TFB Review: Glock 17L Gen 1 Reissue

Glock gets a lot of hassle online for sticking to the same product profile. Each new release looks a lot like the last one. But now, sometimes the new ones are actually the old ones. Lipsey’s showed off a 17L Gen 1 reissue at SHOT Show 2024, and it caught my eye. They were recently on sale with a healthy discount, so I picked one up because I could not help myself.

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Disclosures: There is nothing that needs to be disclosed for this article. I bought the gun at retail and paid for the ammo. I am, however, a hardcore Glock fan.

Overview

Like all other Glock handguns, the G17L Gen 1 arrives in a plastic hard case. This contained two magazines, a magazine loading tool, a bore brush, and a rear sight adjustment tool. This gun features the adjustable rear sights seen on some models like the G34. Of course, the sights are still plastic, but this plastic adjusts.

The first thing that jumps out about the 17L is its sheer size. This is a big handgun. The frame size is very familiar, being the same as any other 17. But the six-inch barrel and associated long slide shift the weight forward. It also makes it tough to fit in holsters, but very few sane people would ever carry this gun.

The trigger pull measures between 6 and 6.5 pounds. I would have expected a “minus” connector as would be found in the Glock 34 or 35, but that was not the case. The trigger is not interesting on any other level. If you have used a Glock trigger before then you know what to expect.

Glock shipped the pistol completely bone dry. This may have been the least lubricated gun I have ever unboxed. I put a few drops of generic gun oil in the usual locations, loaded up the mags, and headed out to the range.

On The Range

My review for this gun was much less formal than my usual process. This is not a gun that needs to be torture tested or validated for concealed carry use. It is a big, silly, throwback Glock. I did not track my round count for this one because, again, this is a Glock. We all know what we are getting, and this is a “recreational” model. I have at least 500 rounds on it (probably more like 600, but we will round down), and it has worked with all ammo types and with magazines both old and new, factory and aftermarket.

I shot several types of ammo of varying weights on paper, and the groups averaged a little to the right. This model includes a windage and elevation adjustable rear sight and a small flathead tool to turn the adjusting screws. In a couple of minutes, the groups were centered up and where they should be. This gun deserves real sights, though. Metal adjustable target sights are in the cards for this gun once I get around to buying some.

Shooting the G17L is familiar yet different. It is a Glock, and shoots like all the other Glocks, which is what we all love and hate about those pistols. The recoil impulse is a little softer and slower thanks to the extra barrel and slide mass. Extra weight means less felt recoil.

Because this is a throwback model, it has the same grip texture (or lack thereof) as the original Gen 1 guns. It is quite a bit slicker than the Gen 4 and 5 guns I typically shoot. If this were a gun for serious use, it would deserve more grip texture, either through stippling or tape, but that is not the point. This is a retro gun, and trying to modernize it is a fool’s errand when a Gen 5 17L already exists.

One annoyance was the extended magazine release. It protrudes quite a lot and is easy to manipulate, but it has some very sharp edges. This was a consistent annoyance on my support hand, so I decided to smooth it out. I touched up the sharp edges with a small file, and it was all good after that.

The long sight radius on the throwback Glock 17L is helpful for accuracy. In a world where red dots are common, that is much less of a factor, but this 17L is an irons-only gun. Across various drills and shooting sessions, I would say my hit rate on targets was very similar to my trusty old Glock 34, but a few percentage points better. Shooting at a pace where I would keep most but not all hits on a steel plate with the G34, the 17L would give maybe an extra hit per magazine. It was not a huge difference, but between those two guns, both equipped with irons, the extra sight radius is beneficial.

Holster compatibility is tricky with this size of gun. While the G17L may fit in some holsters with open bottoms so that the extended barrel can protrude, it did not work well with most of the options found in my holster bin. What it did fit in was a perfectly old-school Blackhawk full-flap thigh holster. This rig was one of the coolest things going back in the early 2000s, and I found one new in the package recently. The 17L fits nicely along with a spare magazine.

Across all 11 of these ammo types, the G17L averaged a 1.74% increase in velocity over the G34. There are many other variables at play, including the possibility that the 17L barrel has not “sped up” to its full potential yet. With precision rifles, this can be a noticeable change, but I doubt it would make much difference here because the powder burn is already almost entirely complete in a G34-length barrel. Note that Fiocchi Target Max ammo even clocked in slower in the 17L than the 34. So while there is a small velocity bump, don’t expect a massive difference over the 5.3-inch barrel of the Glock 34.

One particular ammo that deserves some discussion is the Sim-X 45-grain hollow point. This lead-free ammo is far lighter than traditional bullets, and it posted some incredible velocities. The average was 2478 FPS, and some shots were above 2500 FPS. I posted about this on Instagram and made the joke that it was “approaching Mk18 territory.” While that is a bit of a stretch because these bullets are lighter and going slower, it sure sounded like a rifle shooting it.

But the terminal performance in my redneck ballistic testing was underwhelming. I had some gallon jugs full of water at the range (the .458 Win Mag craves reactive targets)

Long Range Shooting

Previously, we discussed the extended sight radius and that it is helpful for accuracy. On one recent range trip, we had a target array set up for carbine and bolt gun practice as the gang is getting ready for various gas gun and NRL Hunter matches. I pulled out the G17L for fun and started hitting a ⅔ torso target at 125 yards. That was pretty easy and got boring fast, so we moved back.

We had another target at 380 yards, and I decided to give that a try. With two spotters watching, I held over and started lobbing rounds in that direction. My initial elevation guess was high, but after several rounds, they walked me down to the target, and I scored some hits. Shooting a 9mm at 380 yards from a standing unsupported position is not at all practical, but it was fun. It was also an interesting contrast in wind correction compared to shooting the rifles at that target. Where the rifles could just hold dead on and send it, if the wind shifted at all, it was enough to blow the slow and low-BC pistol bullet way off course.

Conclusion

So, should you buy the Gen 1 G17L reissue? For almost any serious use, the answer is pretty clearly no. It's huge, the extra barrel length doesn't provide much velocity improvement, and it has no provision for optics mounting or light mounting. Any other 9mm Glock from a more current generation would be more sensible. This is also still a Glock as far as accuracy goes so it would not make a great bullseye pistol, but could perform fine in practical shooting competitions, assuming the rules allow for a great honkin’ barrel.

But if you want it just because it's cool, then the answer is an unequivocal yes. It is fun to shoot, and it takes magazines you (should) already have. It simultaneously checks boxes for being retro and being an interesting and uncommon design. This is a very affordable gun for “hey, check this out” use, and it will probably be something that your friends don’t have already. I paid something like $425 for this gun, and I am very happy with it at that price. I would not pay $700+ for one of these, but who knows where the secondhand prices will end up once these are out of production and scarce? This is not a true Gen 1, but this is one you can shoot without putting wear and tear on an original piece.

I will probably add some quality adjustable sights on this one and throw it in the safe, and bring it out every once in a while for fun or if I need a 6-inch 9mm for some kind of ballistics test. If that sounds like how you would use one of these, then grab one while they are available and cheap. If you are planning on carrying it, shooting it in most competitions, or putting it in your nightstand for home defense, please choose any of the other 9mm Glock models. At the end of the day, this is a cool, if not practical, gun, and that is all that I need the Glock 17L Gen 1 Reissue to be.