts will meet those needs, and the installation, testing, tuning, and training with those pistol upgrades to make the most out of them. Common upgrade areas include:

• Accuracy – This is the ability to place a shot as close as possible to your aiming point.
• Precision – Precision is all about the ability to consistently place shots close together in a tight group.
• Aiming – Finding your aiming point as quickly and efficiently as possible while maintaining situational awareness is key in many shooting competitions.
• Cycling – The smooth operation of your pistol as it fires a round, extracts the empty casing, and loads a fresh cartridge is a must for any competition pistol.
• Handling -Making your gun easier to grip and manipulate helps you put it through its mechanical paces.
• Appearance – Maybe it’s not the most important thing, but there’s nothing wrong with making sure your gun looks good.

The Most Common Competition Pistol Modifications

There’s not a single “right” way to build out a competition pistol. Every shooter has different skill levels and complicating factors they bring to their shooting sport, and every different kind of competition shooting has different criteria the pistol upgrades are trying to help you meet. There are some parts, however, that can find a home in most builds.

Match-Grade Barrels

Gun barrels are an easy, drop-in upgrade that’s perfect for improving your stock weapon or turning a well-used pistol into a competition gun efficiently. Forged gun barrels with a finish that protects the barrel from the elements can improve both accuracy and precision. Their new rifling grooves impart a reliable spin to bullets passing through them for a better flight trajectory. Our favorite Patmos Arms barrels come with a black-nitride coating and are engineered to meet tight OEM specifications. These prove their worth across almost every type of competition pistol shooting.

Custom Slides

Your gun’s slide does a lot of work to keep it working perfectly. It’s balanced to promote reliable cycling while absorbing some of the shock of recoil. They can also add an optics footprint, provide deeper serrations for easier handling, or lighten your slide’s weight for easier carry. We have to go with Patmos Arms again because their Revelation series of slide bundles are perfect for upgrading a competition pistol to deliver peak reliability without worrying about parts compatibility. Performance slides are especially useful for tactical shooting, where mid-event gun handling or reloading may be part of a course.

Optics

Optics improve your aiming experience for better speed and accuracy. Modern reflex sights are some of the most common pistol modifications because more commercial and third-party manufacturers are pre-milling their slides to accept them. Also known as reflex sights, powerful LED emitters project a reticle onto a coated lens, replacing the traditional blade and notch iron sights still found on most stock guns. You can keep both eyes open to improve situational awareness while simply lining the illuminated reticle up with your aiming point and pulling the trigger. Gideon Optics makes practical reflex sights that have the big-name features without the big-name price tag. These are favorites in pistol competitions that rely on accuracy, speed, or both.

Trigger System

Upgrading your trigger system can give you a smooth, clean breakover at a weight and return distance that best fits your shooting style. Speed and accuracy competitors frequently lower their trigger’s pull weight for a smoother operation that has less risk of pulling the muzzle off-target, while a shorter return distance can pay big dividends on speed courses. 

Compensators

Compensators attach to the end of your barrel or muzzle to channel some of the escaping gasses that are pushing the bullet out of the gun and downrange. These gasses are instead routed up and forced through small vents in the top of the compensator. The pressure helps control recoil and muzzle flip for faster and more accurate follow-up shooting. This can be especially important for speed and tactical shooting competitions where recoil can easily overcome a shooter’s gun handling mechanics. 

Where to Get Started on Your Competition Pistol

Your pistol upgrades would follow a logical pattern of progression. Start with the modification that most directly addresses your biggest shooting need and has the highest chance of success. This lets you get the most bang for your buck with bite-sized modifications you know you can handle. Aftermarket barrels and optics are two great options. They have an immediate and often dramatic impact on accuracy and precision, while both are also pistol modifications that require few tools for installation.

Order Your Aftermarket Competition Parts and Accessories Today

We have the parts and accessories you need to build a better competition pistol for your chosen sport. They’re engineered and manufactured to meet the real-world needs of shooters just like you. Order your competition pistol upgrades from JSD Supply today.