Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we talked about some of the issues of carrying and firearm maintenance in rainstorms. If you happened to miss that article, be sure to click the link here to catch up. This week, we’ll talk about customizing carry guns. We can sometimes be tempted to change out parts on our carry guns, whether it's the trigger, barrel or adding compensators or other accessories for a better shooting experience. The big question is whether it's a good idea, though? Adding Parts Is A Natural Progression For most of us, the process of slowly adding new parts to our carry gun is a natural progression. Whether it's adding a light or red dot optics, we want to enhance our guns in order to make them the best possible option for self-defense. Various companies offer accessory rails and optics cut slides, like the Glock MOS series, where the vast majority of popular red dot options are available to directly mount without any aftermarket cutting or modification. This makes turning your carry gun into a custom firearm unique to you incredibly easy. With the aftermarket support for Glock, SIG, and Springfield being so high, you can truly replace almost every single part on the handgun if you really choose to do so. Whether that's a new trigger, sights, magwell, magazines, striker assemblies or upgrading to a match barrel, you can essentially change everything you'd like. The latest craze has been adding compensators to smaller carry guns with help from companies like Parker Mountain Machine or Radian Weapons. These allow you to have drop-in options for your existing carry guns to add a threaded barrel and compensator combination. Even companies like Canik are creating factory models with the Radian Ramjet installed right out of the gate, so this trend isn't going anywhere. If anything, you will start to see even more customization right out of the factory with companies in an effort to create a turnkey high-end variant of their pistol. The big question I pose, though, is just because you can make custom carry pistols, does it mean you should? Factory Parts Are Safest When it comes to no-frills carry guns, they are reliable for a very specific reason. Regular factory parts are tested extensively and companies like Glock have built a reputation on bulletproof reliability. The moment you start changing parts out, the more reliability you give up with more variables being introduced with an aftermarket trigger, barrel or internal parts. Manufacturers have thousands of rounds fired through their guns. Modern carry guns are tested to the point of failure and the factory parts ensure the maximum level of reliability. It's important to thoroughly test your carry gun for each part you replace. Most people will install new parts and proceed to load up their carry gun without firing a single shot to ensure the handgun still remains reliable. My advice for people who swap factory parts out is to shoot at least 200 rounds to ensure your gun has no malfunctions. If you plan on switching out multiple parts, it's not a bad idea to test fire everything at once. If you start to have malfunctions, you will probably have to try and troubleshoot which part is causing issues, which means it may take more ammo to sort out. Most times, you won't have an issue with aftermarket parts, but there have been a few times where I’ve had issues and had to troubleshoot which part was being problematic. As much fun as it may be to replace parts, you will change the reliability baseline compared to having factory parts. Finding The BalanceThere are some people who want to switch out as much as possible to make their carry gun as unique as possible, but you're also going to drastically affect the overall reliability of your carry gun. If you want to switch out non-essential parts, things like magwells, and adding weapon-mounted lights or a red dot optic are a safer option than switching out internal parts. If you really have to swap out internal parts, it’s important that you test out the new parts before taking them out with you for self-defense. While it's perfectly fine to customize your range gun with aftermarket parts, I would really look to see if you absolutely need to swap parts out because standard factory parts will be more reliable in the long run. The biggest key, though, when it comes to customizing your carry gun, is keeping the reliability as best as you can while swapping out for custom parts. Overall Thoughts There's no question how much fun it is to customize your carry guns, but there is a fine line between customizing and making your carry gun less reliable than it would be with factory parts. In the end, it's a fine balance between reliability and upgraded performance. Usually, things that add function but don't have a direct impact on internal parts and their reliability are best. What are some of your favorite upgrades on a carry pistol? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions about carry gun upgrades or firearms in general, feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram @fridgeoperator. Stay safe out there and we will see you next week in another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. TFB’s Concealed Carry Corner is brought to you by GLOCK