Springfield XD40 Night sights

[BigNicky]

Hey all, I own an XD40 without night sights and would like to upgrade. Is this a job for a professional gunsmith or am I able to perform this upgrad myself. Also, are these only available from aftermarket companies? I was not able to find them on Springfield's website. Thanks for your help

[Rule .308]

Take a look over hear,http://www.xdtalk.com/forums/ I think you will find that the concensus is that they are a S.O.B to get out. If I recall, they use the same sights and tools as the Sigs. My Sigs were a breeze to change out but I have not messed with any of my XD's yet.

[ArmedWolf]

yeah I ended up doing it myself, but wouldn't again. the price of the stuff to just get it all done makes it worth just taking it to a gunsmith. unless it was like mine, Who wanted $50 even with the stock sights already removed, still $50. so I got angry and did it myself.

They remove right to left, not the standard, and install left to right.

they are factory installed with a press. I tried to vise mine out with no luck and resorted to clamping the slide to my wood table drilling a hole for the sight to drop into and wrapping the slide first in leather, then hammered the stock sights with a steel punch, few good whacks popped them out. but its very risky to do.

Nightsights cannot be struck! you will break the tubes in them and ruin the sights. they have to be pressed in. qualified sight tools will cost you $500+ and what a gunsmith uses.

Just make sure your gunsmith has worked on XDs and understands the non standard removal/installation direction so he doesn't destroy your slide.

There is also minor fitting involved to be sure they are set right and even.
If I had another, I'd have a gunsmith do it.

[randy]

If you don't want to buy the tool to do it with. www.davesmetalworks.com can do it. He also can do trigger jobs and all sorts of stuff with XD's.

[Fuzzy5]

The factory sights on my XD40 were EXTREMELY difficult for me to get out. I laid the slide on the edge of a solid table with a thick layer of newspaper under it. After pounding the mother-loving snot out of the sights with hundreds of solid strikes from a hammer and brass punch, they finally came out. The first 1/4 inch or so of the tip of that brass punch was totally deformed.

Before installing my Meprolights, I filled the dovetails on the slide with white lithium grease. I then proceeded to insert the sights with the hammer and brass punch again, but using little love taps this time instead of hammer-from-the-sky Thor thunder. They went in nice and easy. After getting them set where I wanted them, I was worried about them moving too easily if the gun took some knocks. I wiped the excess grease out of the dovetails and found that the sights still moved fairly easily but not nearly as easily as before. A few days later, the sights would not move when struck with as hard a shot as I was willing to deliver for fear of damaging the tritium vials.

If I wanted more peace of mind, I could probably squirt some degreaser into the dovetails but then I'd have to deal with the possibility of rust. I like mine the way they are.

[sorensen440]

I highly recommend letting a smith do it
the factory sights as mentioned are a ***** to remove and you need to buy a tool to install the new ones

I went with http://www.shop.xd-hs2000.com/main.sc
I had him durcoat the slide while it was there and was very pleased with the results of both

[ocabj]

I just mailed my slide to Springer Precision and had them install my Dawson fiber optic sights. I used a pencil to index the rear sight and after all the drift punch hammering, it didn't budge the sight one bit.