front sight ,thin barrel

[alex e.]

I am building a Bucks County type pistol, 13/16 " strait oct. barrel, .40 cal .
 
 On a couple of the  'store bought ' front sights sights that i have ,the dovetailed base seems way to thick. By the time the dovetail is cut the metal  left on the barrel :' will be  'wafer thin'

I could make a sight with a thin base that would work, but the question i have is:would a soldered on blade or basic fusil type sight be proper also? Has anyone seen this done? some of the books i have do not necessarily show this detail.

Thanks ,Alex

[Dave B]

Alexsnr,
I hate those thick based front sights as well. They are at least two times as thick as they need be. I will take a front sight base down in thickness with a file to make it more closely resemble orignials I have seen before installing. You just flip the blade upside down in the vice and mark off what you want to remove and taker her down. On one store bought sight I filed throiugh the silver solder and the blade fell out so you want to make sure your blade has solder at the joint at the top side of the sight.

[alex e.]

Dave ,that was my next fix for the problem

Alex..

[northmn]

I ahve a tapered 54 barrel that is 7/8 at the muzzle.  I made a front sight and soldered it on with 50/50.  It is still there and works fine.  I just uses a thin piece of sheet metal and doubled it over and wedged out the base with a chisel.  The base goes the whole length of the sight to avoid gap.

DP

[P.Bigham]

 I have seen some contemporary Rifles with soldered on sights. Dont know If It was ever done on any Originals.  You can make a simple sight by taking a silver Dime and folding It in half, then put about 3/16 of the fold back in the Vise and prying the sides back open to make wings so to say. this would make a smooth bore sight . Or at this point you could hack saw and file to make the Wings into a Dovetail Base. PB

[jerrywh]

That barrel may seem thin to you but you have a lot of material there. Like Dave B says, just file the base down to about 1/32 , cut a shallow dove tail groove about .020 to .030 , bump it up and it will work great. 
  PS--- go slow , it's faster.