Need Recomendation For Sight Pusher

[J.BELLINO]

Looking in Brownells Cat.#57 I see two reasonably priced sight pushers for home workshop. One is PI Inc. PI 500 (universal) says it will work on both front and rear dovetail sights......the other is MGW pistol specific model for 1911 Colts..(will this work on Colt clones?) will it work on front dovetail sights also?......Which is my best bet ....anyone here have any experience with either of these products or is ther another you would recommend from another supplier?
Thanks for any info.,
I just received an E mail from MGW and they stated that their puisher would not due for my needs......so it's the PI P500 or any other recommendations you folks can make.

 

[TarpleyG]

Ball peen hammer and brass and nylon punches using a vise. Works for everything I have ever done and a boatload cheaper too.

Greg

 

[Jim Watson]

I had a sight put on this morning. My FLG milled the dovetail and drifted in the new fibre optic sight my shaky eyes appreciate. He used a large brass hammer and a mild steel punch. He says soft punches like brass and nylon will deform and glance off a tight dovetail. His steel punch is still softer than the average sight, he showed me where the sight was marking the punch, not vice versa. He uses a nickel punch on less tight sights, it doesn't mark like brass.

He has a screw jack sight pusher and says that its steady pressure is less effective on a tight sight than a sharp blow.

Of course he has been doing this for a long time and he seldom misses a lick with hammer and punch.

Oh, yeah. His punches are square or rectangular, not round. Look at the dovetail. Where is it round? Round punches are for pins.

But that is what works for him, I don't do the work and I can't say it will work for you.

 

[J.BELLINO]

Jim,
Thanks for the reply....but I'm a newbie at this and don't want to start beating on things with a hammer....I'll leave that for the more experienced.

 

[yoky]

There is several ways how to move or replace sights. Time ago I have bought P 500 and it works perfect. My Kimber had sights which were sitting in its position very firmly and I was not able to get them out. I have destroyed 3 nylon brasses and no results. Using P500 have helped me a lot. Now this instrument is sitting in my range bag and I can use it every time where I am on shooting range and I need to adjust sights or make some correction. You have to be very careful when you adjusting sight pusher and you don’t want to damage slide. However when you are doing everything in accordance with instruction nothing can happened.
BR
yoky

 

[Walt Sherrill]

With some guns and some sights -- especiallly sights with tritium inserts -- you can have problems using a punch and hammer. (A very competent gunsmith once destroyed a Trijicon front tritium sight while installing it on one of my guns, using hammer and punch.)

Some guns, like my CZ-75 based guns, have very, very tight dovetails.

I picked up the P500 Universal Sight tool, and it seems to work pretty well.

But if this is simply one set of sights -- you'll do better by having a gunsmith install them. (If you order the sights through a gunsmith, you might get it done even more cheaply...)