It's a good possible solution, however I think rather than re-engineering top-down mounting the time would be better spent moving to standardizing the clamp mounting of the Acro or 509t. I still feel like it would be possible to have a standard miniature rail interface on slides that would take any clamp style optic. Similar to picatinny, just smaller. I'm not sure what's holding the idea back as new optics coming out from Sig and Vortex are sticking with fasteners and holes.
Two things to the skim-bedding approach that might be problematic.Originally Posted by Drogo Bunce
1. If I'm understanding this correctly, you'll have the bedding compound permanently attached to the underside of the optic? That means that optic cannot be swapped to another pistol without considerable work to get the bedding compound off. This may not be a big deal for some people, but there are others who may be swapping optics to various pistols. I suspect this would be a hard pass for any institutional users as well.
2. For the bedding compound to be really effective at resisting front/back movement, it would ideally have some voids in the slide, and optic, to latch on to. A couple of troughs running perpendicular to the slide would work, but those don't exist on every plate/slide/optic I don't think.
Lastly, I'm not sure about using a bedding compound that dries to be rigid or brittle, like JB Weld. Seems like that might crack and give up after some use. That said, "bedding" with the E9000 (JCN's? favorite) seems like it might be helpful. It has excellent adhesion, but does not dry hard. It probably would allow some small movement in the optic, but will "return to zero". And upgraded version with even more adhesion, but which is easily removed with a solvent might be a great aid in mounting optics. That, combined with shimming the optic front and back might be enough to negate the need for bosses; tapered or otherwise.
Also, having a compound that has some give to it between the optic and slide might mean that every vibration and jarring force imparted to the slide during the recoil cycle isn't transmitted so directly into the optic. It could have a cushioning effect - which could translate into longer optic life.
It's an interesting problem to think about. A lot of forces at work and the ways to attack those forces are limited. And every slide/optic combo is going to have different tolerances so the "answer" has to be scalable to address each piece the user is working on.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
No one is coming. It is up to us.
Great point! I totally agree with the notion that a clamping style mount is superior to using tiny little screws to attach optics. All these ideas of how to better screw the optic to the slide are just band-aids compared to a well-designed clamping system.
You really do have to wonder what goes on with the decision-makers inside optics/gun companies. Is there just institutional momentum for sticking with the top-down approach? And the guns companies are already tooled up for that mounting solution? It's likely more of an economic issue for companies than an engineering challenge. In fact, by sticking with the top-down approach, they have made the engineering challenge greater. Top-down mounting seems "good enough" but it ain't optimal.
Last edited by Tensaw; 08-05-2024 at 08:59 AM.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
No one is coming. It is up to us.
#1: No, I propose putting bedding compound on the front and back of the optic, NOT on the bottom. Just to take up the (minimal) space between the optic and the vertical surfaces of the optics cut. Since there is typically very little space there, but still enough that the fore and aft recoil forces are handled by the mounting bolts and any lugs, it wouldn't require very much bedding compound to fill the cracks and relieve the mounting bolts of nearly all the recoil forces. If you wanted to switch the optic to a different slide, you'd only have to sand down a very thin layer of bedding material that is glued to the optic.
#2: Since the bedding is between the front and rear of the optic, and the vertical surfaces of the optic cutout, it's directly in line between the optic and the slide, it's being directly compressed by the recoil energy. No need for additional cuts for adhesion.
Ah, gotcha... That makes sense. Give 'er a go and report back.
Going back to the idea of using shims, I was thinking that a relatively low cost way of trying that out would be to grab a feeler gauge off Amazon and cut down the best fitting one(s). Fine tune the shape with a bench grinder. Wondering how to keep them in place though. Friction may not be enough. Perhaps E9000/JB Weld/some other bedding compound.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
No one is coming. It is up to us.
Shadow Systems includes 3 different sized plastic shims, can't remember if they go at the front or back of the optic, but it's a pretty good system.
Will do. Probably. I'm just now making the switch to optics (middle aged eyes), and changing carry guns, so everything is on the table.
I have a couple of optics that don't fit perfectly, but others, like the Guwitter A20 or whatever it's called, with a DPP adaptor plate fits perfectly and I doubt any movement is possible, since the screws are clamping pretty tightly and the pins fit very well. A friend of mine has a bunch of RDS/GDS on all kinds of handguns and he has had only one move off zero and that was because his son gorillaed the screws and one broke. The ones with blue loctite and torqued to 15 inch pounds with a torque screwdriver are pretty solid and don't seem to move at all. Is this a real problem?
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