barrysuperhawk Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Ok, the next step in my no-glock-parts-faux-glock is to mill the slide for my red dot. I have a machinist friend that has a milling machine in his garage, a blank lone wolf slide, and a Tasco Optima mrd, (which I have been told is the same footprint as the JP). What neither my friend or I have is any experience milling slides for mini red dots. He asked me about things he would need like cut depth, what type and size of cutter, thread pitch.....ok, I will come out and say it, I am not a machinist, and he is a retired mechanic that owns a mill and dabbles. So, do I spend the $$ to pay a professional machine shop like adco (or a more glock specific place like lone wolf) to do this or do I get details from you and try to have my friend do it? To be clear, I am not disparaging my friends ability, he has made some really cool stuff, and I don't think that this is a terribly difficult job, but neither of us knows for sure what to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9x45 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Because I was a tool and die machinist for 12 years, ff he's asking you what type of cutter to use, and doesn't know what speed and feed to use, he is not a machinist. Pay to have it done. Most shops want the dot also to get a +.003" clearance front to back. Thread size (diameter and pitch) depends on the dot model. Dots also have index pins for location that have to be transferred. You want a shop that has a CNC with the electronic engineering data base for your particular dot. I have 2 Glocks with dots and don't see a great advantage to milling them because the bore axis is pretty low already. Since you have a stainless slide, refinishing would not be required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrysuperhawk Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) Ok, to be clear, the failure of knowledge is mine, not his, to the point where I probably used the wrong terms. I know that he hasn't milled a glock slide before, so he asked me to come up with some type of specifications for him to work with. I want the dot as low as possible, I would be happy if the bottom edge of the window was flush with the top of the slide... but I don't know how deep it can be cut. On the other hand, since the optima requires a cover, mounting it higher would simplify turning it off... Edited March 16, 2017 by barrysuperhawk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankge Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Primary Machine just did mine - a BE vendor offering a discount Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colt1911 Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 steer clear of the sightmark, the optima and fastfire 2 for slide mounted dots, i had one optima and several fastfires and they all ended up broke... ended up sending the fastfire's in to have them swapped for 3's and then sold all but 1, and trashed the optima and sightmark...the fastfire 3 i have about 10k on and no trouble so far, but still my RMR's rule the roost.... ive heard a ton of good stuff on the DPP but it sits so high, it probably wouldn't be ideal for a slide.... the reciprocating slide causes so much stress on the optic, cheap optics are NOT the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrimaryBruce Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 On 3/20/2017 at 10:49 AM, colt1911 said: steer clear of the sightmark, the optima and fastfire 2 for slide mounted dots, i had one optima and several fastfires and they all ended up broke... ended up sending the fastfire's in to have them swapped for 3's and then sold all but 1, and trashed the optima and sightmark...the fastfire 3 i have about 10k on and no trouble so far, but still my RMR's rule the roost.... ive heard a ton of good stuff on the DPP but it sits so high, it probably wouldn't be ideal for a slide.... the reciprocating slide causes so much stress on the optic, cheap optics are NOT the way to go. We have customers with 25K+ rounds on single FF III's. Same optic we installed when we milled their slides. Nothing to complain about for a ~$215 optic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colt1911 Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 We have customers with 25K+ rounds on single FF III's. Same optic we installed when we milled their slides. [emoji3] Nothing to complain about for a ~$215 optic. Right. I have about 10k on my ff3. But the second gens are the ones i had trouble with. Whatever was wrong with the 2, they fixed in the 3.Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrimaryBruce Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, colt1911 said: Right. I have about 10k on my ff3. But the second gens are the ones i had trouble with. Whatever was wrong with the 2, they fixed in the 3. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk Oh, yeah, the FF III's are big improvements in every way over the II's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colt1911 Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Oh, yeah, the FF III's are big improvements in every way over the II's. YeahSent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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