P09 Front Sight removal help

[wrigley]

Hi guys

I am new to the forum - I wanted to thank everyone in advance for the tremendous wealth of information shared here.  You have all really helped me come up to speed on these guns rather quickly.

I have 2 P09's.  I am attempting to swap the tritium sights from the FDE over to my black P09 for HD use.  I will install the CGW fiber optic combo on my FDE for USPSA.

The front sight on the black P09 tapped right off as expected.  The front sight on the FDE is giving me fits.  I am having a bear of a time getting it to budge.  The set screw came out cleanly, no issues there.  I am using the nylon-tipped pusher as supplied in the CGW sight kit.

Is there a trick here that I am missing?  Anything else I should try?

Thanks for your help,

Scott in CA

[Googe1227]

Try a little heat like a hair dryer. You could have some loctite residue holding it in place?

[Winkel]

You might try a few drops of penetrating oil around the base of the sight.  Let it soak overnight and try again.  Not sure how durable the tritium inserts are but I would be reluctant to put enough heat on it to affect any Loctite. 

[Googe1227]

I meant from the underside of the slide. My bad.

[wrigley]

Thanks gents. 

I will give both techniques a try and report back. 

[M1A4ME]

Use the oil, as suggested and give it a night to soak in as much as it can.

Do you have a bench with a wood top?  like a work bench, reloading bench, etc?

I turned my (barrel/guide/spring removed) slide upside down, placed the back of the sight against the edge/corner of the table and give the slide a good smack with that rubber/polymer faced hammer.

Seems to me that way, the impact is on the slide, not the sight and the wood will not harm the finish of the sight (corners) and absorb a little of the impact/force to cushion the sight insert (tritium vial).

The sight should just pop right out since its easy to put some force on the slide vs. hitting that small sight, or putting a punch edge on it (small surface area).

[copemech]

See if you can find a nylon dowel, I also use a piece of Oak, very hard oak.

I recently removed a stock front from mine, but the FO I installed is never coming out undamaged I am afraid!

[schmeky]

We have 2 things that work:

1)  Use a propane torch to slowly and evenly apply low heat to the underside of the slide through the muzzle opening right under the sight dovetail.  It may take several minutes, but check the slide by touch until it is very warm to mildly hot.  This will liquefy the factory applied Loctite.  However, you must tap the sight out while it's hot.  We have observed no finish damage.

2)  Cut a piece of genuine leather (not the man-made stuff) from an old belt.  Place this in front of the sight as a cushion.  Use a brass rod or some hardwood and tap it out. 

Best approach may be to use these together.  This has worked for us (so far).

[wrigley]

Reporting back.... no luck with the penetrating oil.

I'm having the same trouble pulling the factory fiber optic front off of my 97B...

I considered moving to the applying heat stage as suggested, but in the end I chickened out.

I'm going to ship both slides to schmeky so he can work his magic. 

[Tok36]

Reporting back.... no luck with the penetrating oil.

I'm having the same trouble pulling the factory fiber optic front off of my 97B...

I considered moving to the applying heat stage as suggested, but in the end I chickened out.

I'm going to ship both slides to schmeky so he can work his magic.

Good move. I have done the same in the past and i believe that i avoided damaging my CZ by doing so. Sometimes you just have to leave it to the pros.

[Firemanjones]

Wrigley, you are not the only one to chicken out on sight removal.
I can practically do anything on my CZs but I sent the slide to David for a front sight.

[ZiMoni]

Just to give some feedback on this one:
I took the approach with heat, but simply held the slid and used a Bic lighter. Make sure the flame goes into the barrel channel so to heats the underside of the front sight. Took about 20 seconds for the front sight to be hot to the touch, then put the slide back into vise and the with some taps the sight came right out. 
This all followed about 10 minutes of working on it and not making progress at all.
20 seconds of heat and about that in tapping and out it popped. There was quite a bit of goo under the sight, I am confident that without the heat I would have given up.

[eyetat]

I'm glad every one helped you out .my trick is to use a pen type sodering iron and heat the eara up real hot just my trick for locktite.