XD Talk

Myk9noseknows · 05-08-2007, 04:42 PM

I know the XD is notorious for having stubborn sights. I have the Midway sight pusher and it worked great on my Kimber, (kimber is also notorious for being immovable). The front sight actually came off Smooooooooth.

Before I put all my elbow grease into the XD sight, I wanted to check and see if they needed to be removed from a certain direction? I'm not desperate enough to go cut them off with the dremmel, so I wanted to ask people who have removed their sights, (or you gunsmiths out there, Scott!!), which direction to push them out.

Removed right to left, or left to right? Or on the XD, does it really matter?

I put some Remington oil w/ Teflon on them overnight to help the process.

bward76 · 05-08-2007, 04:45 PM

I couldnt measure a difference in each side of the dovetails with my micrometer to 1/1000th of an inch. I just banged them out from passenger to drivers side and installed in reverse. but I dont think it would have mattered either way. I have an xd40SC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myk9noseknows

I know the XD is notorious for having stubborn sights. I have the Midway sight pusher and it worked great on my Kimber, (kimber is also notorious for being immovable). The front sight actually came off Smooooooooth.

Before I put all my elbow grease into the XD sight, I wanted to check and see if they needed to be removed from a certain direction? I'm not desperate enough to go cut them off with the dremmel, so I wanted to ask people who have removed their sights, (or you gunsmiths out there, Scott!!), which direction to push them out.

Removed right to left, or left to right? Or on the XD, does it really matter?

I put some Remington oil w/ Teflon on them overnight to help the process.

DNM · 05-08-2007, 06:18 PM

Ditto... when swapping some sights on mine we went R to L uninstall and reverse (L to R) install.

Boricua · 05-10-2007, 05:22 PM

I pushed mine out from the ejection portside to the opposite side, right to left. Back when I was asking around the people who know seemed to agree with this. But I have also heard all the othere ways as well.

leeindy · 05-10-2007, 05:24 PM

doesnt matter either way

Myk9noseknows · 05-10-2007, 11:13 PM

Well I gave it my all on my new XD45 Compact. Tightened the sight pusher, tightened the vice around the pusher. Tackled it from every direction.
Wouldn't budge, not even a millimeter. the Slide started to get marred because the damn thing wanted to twist up under the pressure of the pusher rod. I was so desperate I tied the slide down with zip ties to keep it from moving,,,din't work. Good thing I'm gonna do a color job on it...that should touch it up

I'm sending it to Springer Precision for a trigger job and he's gonna remove the sights for me. I almost got out the dremmel with a cutting wheel and figured I'd let it be his problem, (sorry Scott, i know you're used to it by now).

I'd recommend the sight pusher for any 1911, the thing can grip the slide no problem and took off and put on a great set of nights. But since the XD slide is tapered bottom to top, the tool shows it's flaw.

I would have taken pictures, but who needs to see a picture of sights that don't move

. I guess a pic of my slide in a vice and sight pusher with 12 zip ties holding it down would have been humorous

Chewie146 · 05-10-2007, 11:20 PM

I used a 32 oz ball peen hammer and a steel punch. If you do what I did, be careful not to mess up the slide/finish with the steel punch. I then installed XS sights. They haven't moved, but were much easier to put in.

leeindy · 05-10-2007, 11:56 PM

heat the slide from underneath. dont want to heat the sights too.

rgeliske · 05-12-2007, 11:43 AM

One thing that helped when I removed the sights from my XD9SC was to use a block of oak with a hole drilled the size of the punch. Use the wood block to hold and guide the punch jus clamp it to the slide and beat away. It seems to work better than trying to hold the punch with one hand and the hammer with the other. I had to do some fitting of the TFOs to get them to install smoothly but the rear has a set screw so you can tighten it after installation. The front I left a little snug and used more force installing it. TFOs work great on a SC I think better than they do on a Service model.