Being a complex system of interrelated moving parts, a firearm is not so different from an automobile. Anyone who has ever experimented with improving performance in a car, especially for competition use, knows that modifying one area will inevitably affect another—and not always for the better.
The same can be said of guns. If you want to continue to use your car, or your gun, for mundane use like daily driving or for daily carry, at some point you’ll find yourself sacrificing practicality that’s inversely proportional to shaving seconds off your ETs. Depending on your level of commitment, you’ll probably consider building a dedicated performance platform.
It’s no accident that race cars are a thing. And as with cars, so with guns—thus the concept of a “race gun.”
DCPrecision LLC of Bennet, Nebraska, was founded in 2017 by Dave Petta. The company’s mission is building dedicated guns—race platforms, in essence—for competition circuits including USPSA and 3-Gun, and pretty much anything else. The company specializes in pistols, specifically Glocks, as well as semiauto shotguns.
“Originally, I worked for a friend who was an NFA dealer, doing some custom work for him, and inevitably started messing with Glocks,” Petta says. “The funny thing is, I used to hate Glocks. I thought they were the ugliest guns ever. Once I started being around them and became a little more knowledgeable, I started to realize why people like them so much.”
About the same time he began dabbling in competition shooting and began modifying his personal firearms to improve his performance. “Originally I wanted to compete in USPSA and 3-Gun,” he says. “I didn’t have enough money to go out and buy a fancy race gun. I was just competing with what I had, so I decided I’d just build a Glock.”
As the process gathered steam, he began to kick around the concept of building his own dedicated competition platform, and the foundation for his company was laid. “I started identifying deficiencies and came to understand that I was using [various parts] outside their intended purpose,” he says. “So I started designing my own parts and modifying other parts, piece by piece. The majority of the parts used in this build are my own parts.”
Many of the components used in the pictured firearm, a DCPrecision R17 built for Open division and hybrid use, are for sale individually—with a few key exceptions to protect the business’s reputation and brand image. But the company’s specialty is building full competition race platforms, either by building an essentially brand-new gun from the ground up or by modifying an existing Glock.
For the latter process, Petta gives us a rundown. “The few parts I don’t use get put in a box and are sent back to the customer. Everything is stripped down, taken apart,” he says. “I check out all the parts and make sure they’re still in good shape. From there I’ll go through the basic frame work that needs to be done prior to the coating, the reshaping of the frame like the undercut and the trigger guard. I’ll put the raw magwell and the raw frame weight on the gun and make sure the fit is all correct. Then I’ll go through and start doing the internals.”
One of the R17’s most noticeable features is its blended compensator and slide configuration. Petta explains the assembly in detail. “The comp is machined separately from the slide,” he says. “The two pieces are machined very well, but there’s still always a little fitting that needs to be done. Blending them so everything lines up and you can’t feel any edges or anything like that. I spend a fair amount of time doing the blending by hand so it’s a nice, seamless fit.
“The compensator is a slip-fit design, so the barrel’s not threaded. It’s a standard 34-length barrel, so that gives you the extra protrusion that’s necessary for the comp to slip over it. The compensator is held in place with two set screws in the side, a very large set screw on the bottom that basically times it, and an additional cross pin.
It may seem a little like overkill, but when you start shooting 9 major loads through it there’s a lot of pressure going through there. If the compensator is not held in place really securely it’ll start working its way off.”
The slide started as a Lone Wolf blank to which Petta added his proprietary milling, and the barrel is a Double Diamond standard replacement that’s finished and ported by DCPrecision. “Double Diamond is one of the only brands that makes a simple aftermarket Glock barrel,” Petta explains. “It has case support for major loads; you want as much case support as possible. It’s also a relatively inexpensive barrel. I don’t like fancy fluting and junk all over it, or a barrel that is overly ‘branded.’ I like a simple, elegant look.”
While the compensator assembly is not something DCPrecision intends for people to be taking on and off frequently for cleaning and maintenance, it is user serviceable. Although it’s recommended the user contact DCPrecision for the proper method for doing this.
Concerning the overall aesthetic of the blended compensator and slide assembly, Petta explains his methodology and overall business practice. “There’s no performance increase by starting with a blank and doing a blended comp,” he says. “There is an aesthetic benefit though—it looks about a million times better. If the option has no performance benefit I’ll tell [a customer] straight out. If I’m building something for myself and I just want pure performance, and I’m not worried about the looks, I appreciate it when someone’s honest and says ‘Yeah, you don’t need this extra $200 option because it’s not going to work any better, it just looks cooler.’ For some people that $200 is a big deal.”
As we alluded to earlier, this pistol is built as a hybrid gun that can run standard 9mm or 9mm major loads. As such, the compensator has ports on the top that can be left open or blocked off with set screws depending on the ammunition being shot.
“If you just want a standard compensator, you can increase the pressure a little bit to help cycle a lower-power-factor round,” Petta says. “If you move up to a 9 major round, you can open the holes up, step your recoil spring rate up and balance the gun back out.” He says he was inspired by tunable AR compensators and applied those principles to the R17 platform.
A closer examination of the slide will reveal a backing plate with a set screw. This is an example of an upgrade Petta devised in the heat of competition. He had just started shooting a set when the plate shifted slightly and wouldn’t allow the slide to go into battery. He says he’d never seen that happen before and hasn’t seen it since, but took it as an opportunity to address yet another possible weak point.
“I thought, well obviously that can happen, so that’s just one more liability,” he says. “You pay a certain amount of money for a gun, you’re wanting as much liability as possible removed, especially in a competition or self-defense firearm.”
He adds: “I’m that guy—if something can break, I’m the one who’ll break it.”
The slide racker is another component that sets a DCPrecision race gun apart from its peers. “They’re usually just straight, rounded off on the side to match the profile of the factory Glock slide,” Petta says. “I fit it to the dovetail, file the side off to blend it to the top chamfer on the corners of the slide, then tweak it and put a little bend on it so it’s got a nice upward angle.”
Concerning the Glock’s modified fire-control components, Petta goes into more detail: “In a Glock, there’s a bunch of different parts that make up the ‘trigger,’ so to speak. As far as the actual trigger body, or shoe, I’ve messed with a bunch of them—literally all of them. I even wound up back on a factory Glock trigger for a while. In my opinion, they all had their shortcomings. The Kineti-Tech checked all the boxes—it looked good, it wasn’t ridiculously expensive, and it took well to the modifications I was doing. I’ve basically got them in every gun I build now.”
On an R17 Open build, extensive work is performed to the internal reciprocating components to make sure everything still functions properly and that all the safeties engage. This includes polishing various contact surfaces and even reshaping certain parts like the firing pin lug. None of this is necessarily trade secret, Petta says, since a lot of people perform similar work on many of these parts. The trick is getting the parts to all time correctly so they don’t engage or disengage until the last second. Keeping the firearm operationally safe is paramount.
All things considered, almost every single part on the gun has been handled to enable it to fit together and function properly. The R17 Open is finished with a proprietary DCPrecision frame weight (11.8 ounces) and custom flared magwell, which is epoxied on the inside, sanded by hand, and then Cerakoted. The optic mount is also a proprietary piece; here it supports a Trijicon SRO red dot. Prior to final assembly, the major external components are Cerakoted (at the customer’s request). This one was given a modified MultiCam-inspired scheme.
As we mentioned, many DCPrecision components are available as standalone upgrades—with the exception of the optic mount and the Open slide package as standalone pieces. This is to protect the company from someone lacking the proper experience building an R17 Open clone using off-the-shelf parts and fielding a poorly done or non-functioning weapon.
“Open Glocks are notorious in competition shooting for not working or not being reliable,” Petta says. “An Open Glock works if it’s built from the ground up to do that by somebody who knows what they’re doing.” Images by Jerry Tsai
Build Sheet – DCPrecision R17 Open Race Gun
Specifications
Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 10 + 1
Barrel: Double Diamond modified by DCPrecision
Overall Length: 10.25 in.
Weight Unloaded: 2 lbs, 11.3 oz.
Coating: Custom MultiCam by DCPrecision
Frame: OEM Glock modified by DCPrecision
Slide: Lone Wolf AlphaWolf blank w/ DCPrecision R17 Open slide package
Optic: Trijicon SRO 2.5 MOA red dot on DCPrecision mount
Featured Accessories
DCPrecision 3-port compensator, Wolff 10-lb round wire recoil spring, Wolff Gen3 guide rod, modified OEM firing pin, Wolff 4-lb firing pin spring, modified OEM safety plunger, Wolff reduced power safety plunger spring, modified Bastion backplate, modified Carver Custom slide racker, DCPrecision 11.8-oz. frame weight, DCPrecision optic mount, Bastion slide lock, modified Kineti-Tech trigger, modified OEM trigger bar & housing, Ghost 3.5 connector, modified Ghost Gen3 mag release, DCPrecision hand-finished magwell, OEM Gen4 ejector spring, Taran Tactical magazine base pad
About the Owner
Name: David Petta
Occupation: Founder, DCPrecision LLC
Social: Facebook @DCPrecisionLLC, Instagram @dcprecisionllc