Before you start carving on that irreplaceable slide...
You might want to look for one of the Pachmayr mounts that replaces the right grip panel. It's not beautiful, but it does the trick, and it has the advantage that you're not subjecting that expensive sight to being slammed back and forth every time you squeeze off a shot. The Pachmayr is held on with the right-side grip screws, plus two long pins that replace the trigger pivot pin and another pin. These help distribute the recoil load so you don't risk pounding the grip screw bushings out of the frame. I think that's more of an issue with the alloy frame of the Model 39 and 439 and the heavier recoil of those guns, which the mount also fits, of course. Recoil of a Model 52 is about as mild as a centerfire auto gets, in my opinion. I was given the mount and a cheap red-dot by a friend, an extremely experienced instructor, armorer and gunsmith. I'd been griping about having hit a plateau in my accuracy with the 52. He gave me the setup and told me to put in on and go practice. I argued that the matches I was practicing for were iron-sights only, so there was no point learning to shoot the course with a red-dot. He looked at me and said, "Just do it." So i did, and of course my scores increased dramatically. Then I noticed something else. I was also running the course with a Ruger Mk II 22/45, also a gift from him, with a short bull barrel that roughly approximated the Mod. 52, to save on ammo costs. I couldn't put the red-dot on the Mk II, so I'd continued shooting with the iron sights. Lo and behold, my score with the 22/45, iron sights and all, mirrored the improvement with the 52 and the red-dot. Finally the light came on in my head and I realized that the visual feedback from the red-dot was letting me see the mistakes I was making with the 52 and I was learning how to shoot it, finally. Thanks, Larry! RIP.
