glock 44 optic mount (test results)

[Jayne]

I want to work my way into the red dot game and start with a 22 so I can practice a lot. None of the 22s I have will take an optic, so I figured I would have to get creative.

There are failure reports of various ways of putting a dot on a G44 including cutting and the dovetail rear sight adapter. Neither actually work, and by 'work' I mean cycle reliably with a variety of ammo.

I found this widget which should work since it doesn't touch the slide at all so no change in slide mass or inertia. It's ugly and clunky and mounts the dot too high, but....



I had the dot already on a 22 rifle, so there is no expense there. The mount was $44 delivered with tax. If it lets me run a few thousand rounds of 22 with the dot then it will have paid for itself vs. learning on a 9mm.

It just arrived today, will try it tomorrow. I'm hopeful it will work.

 

[Amps 13]

No one needs an assault .22 handgun 😉

 

[Jayne]

No one needs an assault .22 handgun 😉

it only holds 10 rounds, not assaultive at all. Totally safe!

 

[Jayne]

Got to try this today, and it works about as well as expected.

The pistol runs just fine, no issues at all since nothing is touching the slide. That's good.

The edge of the frame where it goes through the trigger pin is prominent; it gets in the way and makes you run your finger slightly "out" from where it would normally go. On a non-rimfire I think this would jam right into your finger under recoil and suck. With the rimfire, it's just annoying.



You can take the slide off to clean it with the mount on there. The rear sight (trijicon, not OEM) rubs on the underside of the mount so it's not a smooth on/off but it does eventually get worked out. With some minor trimming (or just the site wearing on the plastic a bit) it should ease up.

No issues with ejection, the port is wide open as it would be without the adapter on:





The dot was easy to zero at 10 yards, but there is an AR-like massive offset to the bore, no idea how that's going to work at various ranges but it is just a rimfire handgun so it's probably not that critical.



What it does do though is not let you 'cheat' with respect to a co-witness dot. You can't see the irons at all when using the dot which is what I wanted. As part of the training for using a dot I wanted to be able to shoot with only the dot, no irons to fudge with. I could just take the irons off a 9mm or something but this is easier, and with the ammo cost savings vs 9mm the mount should pay for itself in short order. The reduced rimfire recoil also makes it easier to track the dot after the shot, something I know is important for follow-ups and working the skill with rimfire first should help me develop it faster. Or so I'm theorizing.

So there ya go. It's clunky but doing exactly what I wanted so I'll call it a win.

If you think you want this instead of a slide mounted setup on a centerfire glock, I would say it's a hard pass. Unless you really are a mall ninja, in which case be excellent to each other...