Perhaps, but he better be an experienced machinist
Wonderfinish is essentially a nitride coating.
I work with nitride coatings all the time (Milling, drilling, borring, even engraving on the stuff), and I can tell you that while it is possible, it is a pain in the ass. I work with Nitride as a professional in the field of manufacturing, I make custom pistols as a hobby (I let Caspian do the menial work, though
)
Machinists are by definition competent gunsmiths, gunsmiths are poor excuses for machinists (at least those that didn't become machinists before getting into the firearms trade). Find a gunsmith with classic machining in their past (most custom pistolsmiths
might pass for a good machinist) for modifications like this.
For one this job will require special tooling, plain ol' carbide won't cut it (not acceptably, anyway), you'll need an endmill coated with TiN or TiAlN (a cousin of nitride) to survive the rough cut, and keep from breaking the tiny cutter and leaving flecks of extremely hard ceramic embedded in the steel. Cutting the dovetail will take very patient hands, and also a coated cutter.
Note that others in the thread said just using carbide to rough it out would work, and it would. The results wouldn't be pretty, however, and you have a relatively tight tolerance on the dovetail so that your sight doesn't fall off the slide all the time. Open it up too big, you just slagged a slide.
Take it to a gunshop that offers repairs, and ask to see the shop, out of curiosity. Look up Bridgeport mills, Hardinge Lathes, and CNC machinery on google. If they have fairly nice looking mills, lathes, or even some CNC machinery, have them do it for you. If all you see is a beat up mill and dingy lathe, take it somewhere else.
