Ugh, I hate installing sights now. When I was younger it seemed a lot easier.

I'm installing a second pair of sights using a Gen4 Sight-Tool.com pusher. The first time I used it on a Beretta, I managed to bend the Ameriglo front sight. Everything seemed like it was aligned properly, so I assumed I didn't remove enough material, didn't use lube, and it exerted too much force.

This time around I made sure to take even more time and what I thought were the proper precautions for installing an Ameriglo sight on my M&P M2.0. I used an EZE-LAP Medium Grit Hone and Stone Diamond Sharpener to remove material so that I could tap the sight into the dovetail relatively easily about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way in. Before I tapped it in I even used some lube. I say "relatively easily" because it's not the first time I've tried installing M&P sights and they've always been tight and I've never been successful hammering a sight into place (and have always ended up chickening out and having a gunsmith finish the front sight).

This is the first time I was hell-bent on doing it myself and used my sight pusher. I've used it plenty of times on Glock rear sights, but those are a breeze and don't even need a sight pusher to begin with (and I've changed at least a half dozen of those just using a punch and 6 oz hammer. Again, everything seemed to go relatively smoothly. With the naked eye the sight channel looks perfectly flush on each axis with the base of the sight, but as soon as I lined up the front and rear sights optically, I could tell there wasn't exactly equal height/equal light. It's ever so slightly bent. The tritium appears intact (I literally cracked the tritium vial in the Ameriglo sights I installed on my Beretta with this pusher).

I guess my question is twofold:

1. One, it's probably me, but this is also a relatively cheap sight pusher (I think I paid $50-$60 for it). Is it possible it exerts too much force so that it's hard for me to judge whether I've removed enough material from the sight?

2. What are the chances of me using the pusher in the reverse direction and successfully bending it back?

Thanks ahead of time. Maybe I need a better pusher, or perhaps I just need to leave sight installations on anything but a Glock to the gunsmiths.

If you are tearing up sights putting the sight IN, you're definitely doing it wrong. Dawson Precision makes sights and installation kits, and has great instructions.

Instructions for DP Parts

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