Does this look as bad to you as it does to me?

Honestly, I feel your pain on this one. I had a similar situation occur a couple of months ago.

Check out this thread:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=347590

Still pretty steamed over what happened since it set me back a good piece financially speaking and I actually "swore off" the entire shop. After reading my thread, you'll probably find yourself asking the same question that I did: Why didn't the fool just stop after the first one and not screw up my other guns? Who knows?

Coincidentally, the damage to your rear sight looks quite similar to that on my rear sights.

After that occurred, I went back to the shop and let them know that they could "kiss" any future sales from me "good-bye" (I usually purchase upwards of 7-10 handguns, rifles and shotguns every year). They have twice called me in the interim since the last post of the thread above offering to refund the remaining $60.00 "gun 'butcher' fee" in the hope of regaining my business, but that ain't gonna happen since such a "feeble" attempt doesn't begin to even address the actual loss incurred. In a word, screw 'em...

I have now purchased "user-installable" sights from Arotek (they make night sights, too) so that I need never rely on some 'hack', who hasn't the common sense to stop when he sees damage occurring, ever again.

Sorry to hear of your problem. Hope that you can rectify it to your satisfaction.

Let us know how you fare on your attempt to address it with the "idiot" that did your 'job'.

All the best,

Just make sure to examine the "job" before leaving the shop.

Don't be afraid to yell, especially when there are other customers in the store. Nothing like driving away business in response to such poor performance. Perhaps your "idiot" will come to his senses quicker than mine did.

Good luck.

Yes it does. I installed some Ameriglo sights on my G19, and they went in very, very hard. I had to sand the bottom of the sight with some 400 wet/dry, before they would go in all the way. But at least I had a sight pusher, unlike your gunsmith

You know why that set of photos really makes me mad? I have several Glocks. I have installed Tritium sights on all of them. I went online to a Glock shop and bought a rear sight installer. You dismount the slide and place it in the fixture and use a thumbscrew to gently push the rear sight out...Then you back off the thumbscrew and position the new rear sight and use the screw to push it back into position. If the jackass who did your Glocks was so stupid that he thought he need to "punch" it out and then in he should be blackballed, published, talked about...anything else you can think of. A smith should never practice his bag of tricks on a customer's gun. It takes me about 20 minutes to do a Glock's front and rear sights...after laying out the tools I will need. That ain't hurrying and it ain't lollygagging. But it is a professional job. Regards; Al

I've used punches on sights forever, but none never looked like that because I don't use a friggin' tool steel punch.

Tell your "smith" he needs to get acquainted with a certain alloy known as BRASS.

Tell your "smith" he needs to get acquainted with a certain alloy known as BRASS.

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Though that would be preferable to what he used, if he really is going to work on Glock's he needs to have Glock tools (sight presses). If he doesn't want to make that investment he should refer his customers to someone that can do a cosmetically satisfactory job after all replacing sights isn't rocket science. Needs to take a little pride in his work.

I agree with that and add this. I have a respect for tritium sights. Maybe that's dumb, but I am never going to beat or bang around on sights with tritium gas in a glass capsule. It might be dangerous and it will surely ruin a set of expensive sights.

Same deal here

...

Long story short, took my Px4 in for new Trijicon night sights.. They had my gun 2 weeks, and no sights in yet.. So I went in with my own Night Sights, and vola!! they just got them in.. Your gun will be rdy tomorrow..

But I said, put on these sights from Night sights, but I'll keep the Trijicons just in case..

And same deal, Sights cost, plus 30 bucks for install, and the gunsmith made 30 fast bucks, because he beat the old ones off, and beat the new ones on, (he was in a hurry, no doubt) and in my case, the rear 2 dots went in clean but the front sight was mangled on, and I had, have, 4 vice marks on the slide, 2 of which I painted so ya can't see it unless I point it out, but the 2 front chips, can't hold the paint with heat, along with scratch marks where he tried to knock the front sight off in the wrong direction, and then figured out the right ways to get them off and on, so I live with it, as it is a working gun..

But, I bought a Sight pusher and replaced the front sight with a smaller height-wise, front sight without the rectangle, tall, sharp edged corners (that night sight was from Night Sights, as I had ordered them after the first week had gone by, so I had their rear, white/glow-orange rear sights put on along with their front, but too tall, sharp edges sight, and removed it and put on the front Trijicon sight that was beveled low in the rear and no sharp corners, on myself, along with pushing the rears over a tad to the right for accuracy his original set up did not have, as the icing on a bitter, cake..

I feel your pain, buddy, make no mistake.. the question is, for them to make it "all" right, how long will you be without that gun? In my case, it was the only handgun I had, and needed back, so I chose to accept the flaws, get past it, which I did, and finish the job right, myself. And I have never worried about putting another scratch on that gun, "by me" and I haven't..


Ls

4 vice marks on the slide,

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I know if they marked my slide they would have one used pistol on their hand for sale.

Using a sight pusher and a padded jaw vise, the nice lady from Glockmeister installed Meprolights on mine in a few minutes while I waited, with no damage to anything. Imagine that. And when the front sight later mysteriously just stopped glowing (faulty part), she put another one on for me. (I seem to have "infant mortality" problems with night sights.)

Speaking of which, you might want to take the gun into a dark room and see if your sight still glows. All that hammering could not have done the ampoules any good.

Two weeks for a sight installation is a bit overboard. I've had night sights installed on four different Glocks over the years by the same armorer and it took less than 20 minutes from start to finish each time. Took longer to Loc-Tite them that it did the actual installation. He was professional, used the sight pusher like it was his best friend, and let me watch the whole time. I keep going back to him for work.

Did he jam a rear sight designed for another pistol or model onto your slide? Quality sights, especially Novak, should install without having Popeye as your workmate. Did you pick out the sights and hand them to him, or did he install what he had in stock without you seeing them?

His work, all the way around, would cause the red flags to go up, which it has with you. Let him make it right, then find a more competent smith who cares about their work and the minor things, like attention to detail.

It's entirely possible to install night sights without a sight pusher, and leave no marks. A Nylon sight punch works perfectly if the sight fits the slide dovetail properly.

The thing is, most sights come to you slightly oversize so they can be perfectly fit to the dovetail on the gun.

You use a flat file and just take a few frog-hairs off the bottom of the sight dovetail until it fits the slide properly.

Tight, but not so tight you have to beat it on with a steel punch & 2 pound hammer!

Once it's fit to the slide, take it back off, degrease everything, apply the Blue Lock-Tight, and put it back on.

DO NOT file or change the dovetail in the slide.
If you make it bigger to fit the sights, the next set of sights may be too loose.

rcmodel

I had the same thing happen to me four years ago. Same sights, same gun, same crappy install. After fighting with the smith and getting nowhere I bought another rear sight and installed it myself. All I used was some fine sandpaper(on the bottom of the sight) and a nylon punch. No problem

Hopefully this time he'll use a proper sight pusher and not his teeth.

I got some meprolights installed on a Glock at the gun show this past weekend. $80 and 15 minutes later (and he had a little trouble getting the new rear sight to line up in the dovetail properly, would have been 10 minutes otherwise) they were installed and not bashed up.
ETA- That's $80 for the sights, free install.

I would have him pay you back & I'd go somewhere else for the install...when it comes to my guns, smiths only get one chance

I might give the Smith another chance but if he gave me any attitude I would walk.

Should have used a sight tool for installation. For sure a bubba job.

The obvious reason the sight looks like that is because it doesn't say Glock on it. Anything with 'Glock' on it is near equal to strength, durability and attitude as Chuck Norris himself. Had it been a Glock sight the steel punch would have melted from fear.

In all seriousness, good luck with it.

The obvious reason the sight looks like that is because it doesn't say Glock on it. Anything with 'Glock' on it is near equal to strength, durability and attitude as Chuck Norris himself. Had it been a Glock sight the steel punch would have melted from fear.

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I am still laughing. I had to read it four times because it was so flippin' funny.

A+ for you, equitytrader.

All of Chuck Norris' guns are safe queens;

Chuck inserts the bullets manually ("Hold this against your chest a minute, Please? Thank you. Now hold still..." Roundhouse kick, no overpenetration).
A little humor to ease the pain, but...
Novak would have had it done properly in a week...

Cheers, TF