Well, here we go. There are a lot of reviews on these already, so this won't be a big review, or all inclusive.
We have had the Glock 30 Gen 4 for a little over a year. When we bought the 30 it had Trijicon HD sights installed. While I thought they were pretty slick, I found that they shot high for me. Probably about 2 inches high at 15 feet. I usually shoot with the sights lined up, but a little low on the target, but this time I was shooting with the front sight slightly lower than the rear sight, and didn't get them lined up exactly the same each time. So you will see the shots off a little bit on the G30 target. Being a gen 4, it has a little bit shorter grip from front to back, which I like. It is a really nice, smooth gun. This is partially due to the fact that I used Slipstream on it. It used to squeak, like all Glocks do. After the Slipstream, there isn't any spring squeaking anymore. Just utter goodness. It's always been great, and my wife even likes it. Probably the thing that I like about the gen 4 is the mag release. It is more flat, and is larger from front to back than the gen 3's version. It is fairly heavy. At 26.3 ounces, it's a good piece of metal. When you put it next to a G30S, you can tell quite the difference. The slide on the 30 is wider, and heavier.
The Glock 30S is a little fella compared to the G30. While almost all of the dimensions are the same, the weight is a fair amount different. It weighs 22.95 ounces. According to Glocks website, that is slightly less than the Glock 19. I didn't take any pictures of the width and the other dimensions side by side since there are a lot of people on YouTube who have already done that. The picture below with both guns makes it look like the 30S is smaller, but that's just the picture. The 30S is, like the 30, a great gun. There is more felt recoil on it since there is less weight. That is one thing that I noticed right off the bat. The other thing is the mag release. In my opinion, the mag release on the 30S is the worst part of the whole gun. Everything operated flawlessly, but the mag release is incredibly sharp. I have found that this is the case with all of the gen 3 Glocks that I have shot. At first I thought that my fingernails from my dominant hand were digging into my non-dominant hand. After a little shooting, I realized that it was the mag release trying to rip my hand apart. I had a little file in my shooting box, so I used that to knock the edges down a bit. I wasn't able to get the edges where I wanted them at the range, but I was able to move my non-dominant hand back a little bit to check if that was the issue. It was indeed the issue. When we got back home, I used a little sanding block to get the rest of the edges down so it would be more comfortable to shoot.
It is a hard decision to say which is better. On the one hand, the 30 has enough weight to make the recoil very manageable. My wife liked the 30 better than the 30S. I also think that it's easier to shoot with the lighter recoil. The 30S is lighter, and will be nicer to carry. Both are accurate. If I had the same sights on the 30 that I did on the 30S, I wouldn't doubt that I could get a similar group with it. I wish that Glock made the 30S with the gen 4 mag release. Then it would be even better.
Both target pictures are 5 shot groups at 15 feet.
Sent from iSnurd