the Dagger stock white sights are decent in my opinion. so I wanted to update the front sight to a red tru glow that my eyes seem to pick up better than the white. so I bought a Glock front and rear sight removal tools.
in the pictures below you can see that the tool is thicker than the opening on the slide and the sight nut, so it does not fit. yes I could grind the too to fit which now make the tool weak. so I then tried the needle nose plier trick (which I hate) and nope that didn’t work either.
so then I wanted to see how the rear would work. using my brand new NcStar VISM rear sight tool after loosening the set screw it took more than what I was comfortable to put on the tool to finally get it to move.
so main question is what tool is PSA using to put the front screw in with and has anyone been able to get it out and what did you use?
also has anyone replaced the rear sight and was it almost stuck the entire way out?
My front sight tool fits over the front iron sight hexagon screw head. There’s no visible space between the tool and the front of the slide, but it fits. It’s hard to imagine that the added 0.11 mm in the radius of your front sight tool would make a difference. I’m not sure what to tell you other than to try to borrow a front sight tool from a friend, LGS, …
I can’t seem to take a decent picture of my front sight tool, but this is a stock photo. I’m wondering if this thickness (indicated by the red arrows) isn’t factoring into the situation.
I have changed out all the sights on my Glocks and thought the dagger would be no different. Boy was I wrong. I have just simple tools to change out the sights, but they are specific to Glock sights. Couldn’t budge the rear sight. Took the slide to my gunsmith who almost gave up in fear of breaking his tool. He was able to slide out that rear sight and said it was probably a little out of spec and the most difficult he had ever seen.
Just received my Dagger today at my local FFL and I switched out the standard steel to Ameriglo suppressor height sights. This is what transpired…
Had to heat up the front and rear sights with a butane torch (with the help of my gunsmith) to boil off the tremendous amount of blue loctite. You have to get it hot enough to see the loctite dissolving and bubbling off.
The front sight screw in the slide has issues with clearance with the front of the slide internally. I tried the TruGlo tool (too thick on the edges), the HiViz tool (thin enough to clear the slide but too short to get a good grip, and finally the Bastion Glock tool worked like a champ. (thin enough to clear the slide and grip big enough to get good torque.
When you torch the rear sight to burn off the loctite, you have to disassemble all the slide internals so you do not melt the plastic sleeves and other parts.
So, even after burning off the loctite and greasing up the rear sight, the standard steel sight would not budge with a hammer and brass punch. All the forum threads were just about dead on with this stubborn rear sight. So my gunsmith jumped in and used his giant MGW Pro sight mover to nervously push the rear sight out. It worked…like passing a Bill through Congress !
So what I learned from this frustrating and time consuming experience is…
If you have the tools, the time and the patience, go ahead and save some bucks doing it yourself.
(I upgraded the Dagger with a BCA threaded barrel ($64 shipped) and I already had Ameriglo suppressor sights removed from another gun)
Yes, it was tempting to spend the $50 extra to have the shorter night sights installed already but where is the fun in that?
I hope this helps because I only found one video on Youtube and that guy used an compressed Air Hammer to pound off the rear sight. (Not going to do that)
For what it’s worth, I’ve had to hacksaw out the rear sight of a Shield before (that broke a large sight removal tool). Although it sounds scary, if you go slowly, it’s actually a pretty easy job. Once you get the kerf about 75% of the way down, the sight sort of collapses onto itself and slides out easily.
I plan on replacing the rear sights on my Daggers (I have two now ) with Ameriglo serrated black models, and I since I don’t plan on keeping the rear sights, I might resort to this method if I run into similarly stubborn rears. From what I’ve read, most of the removal methods sound like the factory rears won’t be much good afterwards, anyway.
What size is the set screw for the rear sight? I went through both metric and standard sizes and nothing I had in either pack fit. I even tried some star bits and nothing came close there either. I also had a heck of a time trying to replace my front sight as well. I have 2 different tools both of which fit and have room from the slide but can’t get a good enough grip to budge it. I guess the torch is the key
The use of a soldering iron to directly apply heat to the screw works well. This includes the Dagger front iron sight, rear iron sight, and MRDS cut cover plate. However, I believe (hopefully) PSA no longer ships the MRDS cut cover plate installed.
Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been traveling. I seem to recall the rear iron sight set screw is in between sizes. I don’t have a good answer for you. Sorry.
Thanks for the tip on using a hacksaw to remove the sight. Now pushing in the new sights is giving me a lot of trouble. I have spent a lot of time sanding down the bottom of my rear sight but it’s still impossible to get into the slide. I’m hammering the sight a lot harder than I should and they’re still not going in. Any ideas? Did anyone else have problems getting new rear sights in? I’m really regretting this slide at this point. If I damage the tritium in the rear sight, I’ve lost the point of getting an inexpensive slide.
You should be using a sight pusher, not a hammer. Use the proper tools. And do not sand down the sight as it should engage with friction. Sanding makes it more susceptible to moving.
) with Ameriglo serrated black models, and I since I don’t plan on keeping the rear sights, I might resort to this method if I run into similarly stubborn rears. From what I’ve read, most of the removal methods sound like the factory rears won’t be much good afterwards, anyway.