soldering a front sight

[al56]

I have a fuzil de chase made by centermark.  Love the gun, but I had them put on a turtle front sight.  Hate it more all the time.  This gun has a rear sight and seeing the front sight as I get older and in certain light is hopeless.  So I decided to remove the front sight and replace it with a silver blade made from a dime.  The question is what solder to use - hard or soft?  what brand? 
Thanks for the help
Al

[Daryl]

Brownell's Force 44 is popular with gun smiths- according to Brownell's.

I would use a low temp silver solder - with good flux - tin the sight thinnly and the spot on the barrel, thinnly. Would work better if the sight was hard silver soldered onto a base, like the turtle sight has, before low temp soldering it to the barrel.

That is how I would do it, the first time. Barring that, I would hard silver solder a sight that I filed out of a block of brass, to the barrel, like the turtle (for strength), but with a wider blade that I could see.

If not wanting to use a base and just a blade, you would need to cut a groove for the sight to sit in, for more 'purchase' area for bonding strength. For that, hard silver should be used, imho.

Hard, meaning high temp some call silver brazing.

[Big Ralph]

Hey Daryl, I just posted a thread about a Jaeger rifle  Please see below to you Daryl,

   I was going through some old files here on this site and came across a discussion on a Jaeger rifle and you posted a picture of a beauty. It was from June of 2012 and started out talking about the barrel length of a Jaeger. If I may ask, who made that nice one you showed? I am looking to have one made or find a second handed one that looks that nice. I already have one but am looking for another for my grand son. How I came across that tread was, I was looking for information on a gunsmith from New York state named Mark Matteson and his name came up. Have you ever heard of him?

Thanks for your time,

Big Ralph ur thread. This was my question to you.

[Daryl]

Ralph - I sent you a PM.

[J. Talbert]

Not sure what kind of base you have in mind for the sight.  If you plan to have a base which matches the contour of the barrel I would you paste solder.  Unfortunately the stuff I got from Brownells some time ago, I think is no longer available.  If you can find a similar product, (I see some paste solders on Amazon) which contains solder and flux combined it is quite simple to use.

Jeff

[B Shipman]

I would go a different direction if you want this to work. Like Darly says , you need a base. I use folded sterling silver sheet for all my sights, rifle or folwer.  I have tricks to reduce work, but basically you're forming a T. Hard silver solder creates a single piece. It can be filed up to accept a dovetail, or bent and filed round for a fowler  or smooth rifle.  For a fowler the base should be thin. Any soft solder that works  will do. Any successfull  sweat  bond is so strong you can peel the sight off with a chisel  before you break it.

[Nordnecker]

A dime is too thin for me.

[Daryl]

If you wanted silver, a Canadian Quarter would work.

[Long John]

Al,

I am an old f*rt and I need a real wide front sight.  I make mine from a worn-out silver dollar cut in half and soldered together to make a 1/8th inch thick blade.  I did not make a base for the front sight on my smooth-bored gun.  I just filed a flat about 0.020" deep on the top of the barrel where I wanted the sight.  I then took a cold chisel and lifted up two ears, fore and aft just like we do for rear sights on rifles and barrel lugs.  I fluxed the sight and tapped the sight in place.  I thn took a propane torch and applied a little tin/silver solder.  Worked-out just fine!



Best Regards,

John Cholin

[rich pierce]

Is there a front sight on that gun, Long John?  Just kidding. Kind of blends in with the weathered siding. On my version of RCA 19 I cut a groove in the top of the round muzzle portion with a chisel/engraver, undercut and lifted the ends, and tamped them down on a silver blade with tiny notched extensions on the base. Seems good so far.