As some of you may know I have been on a extended search for a sight adjustment/replacement tool for Sig German and American pistols. In my research I found some interesting designs most of which only worked on Swiss made P210's. A while back I purchased an MGW Sight Pro sight pusher for some other jobs I had on the back burner and discovered that this is one very well made tool and one that has a lot of factory support going for it. The only downside to this tool is that you must have the correct slide "shoe" to lock the slide into the tool. This was the stumbling block for using this tool on the P210 pistol as the factory offered no sight shoe for these pistols. Another issue regarding the P210 pistol is the design of the slide in that the frame wraps around it contrary to the majority of semi-auto pistols where the slide wraps around the frame. The CZ-75 series of pistols uses this same design and MGW offers a slide shoe for that pistol, but that shoe will not work on a P210A or Legend.
I managed to make contact with MGW and spoke with a company executive and explained what I was looking for. He told me they can't possibly afford to buy a pistol for every slide shoe design, but they do have a program where a customer can send in a slide and they will examine it and determine if a shoe can be made for it. He promised me no damage would occur on the slide and I would have it back in about a week. So even though I didn't want to part with my P210A slide I decided to send it in to see if a shoe could be made for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained right? I really wasn't worried about damage being done to the slide by MGW, I was more worried about shipping damage or loss. I went overboard on insurance and sent the slide off and kept my fingers crossed.
Almost 10 days later I received a shipping notification that my slide would be back at my door the next day. Surprisingly there was no contact from MGW so I kind of thought the worst in that they couldn't come up with a workable design and were just sending the slide back to me. The next day I waited with baited breath for the Brown Santa Claus and the package from MGW. After it arrived I opened the shipping box up and much to my happiness in the box with the slide was a brand new slide shoe for the P210 slide I sent them. No note or instructions were in the box, but I did have the instruction sheet for the CZ-75 slide shoe which is similar so I followed those. I zipped downstairs and installed the shoe and slide in my MGW Sight Pro tool and it works better than expected. The slide is rock solid in the tool and sight adjustment or replacement should be a breeze with it. At this time I am really only concerned with the front sight of the P210 as both my German and American versions have the rear adjustable sight.
I should note that in my experience with front sight adjustments or replacements the ideal method of accomplishing this task is to get as low as possible on the sight BASE, not on the blade. Pushing on the blade can result in bending the blade, or worse yet breaking it. This is not an easy task on the P210 American because the sight base is quite narrow and the base is curved resulting in a very small contact patch between the pusher and the sight base. The sight dovetail is also quite narrow which doesn't help much. Obviously you don't want the pusher block to come in contact with the sides of the dovetail or drag on the slide. MGW offers a "narrow" pusher block to work with smaller sights, but even this wouldn't let me get all the way down to the sight base. I decided to put the narrow pusher block in my milling machine and trimmed the pushing edges to the size I wanted and that would fit through the slide dovetail opening. I may take the pusher block width down a bit more once I actually get a P210 sight blade and measure it and the base and the dovetail opening. As with most machining operations, set up is everything and takes the most time and this certainly proves true in this case. Some may choose to push on the sight blade and get away with it, but I like to push on the sight base if at all possible.
So, if you have an EGW Sight Pro tool, or if you have a notion to buy one you now have the ability to obtain a slide shoe for P210 German and American pistols. This shoe may work on Swiss made pistols if the slide dimensions will allow it. The identification number on the shoe I have is 167, but I don't know if that number will be the actual number for purchasing purposes. The downside in some respects is the MGW Sight Pro is expensive and it requires a different slide shoe for different slides. Depending on where you buy the shoes they run about 15 to 20 dollars. The up side is that this is a very well made robust tool that should last a good long time and has a lot of factory support. Even if I didn't have the Sight Pro tool I would buy the P210 slide shoe just to have it. Then I could "borrow" an MGW Sight Pro and have the correct shoe for it.
Rick H.
I managed to make contact with MGW and spoke with a company executive and explained what I was looking for. He told me they can't possibly afford to buy a pistol for every slide shoe design, but they do have a program where a customer can send in a slide and they will examine it and determine if a shoe can be made for it. He promised me no damage would occur on the slide and I would have it back in about a week. So even though I didn't want to part with my P210A slide I decided to send it in to see if a shoe could be made for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained right? I really wasn't worried about damage being done to the slide by MGW, I was more worried about shipping damage or loss. I went overboard on insurance and sent the slide off and kept my fingers crossed.
Almost 10 days later I received a shipping notification that my slide would be back at my door the next day. Surprisingly there was no contact from MGW so I kind of thought the worst in that they couldn't come up with a workable design and were just sending the slide back to me. The next day I waited with baited breath for the Brown Santa Claus and the package from MGW. After it arrived I opened the shipping box up and much to my happiness in the box with the slide was a brand new slide shoe for the P210 slide I sent them. No note or instructions were in the box, but I did have the instruction sheet for the CZ-75 slide shoe which is similar so I followed those. I zipped downstairs and installed the shoe and slide in my MGW Sight Pro tool and it works better than expected. The slide is rock solid in the tool and sight adjustment or replacement should be a breeze with it. At this time I am really only concerned with the front sight of the P210 as both my German and American versions have the rear adjustable sight.
I should note that in my experience with front sight adjustments or replacements the ideal method of accomplishing this task is to get as low as possible on the sight BASE, not on the blade. Pushing on the blade can result in bending the blade, or worse yet breaking it. This is not an easy task on the P210 American because the sight base is quite narrow and the base is curved resulting in a very small contact patch between the pusher and the sight base. The sight dovetail is also quite narrow which doesn't help much. Obviously you don't want the pusher block to come in contact with the sides of the dovetail or drag on the slide. MGW offers a "narrow" pusher block to work with smaller sights, but even this wouldn't let me get all the way down to the sight base. I decided to put the narrow pusher block in my milling machine and trimmed the pushing edges to the size I wanted and that would fit through the slide dovetail opening. I may take the pusher block width down a bit more once I actually get a P210 sight blade and measure it and the base and the dovetail opening. As with most machining operations, set up is everything and takes the most time and this certainly proves true in this case. Some may choose to push on the sight blade and get away with it, but I like to push on the sight base if at all possible.
So, if you have an EGW Sight Pro tool, or if you have a notion to buy one you now have the ability to obtain a slide shoe for P210 German and American pistols. This shoe may work on Swiss made pistols if the slide dimensions will allow it. The identification number on the shoe I have is 167, but I don't know if that number will be the actual number for purchasing purposes. The downside in some respects is the MGW Sight Pro is expensive and it requires a different slide shoe for different slides. Depending on where you buy the shoes they run about 15 to 20 dollars. The up side is that this is a very well made robust tool that should last a good long time and has a lot of factory support. Even if I didn't have the Sight Pro tool I would buy the P210 slide shoe just to have it. Then I could "borrow" an MGW Sight Pro and have the correct shoe for it.
Rick H.
