P30 Night Sights / Tooltech

[sentinel]

I just got my P30 slide back from Tooltech Gunsight and couldn't be more pleased. Turnaround time was less than 2 weeks and the LE cost was $169 and change shipped. I had them install the yellow rear sight and green front sight inserts with white outlines. They are brighter than they appear in the pictures. Damn they're nice.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00306.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00311.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00308.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00318.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00319.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00321.jpg

[gfgjr100]

Nice job on those pics!! I've been trying to post pics on here but couldn't do them justice in low light.

I just got mine back from ToolTech this week and did the same setup as you with the yellow, green and rings. I wasn't expecting mine until the end of April with their estimated 3-4 week turnaround but they came in under 2 weeks also.

[MaverickH1]

So, in summary, you paid $170 to have cross-eyed night sights.

Personally, I would have chosen to wait on Mepros or Trijicons.

[gfgjr100]

Mav,
Sorry, not sure what you mean by "cross-eyed". If it is because Sentinel's tritium doesn't look centered in the white ring, I think that's just camera angle. Some of my pics did the same thing but I'll insert a pic of mine below where they are dead center.

The vials are Trijicon and ToolTech does custom work directly for Trijicon.

As far as cost goes, my main justification was that I wanted them sooner than May or June .. or July .. or ??? But also, a set of Mep or Trij sights plus a $50 gunsmith install is still going to run ballpark of $150. That, plus then you need to re-sight them and do some taps after the install.

btw, I'll push Glock sights in and out all day long with a somewhat low cost Glockmeister sight tool but I've yet to find a somewhat low cost HK sight tool - and I just don't feel comfortable using a wooden dowel to tap my HK sights in and out. Till then, I would be stuck having to pay gunsmiths their rates.

The ToolTech people are very nice and I spoke to them a few times over the phone. I did offer polite feedback that their price is on the high side and I had some self-convincing to do on myself. And, if Meps and Trij were available now, I'd have gone that route. I suggested that they should strongly consider dropping their price by about $30 to stay competetive. They seemed like they were going to consider it at least.

Take my word that they are centered and appear so in the left pic but seem slightly off-center in the right pic due to camera angle ..
http://i711.photobucket.com/albums/ww117/gfgjr100/P30/ToolTechP30-InLight.jpg

[MaverickH1]

Mav...

See, yours look roughly centered, his don't. Camera angle has nothing to do with it because the vial and the white area are on the same plane in his pictures, meaning they are exactly the same depth in the photo. The tritium vile is certainly offset a little on the rear sight's left post. It might not be enough to be functionally degrading, but it would annoy the heck out of me. Especially at such a high cost.

Which brings me to the next point you made with respect to cost. Night sights can be had for $75 if you search around, and all you need is a punch (nylon, brass, I've even used steel knowing full well the damage it could cause). The sight pushers are a good option to have, but wrapping the slide in a towel, fixing it in a vice, and punching out the old sights, coating the new sights with a little bit of red loctite if you desire, drifting in the new sights, and immediately checking the zero until everything is properly done is certainly sufficient. It's really not a bad thing to put sights on with a punch if you do it properly. Just realize that if you are working too hard, you need to remove some material from the sights to make them slide in with a moderate amount of impact force. And of course, don't hammer on the front sight post, but the front sight base.

The availability is a great point, and I agree with what you said. I'm just saying that from seeing the work that Tooltech has done in the past, coupled with the cost they charge (and he said he got a discount at $169), my personal choice would have been to wait out the short amount of time it would have taken for Mepro or Triji or even Heinie, etc to get the sights out to the market. But I certainly don't fault someone for getting this done!

Okay, it's too pretty of a day to be on the internet... have a good weekend, dudes!

Edited to add: A gunsmith that charges $50 for a couple minutes of work is ripping you off, IMO. I took my babied (at the time) USP to a gunsmith to get the sights done "right". I paid him $10 to do it, which was at a $5 discount because the VaTech incident had happened the day before and he felt a little sympathetic for me after I told him my story about it all... oddly enough that was exactly 2 years ago. Anyway, he took it from me and went right into the back room and I heard him hammering away like I would have done at home. Sure enough, my little sights came back to me with brass marks all over them, which I ended up cleaning off.

[reaper8154]

I had my HK45 done a few months ago with the yellow rears and green front. I'm pleased with the work they did and they are holding up well to every day wear and tear that duty weapons take.

One question tho. Did they drill all the way through your front sight post???

[sentinel]

Mav, when viewed directly from the rear as when aligning the sights the tritium appears centered within the outline. If you look at the angle of the pictures the camera was held slightly high and slightly to the left as seen in the picture, which is easy to see if you reference where the front sight is in relation to the rear sight. If the picture were taken in actual alignment with the outlines, the tritium would be centered. gfgjr100 your statement is correct. Look at the front sight of gfg's first picture because of the angle with which the shot was taken it appears that the tritium is centered within the outline. When the shot was taken to the left of the actual sight plane it appears as if the tritium not centered within the outline. When attempting to determine if one object is centered within another object the angle with which both objects are viewed is everything.

[MaverickH1]

Sentinel, maybe I'm just picky, but the photo you took shows looking dang close to straight down the sights except a little high. I'm speaking of the following picture:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/sentinel208/DSC00306.jpg

Before I made my statements I held my P2000sk in the exact same fashion and the tritium viles still looked perfectly centered on mine. I'll have to take your word on them being centered, but I still believe that left one is straying off to the left a bit. Just enough to annoy the heck out of me if it were my pistol.

But really, who the heck cares what I think? :P

[gfgjr100]

Reaper,
Now that you mention the front of the front sight, I'm not really sure if they did go all the way through or nearly through the front. There seems to be a small circular area on the front that is hardly visible by eye, I don't think a camera would pic it up too well. What does your's look like?

[CPshooter]

They looked a little crooked to me right away as well. I would have opted for the Heinie's myself for that price, but some people don't like 2-dot sights. I'm curious what the Meprolight sights will look like.

[reaper8154]

Reaper,
Now that you mention the front of the front sight, I'm not really sure if they did go all the way through or nearly through the front. There seems to be a small circular area on the front that is hardly visible by eye, I don't think a camera would pic it up too well. What does your's look like?

I'll post another pic of it soon. Have to take the kids to the fair right now...

[reaper8154]

Here is a picture of my front sight post. I intentionally put the flash on it so the plug could be seen. It is not very noticable in normal lighting. And like I said earlier, it has held up well so far under duty gun wear and tear.


http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s295/reaper8154/P1000382.jpg