Today I noticed that one of the bolts that mount my RomeoX on my P226 was snapped. This was a GGI P226 that came assembled direct from them - I just zeroed the sight without removing the optic. I did have them refinish the slide so maybe there's a third party involved in the reassembly, IDK.

The bolt is snapped off flush with the slide. The other bolt came out with some effort, between the torque and healthy amount of blue loctite - so that's what I'm up against with the broken stud.

I'm thinking punch, drill tiny pilot, and then reverse threaded drill bit with larger bit. And probably let some drops of nail polish remover/acetone sit on the stud beforehand to help with the loctite.

Any other reccos? And who makes quality reverse drill bits in tiny sizes?

Thanks

Rob

GGI is pretty darned good at taking care of their customers. I’d reach out to them.

They may have some excellent suggestions for DIYing it yourself. I would not be surprised if they asked you to send the slide back to them for them to fix the problem. Either way, they’d be my first call.

As to your plan, that sounds like a reasonable approach to me, but with the slide held in a work vice on a milling machine and the cutters in the mill. Perhaps left hand drill bits, perhaps left hand end mills. The mill / vise setup gives orders of magnitude more stability and control.

Good luck!

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
Either way, they’d be my first call.

That was my immediate thought.
I have seen (and believe I even have) very small screw removal bits, but have never been very confident I could use one properly.

Very localized heat as with a soldering iron might help.

Long story short, I would suggest that the OP:

try either an easy out or a reverse drillbit first

if that fails, hopefully a Sigforimite will chime in with a recommended gunsmith in Northern Virginia.

Long version:
I have never done that to a pistol optic, but I have done that to a rifle optic. I was using my FAT wrench and torqued my barreled action to a new stock. Then had a brain fart by forgetting to change the torque setting and proceeding to torque down my rifle scope mount. That is about triple the torque needed so it snapped the scope bolt flush, and I unsuccessfully tried to use my easy out with my 18V drill.

I posted my issue in the rifle subsection of Sigforum and one of the Sigforumites that is a competitive rifle shooter told me about a nearby gunsmith that they use and trust. I brought it in and he said it took horsepower not volts fix that. Then he showed me his 2 hp vertical mill that he was gonna attach his reverse drillbit and set the RPM to about 10 (i.e. much slower than low speed setting on my 18 V drill). I was impressed so I hired him to remove the broken bolt, install the scope mount correctly, and do a rudimentary sighting. I picked it up a couple days later and have had years of use with that rifle and scope.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

If ever a post called out for a picture, this is the one!

I would definitely NOT want to try this with hand tools! Too much likelihood of a slip and scarring the slide and/or the sight. Seems if they Loctited it in place like they did the other, that there would be too much torque required to stay steady by hand.

It comes down to how small is the bolt? In addition to the drill and easy-out method there is also the classic cut a slot in the screw shaft with a Dremel bit, and horse it out with a flat-blade screwdriver, but, again, I wouldn't do this on my slide or sight. GGI will have the proper tools and experience to extract it, and I doubt you'd be out more than the cost of shipping.

If someone wants to help with posting a pic, I can send via email. The optic is off, so I'm just dealing with the part of the slide under the optic that would be covered once this gets fixed. I'm not that worried about marring.

I know I could send back to GGI, but was hoping to fix myself because I like to know how to do stuff, and it's an excuse to get more tools.

Adding, the bolt looks to be ~3mm in diameter, so tiny. Definitely some precision work needed.

Any competent gunsmith can fix this. I have found that most cheap extractors for tiny screws suck and there is some risk of damaging the slide. If you have not extracted broken screws before and/or you do not have a good set of extractors, I would just either pay somebody to do it or see if GGI will warranty it. In the right hands this is an easy job, but the consequences of messing it up are relatively high.

quote:

Originally posted by RobLew:
If someone wants to help with posting a pic, I can send via email. The optic is off, so I'm just dealing with the part of the slide under the optic that would be covered once this gets fixed. I'm not that worried about marring.

I know I could send back to GGI, but was hoping to fix myself because I like to know how to do stuff, and it's an excuse to get more tools.

Somewhat my own philosophy, one that I've had to pay a premium for over the years!

If you can force yourself to come near the "Little City" (NoVA folks know what I'm talking about), the smallest Easy-Out I have is a #1, which wants a 5/64" hole. You are welcome to borrow it, and the bit, and my drill press, or come on over and we can try it in what passes for my shop (just a carport). Do you know the diameter of the bolt you're trying to remove?

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I would definitely NOT want to try this with hand tools! Too much likelihood of a slip and scarring the slide and/or the sight.

Thanks for saying what I was trying to say so much better than I was able to. This is a job where having the right tools makes all the difference in the world.

And of course, in addition to having the right tools, GGI has decades of experience and a focus on taking care of their customers that makes calling them the *really* easy choice.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Originally posted by RobLew:
If someone wants to help with posting a pic, I can send via email. The optic is off, so I'm just dealing with the part of the slide under the optic that would be covered once this gets fixed. I'm not that worried about marring.

I know I could send back to GGI, but was hoping to fix myself because I like to know how to do stuff, and it's an excuse to get more tools.

Somewhat my own philosophy, one that I've had to pay a premium for over the years!

If you can force yourself to come near the "Little City" (NoVA folks know what I'm talking about), the smallest Easy-Out I have is a #1, which wants a 5/64" hole. You are welcome to borrow it, and the bit, and my drill press, or come on over and we can try it in what passes for my shop (just a carport). Do you know the diameter of the bolt you're trying to remove?

The cost of knowledge is making mistakes, which is something I'm willing to accept.

I added in my reply above that the bolt is about 3mm - the snapped portion that is available to work with. So...not a lot of margin to work with.

I did send Chris at GGI an email/pic of the problem, so we'll see what they say. But that's not going to stop me thinking about this parallel path of figuring out how to extract this myself.

I'm liking the soldering iron idea to apply localized heat to break down the loctite.

Depending on what GGI says, and more thinking about the problem, I may take you up on your offer.

quote:

Originally posted by RobLew:

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Originally posted by RobLew:
If someone wants to help with posting a pic, I can send via email. The optic is off, so I'm just dealing with the part of the slide under the optic that would be covered once this gets fixed. I'm not that worried about marring.

I know I could send back to GGI, but was hoping to fix myself because I like to know how to do stuff, and it's an excuse to get more tools.

Somewhat my own philosophy, one that I've had to pay a premium for over the years!

If you can force yourself to come near the "Little City" (NoVA folks know what I'm talking about), the smallest Easy-Out I have is a #1, which wants a 5/64" hole. You are welcome to borrow it, and the bit, and my drill press, or come on over and we can try it in what passes for my shop (just a carport). Do you know the diameter of the bolt you're trying to remove?

The cost of knowledge is making mistakes, which is something I'm willing to accept.

I added in my reply above that the bolt is about 3mm - the snapped portion that is available to work with. So...not a lot of margin to work with.

I'm liking the soldering iron idea to apply localized heat to break down the loctite.

Depending on what GGI says, and more thinking about the problem, I may take you up on your offer.

SO 3mm is .118 in. and 5/64 is 0.0781 in. so it seems there's some room to play. Next size up in my easy-out set is 7/64, .109 in. which may be a better fit (you're supposed to drill out to a thin shell). WRT the Loctite, I'd start with the oven or maybe a heat gun, then move to the soldering gun, or maybe even a mini butane torch (which will damage the finish), but I agree that getting the glue out of the way early on will help.

Talked to Chris at GGI. Shipping the slide back to them. They're also swapping out the suppressor height sights which I don't need since the gun has a RomeoX optic, so that tipped things in favor of them vs the learning opportunity. I'm sure life will present me others in the future...

Thanks all for the advice.

For reference only as the OP has a solution…

Fasteners can snap due to “hydrogen embrittlement.” This is a defect in the manufacturing process resulting in a propensity to fracture under applied load.

The fracture can occur with the proper applied load. Not all fractures occur from over torque.

This is an all metal slide for a firearm. IIRC it is Steel. In order to effect the heat treat the hardness of any grade of steel requires a minimum of 350 degrees. As a result you have a temerature range up to 350 degrees to work with and common Locktite compounds will melt at these temperatures.

BTW, most plastics used for Reflex sights are high temperature tolerant. Because the Military standards will mandate heat tolerance equivalent to that generated in a closed vehicle park in the sun in the middle of the hottest desert on the planet. I would expect that to be in the range of 160-180 degrees but don't have any experience with military grade product requirements. Back in the late 1970'd Nikon made a change to the meter coupling system for their lenses and offered service kit to update older lenses. Installing these kits required removing the lens mount and then lifting out the old aperture ring and installing the new design aperture ring. Those mounting screws did have a thread locking "glue". So I would set the oven on warm which took the lenses to 135 degrees and there was never any harm from doing this. BTW Nikon's heat standards did have a "hot car" requirement of 150 degrees. So I have been "Baking" parts for a lot of years and can tell you that it works.

Get some welders gloves and bake the slide in an oven set to 150-300 degrees and Locktite will not be an issue if you work quickly enough to keep the slide hot for the full drill.

Finally concerning the broken screw. Odds are it's a 2-3mm thread so it's in the range of 0.08 to 0.13 inch. Freaking tiny. Tiny like the screws used on HO scale trains and the like. If you need microtaps and reverse thread drills a hobby shop catering to the high dollar miniature trains and planes is a good place to look. Just be aware that if you snap a micro drill or tap off in the hole the only remaining option will be to locate an EDM shop that does micro tapping via Carbon EDM. Plan on roughly 80-200 dollars for that. BTW, I haven't had to do this for at least 15 years thus the wide range of pricing. BTW that particular need was due to a lazy moron in a machine shop who thought 1 1/2 turns on the tap was plenty for four #10-32 mounting holes on a 5000 dollar hardened die.

Slide back from GGI. They fixed broken screw, mounted optic and replaced tall sights with std height. Rezero at range this weekend and all is right with the world.