Apex gritty.

[dimitri]

I bought the 'sight adjustment punch' from Testimonials . A beautiful piece of brass, that got beat up when i tried to move the rear sight of my shield. I ended up buying a short, fat, flat head screw driver and used that. The first 10 minutes I replaced the scotch tape every few hits. I soon gave up on caring what the rear sight looked like and hammered away. It took a bit of a beating ( some scratches and discoloration ), but it finally moved. I figured I'd be replacing them at some point, so who cares. It is a carry piece after all.

The slide was held tightly by a 60lb vise.

Hope this helps.

 

[SmurfHunter]

I bought the 'sight adjustment punch' from Testimonials . A beautiful piece of brass, that got beat up when i tried to move the rear sight of my shield. I ended up buying a short, fat, flat head screw driver and used that. The first 10 minutes I replaced the scotch tape every few hits. I soon gave up on caring what the rear sight looked like and hammered away. It took a bit of a beating ( some scratches and discoloration ), but it finally moved. I figured I'd be replacing them at some point, so who cares. It is a carry piece after all.


The slide was held tightly by a 60lb vise.

Hope this helps.

I was basically using the same thing. Large flat head. I actually deformed the flathead and still didnt budge at all. I'm going to try again though.

 

[Air Winger]

Same thing... Couldn't get the rear site to budge. Called my trusty smith and he told me to suck it up and smack the "h" out of it. (He didn't have a site pusher for it)
So, an online visit to Brownells and more $$ than I'd like to talk about , yielded an MGW 319 Shield specific site pusher. When it arrived, I got right after it only to find it still wouldn't budge . As a last shot, I put the slide in the freezer for a couple hours, and voila! Even so, it took a lot of force to get it to move.
After the site was off, I found there was a ridge on each side of the site that was obviously meant to create the forced fit in the dovetail. Since I intend to replace the sites down the road sometime, I carefully filed down the ridge on the front side of the site to reduce the resistance when I replaced it. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread or another thread, there is the set screw to retain the site.
Ultimately the hard sear and the USB got installed and the trigger is much smoother. (I also cleaned up the USB bore) And, as mentioned many times before, my groups tightened up as well.

 

[M&P_313]

A little 320 grit sand paper right here gets rid of the gritty feeling, no matter if stock or APEX. Takes just a few minutes.

You will see the machine lines in the metal surface. A few thousand trigger pulls gets rid of it, but the sand paper is faster.

This is exactly what I did to my 9c.. What a difference it made, I couldn't believe it. But it's still about 90% as I did not have a block for my sand paper, and did not want to round off those "Angles" too much. I almost bought the USB kit, but this did the trick for me!

 

[SmurfHunter]

This is exactly what I did to my 9c.. What a difference it made, I couldn't believe it. But it's still about 90% as I did not have a block for my sand paper, and did not want to round off those "Angles" too much. I almost bought the USB kit, but this did the trick for me!

How many swips are you doing with the paper?

 

[TahoeDust]

How many swips are you doing with the paper?

That is like asking how many licks it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop. It is going to be different for everyone depending on how rough the surface is to start, the pressure applied, and the sandpaper used. You just want to smooth the surface not reshape it.

 

[AwfAxis]

Keep in mind this is not a precision part. All it does is push up the striker block button. I might even suggest an arc on top to lighten the pull. This is what the APEX replacement button does at the top end (has a rounded shape rather than a more squared off shape).

 

[SmurfHunter]

That is like asking how many licks it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop. It is going to be different for everyone depending on how rough the surface is to start, the pressure applied, and the sandpaper used. You just want to smooth the surface not reshape it.

Obviously I understand this. But I was asking for a starting point. Clearly I'm not going to use excessive force. No need. I'm using 400 grit sp. so I'm actually using a littler finer paper.

 

[SmurfHunter]

Keep in mind this is not a precision part. All it does is push up the striker block button. I might even suggest an arc on top to lighten the pull. This is what the APEX replacement button does at the top end (has a rounded shape rather than a more squared off shape).

Well the USB will be installed. And I'll also clear the USB bore when I have the sights off.

 

[SmurfHunter]

Well after some 400 grit paper and elbow grease the trigger feels a million times better. I tried the USB test using a punch and pressing it in at an angle and its actually not bad. So for me the gritty feeling was coming from the trigger bar. I could clearly see and feeling little burs.
I also froze the slide for 24 hours and tried to get the sight off again. Didnt move at all. And I beat the hell out of it. Marked it up good. The sight that is. Gonna have to use a Smith for the USB kit.

 

[TahoeDust]

I ended up having a smith push the sight off my shield for the USB install. Well worth the $20 I paid him.

 

[OneJzsupra]

I ended up having a smith push the sight off my shield for the USB install. Well worth the $20 I paid him.

I had a sight pusher that I borrowed from my brother, it marked it up pretty good. I used some stuff to reblu it and it pretty much matched the shade of my gun.

 

[TahoeDust]

I had a sight pusher that I borrowed from my brother, it marked it up pretty good. I used some stuff to reblu it and it pretty much matched the shade of my gun.

Mine were a total loss. Luckily the gunsmith had an extra set lying around that he had taken off someone else's when they were installing night sights. He replaced the marred one with them for free. I had never dealt with him before...nice guy.

 

[OneJzsupra]

Mine were a total loss. Luckily the gunsmith had an extra set lying around that he had taken off someone else's when they were installing night sights. He replaced the marred one with them for free. I had never dealt with him before...nice guy.

That's awfully nice of him.

 

[SmurfHunter]

Mine were a total loss. Luckily the gunsmith had an extra set lying around that he had taken off someone else's when they were installing night sights. He replaced the marred one with them for free. I had never dealt with him before...nice guy.

Man hope this isn't my case. Damage wise that is

 

[TahoeDust]

Man hope this isn't my case. Damage wise that is

I hope not too. I am fairly convinced it was unavoidable on mine. He is a highly recommended gunsmith and even with his high dollar pusher the amount of force that he had to apply to break the sight free was enough to distort the metal of the sight pretty severely. Maybe someone else could have done it another way, or maybe he could have if he did not know he had the comfort of having another sight to replace it with.

 

[randyr5]

I tried radiusing my striker block with great success. Night and day difference in the trigger pull. I didn't go quite as aggressive of an angle as the Apex USB, but after filing, sanding and polishing it's as slick as glass and passes all of the safety tests. And as Bob stated, smoothing out the channel that the SB rides in and polishing the trigger bar is also a plus.

Stock on left, radiused on right

 

[dullh]

Do it all the way or don't do it at all.