Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading anyone install sights on an xd themselves ?

Is it possible with a brass punch and hammer?

Thanks

Had a gunsmith bud do two of mine

They are T I G H T

I had the sight pusher.....he did 'em

I gave him the pusher.....IIRC it was $65 ish

Save yourself the grief....take the slide to a gunsmith

Don't mar up the slide

I’ve done close to one hundred sets back when I was gunsmithing.

Put some Kroil or something on the dovetails, may not help but it won’t hurt.

Make damn sure the slide is clamped securely in a vise with a set of leather jaws. Rubber jaws will absorb too much of the force and the slide will move too much. Don’t collapse the rails with a cheater on the vise handle or anything, but you want it tight so it will not move.

Don’t plan on saving the old sights, if they come out okay then great but don’t count on it.

Once you have it clamped up tight with only about 1/4” of the top of the slide above the vise jaws use a smooth faced steel punch to drive them out. A brass punch will deform before you can get them moving and you’ll end up with gold marks that are hard to get off on the slide. Put a cotton patch between the steel punch and the sights if you want, it can help stop you from scratching anything if you slip. Use a good sized hammer, no 4 or 8 ounce ball peen for this job. One firm tap with a 16oz hammer will move the sight better than swinging for the fence with a little jeweler hammer.

Once you have the stock ones out fit the dovetails on the replacements slowly with a sharp dovetail file. You want them to be snug but no sense in fitting them like the factory where you need a hydraulic press to put them in.

A little time in the freezer will help . Hasbeen

Sight pusher

Mine laughed at the sight pusher! I couldn't get the front sight out after securing the thing properly, an overnight kroil soak, and using a 3lb hammer. I actually had to send it back to Springfield with the replacement sight I wanted installed.

SA will swap 'em out

They don't work cheap

But they'll have the sights you want

Why in the hell don't they ship 'em out with suppressor high sights ?

This one did...along with a 35 rd stick

Eat your heart out CA.NY....IL.....


[img]https://i.imgur.com/rroK6hq.jpg?1[/img]

I installed Trijicon HD night sights on my XD9 Service. It was a bitch and I worked in a machine shop at the time! I tried a bunch of things like arbor presses and whatnot to try and get them out to no avail after failing with punches. Finally I put it on a grinder and cut the old sight so I could collapse it in and loosen the dovetail. It worked and I got it out and got the new sights installed. Had to file the bottom of the dovetail a little at a time. It's sweet now though. I just made witness marks where the old sights were and never needed to adjust the new ones. I've used that gun in many classes and carry it regularly.

Edit out the "?1" in your imgur link.