Really? Pound pound pound with what sounded like a sledgehammer while I am waiting on the installation? $45? And, not even getting the sight centered?

Free Trijicon HD sights, but so obviously not centered. Yep, front sight left, bullet holes right.

Went to another smith and now all is good.

I understand your feelings. Just as there are good/bad/competent/incompetent practitioners in any endeavor, the same is true of gunsmiths. But either there is a higher percentage of incompetent “gunsmiths” than is usual in other fields or I just hit a long, unusual streak of the incompetents because I encountered more of the bad ones than the good in the times I dealt with them.*

In retrospect I should be grateful to the bad ones, though, because they prompted me to learn for myself how to do most of the things I need done. Having something like a top quality sight pusher isn’t about whether it saves me money or even time, but rather the frustration it eliminates and the confidence it provides that the job is done right.

* And I will take this opportunity to mention the one outstanding exception to my bad experiences: Grayguns’ work on the two jobs they did for me was flawless.

Gunsmithing is like farming, you have to have a literal obscene fortune invested in equipment just to scratch out a living and barely survive.

What some have or don't, or the strange things they do, who knows. A family member once had a fairly well known well regarded gunsmith do the strangest, dumbest thing mounting a traditional staked in 1911 front sight. It was off center. It looked awful and I ended up replacing it and doing it right. What happened was the tenon was the wrong size, so he made it fit by removing metal... from only one side?!? (which made it off center) Why someone with a full machine shop, plenty of skill and who SURELY knew better did it anyway, lord only knows.


As for sight hammering, laugh every time I think about a friend's story. He was friends with and sometime employee of legendary gunsmith Austin Behlert. He said they were at some big event/big match, and someone brought him a revolver with front sight issue, the front sight was crooked. He said Behlert looked at it a bit, studied it, then whacked it with a hammer. (and it was perfect)

He charged the guy say $25 and he was incredulous. "I can't believe it, you're charging me $25 just for hitting it with a hammer?"

He responded with "No I charged you $5 for hitting it with a hammer. I charged you $10 for knowing where to hit it and $10 for knowing how hard to hit it."



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This message has been edited. Last edited by: cas,

I went ahead and bought a sight tool. Figure it will pay for itself eventually.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
Gunsmiths without sight pusher

Really? Pound pound pound with what sounded like a sledgehammer while I am waiting on the installation? $45?

I'm not sure why you'd be surprised unless you've just never spent much time around professional gunsmiths. You know, there's a reason they have a backroom, out of your sight, where they do work.

I've been around a lot of very good gunsmiths and they've all installed sights without a sight pusher. It is really a tool for the less skilled. I have a sight pusher, but I know I don't have the training/skill to fit a sight set into a slide properly without one.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
As for sight hammering, laugh every time I think about a friend's story. He was friends with and sometime employee of legendary gunsmith Austin Behlert. He said they were at some big event/big match, and someone brought him a revolver with front sight issue, the front sight was crooked. He said Behlert looked at it a bit, studied it, then whacked it with a hammer. (and it was perfect)

This reminds me of the time I watched a gunsmith repair my S&W M-63 crane which had been sprung by a B-I-L flipping it closed (like on TV).

It is done with a Q-tip and a lead bar

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:

I've been around a lot of very good gunsmiths and they've all installed sights without a sight pusher.

The gentleman who runs the aircraft maintenance facility opposite my hangar, is also a fervent firearms guy. As an aviation maintenance tech, he performs each task as though the customer's life depends on getting it right, because there's no second chance. I asked him if he had a sight pusher for my pistol. He did not, but he used a brass punch to gently tap the sight into position and it's perfect.

Yes, having a sight pusher is not a requirement to be a competent gunsmith.

Installing a sight properly regardless of the method used is.

Using a pusher takes a lot of the mystique and artistry out of the process, but is hardly indicative of lack of skill.

Where are you in Virginia?

What gun? I have dedicated pushers for P series, SIG Pro, M&P, Glock, and HK USP.

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
You know, there's a reason they have a backroom, out of your sight, where they do work.

Yep, and it's often why you'll hear "leave it with me, I'll call you when it's ready." You might get a call later that day and be surprised because he told you it would take a few days since he had other stuff ahead of you, and you might be super happy that he under promised and over delivered... and it might be the case that he went whacking it with a hammer the second you were out the front door and it was done before you got to your car.

For anything other than string changes or touching up some solder joints, there wasn't a lot I would do on a customer's guitar with them around. Same concept there. Nobody likes a neophyte looking over their shoulder while you're doing surgery on their favorite whatever-it-is.

Cas, that blows my mind still. You have a problem, you go to a specialist (who is trying to enjoy his day off) and bother him in his off time, and he fixes said problem. Then he asks for payment for said fix and you balk? Exactly to his credit the guy responded exactly how I would have: "No, you're paying me for the x years of experience it took me to learn how to do that."

(I am aware YOU weren't the culprit here. But I've experienced it before as the specialist. It's part of why I hate asking physicians I know personally for help in their down time (to the point where I have been yelled at once or twice - "You have my cell number, why didn't you call me?!").

I use a MGW sight tool if I install slanted sided sights. I like to use a Dawson aluminum punch for straight sided sights.

Guess the title should really have been, "Gunsmiths who can't center sights?"

quote:

Originally posted by vulrath:
Cas, that blows my mind still. You have a problem, you go to a specialist (who is trying to enjoy his day off) and bother him in his off time, and he fixes said problem. Then he asks for payment for said fix and you balk? Exactly to his credit the guy responded exactly how I would have: "No, you're paying me for the x years of experience it took me to learn how to do that."

(I am aware YOU weren't the culprit here. But I've experienced it before as the specialist. It's part of why I hate asking physicians I know personally for help in their down time (to the point where I have been yelled at once or twice - "You have my cell number, why didn't you call me?!").

I hate asking my friends for help even when they are at work. I have a bunch of mechanic friends that own their own shops and I like to take my cars to them, but one of them refuses to ever charge me and I’m not looking for free stuff. I just know he isn’t going to take advantage and sell me all kinds of stuff I don’t need so I like to go to him but I end up not going to him because the only way I can ever pay him is by guessing what it should probably cost then drop off ammo on his desk while he’s out running errands or something. I would drop off cash but he’d end up just giving it back…. He’ll shoot the ammo…

I had a gun smith do the same to me on a set of trijicon HD’s. He killed the front sight, (ruptured the tritium vial with the punch)
Trijicon won’t warranty your sights unless they install them. Cost me 70 bucks to fix it through trijicon.. the gun smith totally denied that he broke them ofcoarse so I was screwed

Sight pushers are handy tools. Not all are equal, and not all are suitable for every installation. Different firearm designs may require specialized tooling.

Dovetail mounts used to be very standardized, 3/8" width and common depth, angles equal. Now they are all over the charts depending on manufacturer. Not much to tell you what you are dealing with until you have drifted out the sight(s) and can measure the dovetail.

The sights themselves used to be made of steel and machined for a proper force-fit to the dovetail. Now the sights might be pot metal, aluminum alloy, or (my personal favorite) thermo-plastics.

Simple rule every gunsmith and armchair expert knew 40 years ago, dovetail sights are always installed from right to left, always removed from left to right. Dovetail cuts can be tightened by slightly bending metal inward, or by peening the interior surfaces with a punch.

Any dovetail mounted sight can be installed or removed with nothing more than a brass drift punch or pin driven by a mallet or hammer. Adjustments for windage correction are done the same way. A padded bench vise is best for holding the firearm during this work. Of course, the pot metal or aluminum alloy sights and plastic crap may not react well to such treatment.

I've done dozens of these over the past 50 years or so. I do not have a retail shop (no rent, property taxes, business license, sales tax license, utilities). I do not have a Federal Firearms License (neither cheap nor without certain intrusions on your life). I do not charge for my time or efforts (but there is a double your money back guarantee).

It isn't rocket science. It isn't brain surgery. It isn't even rocket surgery. Hell, I never even graduated from barber college.

SIG’s advice about sights is/was to install left to right, and they can be removed in either direction. I always remove the opposite way, right to left.

The reason for SIG’s rule is evidently based on the fact that some factory front sights have/had a small bevel on the right of the base, probably to help ensure that the sight doesn’t dig into the slide and to ease installation.

A front sight removed from an old P220:





I don’t know if that method is still taught. Not all sights have a bevel that I can see. But the install left to right, remove right to left advice lead some people to believe that the sight bases and dovetails were tapered. That of course would make no sense because it would mean the sight could be positioned only in one location. Before that position it would be too loose, and it wouldn’t be possible to move it beyond that position.

I don't consider myself a gunsmith by any means, but I don't own a sight pusher, and I've installed a lot of sights. That includes night sights, with a brass punch. It works, and if you know what you're doing it's a perfectly fine method of installation. I have yet to break a vial...but if I did it would be on my own stuff, so I guess I'd just have myself to blame.

One of the first guns I did sights on was my SA 1911. It came with the wrong rear sight from the factory and SA sent me a new one. Thinking I'd need a sight pusher, I arranged to borrow a really fancy one from a buddy. That sight was really in there, and the pusher wouldn't budge it. I was to the point that I was afraid I was going to break the really expensive sight pusher, so I ended up beating it out with a punch. The punch method worked better than the pusher, and I already own the punches, so after that experience I figured what's the point. The punches have served me well ever since.

Anyone here found a sight pusher that will move an XD sight? After my first couple of XD sight changes, I don’t even mess with a brass punch; I go straight to a steel punch Surprisingly, the factory sights hold up pretty well to this abuse and come out looking great. Of course installing the replacements is done with a nylon or brass punch. I would always explain to the customer how I intended to remove the original sights, and I don’t recall anyone getting the vapors over it.

I have a LOT of brass punches which are easily shaped-to-fit individual applications using a sanding disc.

Hardest one I have ever had was two Beretta 92X’s. The sight pusher wasn’t working so I took a punch to them then went back to the pusher because I was whacking the shit out of them and I figured I must have loosened them up and if not I was sending them out. The sight pusher worked but when they broke loose they both sounded like a “crack”. Got my attention.