Removing staked rear sight/what should I have done?

[Ed Ames]

I went to remove the sights on a CZ82 last night and ran into a bit of a problem. The front sight was easy... tap out the roll pin and drive the sight out of the forward facing dovetail with a punch.

Rear sight was a pain. It was staked and not in a small way. Someone really clubbed it with a center punch or something. I tried drifting it out with a pin punch ... after a lot of whacking it moved about a 10th of an inch. I tried reversing and driving the sight back and forth a bit to losen the stake but it did no good. I was afraid I would damage the slide. I could drift the sight only so far to the right at which point it just got stuck. I tried penetrating oil to see if that would help... tried a 2lb hammer (carefully applied)... nothing.

Of course with all the thumping I finally managed to ding the slide with the punch. Not wanting to do any more damage at that point I did what I think I should've done sooner: sliced the sight down the middle with a cutoff wheel. Once it was almost cut through I tapped it out without any fuss. I had hoped to keep the removed sight but better to wreck a sight than to wreck the slide.

The problem was the stake. The edge of the dovetail was pretty seriously deformed. I had to dress the dovetail with a small file to get the replacement rear sight to slide past the stake point.

Fortunately this was an already dinged up surplus gun and the plan was to do at least a basic refinish. I fitted the tritium sights and they look good so far. I've got to decide whether to live with the ding in the slide (it's really mostly in the paint they use on the '82s) or try to strip and refinish the slide.

I'd like to know how others would appraoch this problem so that next time I don't end up dinging up a more valuable gun. Is there a way to deal with stakes like that? Or is the rule "3 whacks then cut?"

Tips?

 

[Jim K]

There is no "rule." And really no good way to remove a sight that is really staked in, although I have used an arbor press with success. It takes a lot of force to break a stake point, which is why the technique is used when the idea is to make a semi-permanent assembly. You can reduce the chance of hitting the slide by clamping the slide in the vise in such a way that only that part even with the bottom of the sight is showing and exposed to the punch.

But in the end you used what is probably the best approach.

Jim

 

[Ed Ames]

Arbor presses are great, aren't they? Unfortunately I left mine (and most of my tools) in CA when I moved.

Does the back-n-forth approach ever work or is it just a good way to risk dinging things up while loosening the dovetail? I've seen it recommended for staked screws (turn screw 1/4th turn back and forth a few times before removing).

The cutoff wheel did a good job but it seems wrong to destroy a perfectly good gun part if you don't need to....

Thanks!