Crooked sight

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Here are some pictures of the front sight on my TVM.  It is crooked and makes for a bad sight picture because I can see the right side of the front sight.

When I look at the sight I'm not sure if the sight needs to be bent or if the dovetail on the sight is bad, or maybe the dovetail on the barrel is causing the problem (I hope not).  

What to do?

DSC07586 by frozenfrizzen, on Flickr

DSC07584 by frozenfrizzen, on Flickr

[Keb]

The dovetail is crooked.
Maybe you can heat & twist the blade? I don't know

BTW, yer pictures are HUGE!!! Makes for hard reading.

[bob in the woods]

You can make a new sight , and put the blade where you want it. or fix the dovetail, or cut off the blade on the existing sight and solder it on where you want it .

[smylee grouch]

If it were me, I would take the sight out and try to figure out what is not square,dove tail or sight base. Then go from there. You can square up the dove tail and put sight back in after you have annealed the brass sight. Then you can make the sight base flow into the dovetail after you have it where you want it.

[Dave Patterson]

I'd address this in smylee's fashion:  find the out-of-square, and go about fixing that, first.  

And it may just be a result of taking photos with a hand-held camera, but it does look to me, from here, as if the dovetail's your problem child.  Easy to do, but easy to fix, too; lots of directions to go to deal with that, and lots of options to choose from for each direction you take.

If it IS in fact the dovetail, you'd definitely wanna get that squared-up with your sight plane, first.  Otherwise, you'll cuss that nice rifle from your first shot zeroing, to the last shot you fire out of it.  

How do I know this?  I'll give ya one guess...    

By the way:  nice rifle!

[Scota4570]

The first thing I'd try is a large cresent wrench.  Tighten it on the sight blade and give it a twist.  This works a lot of the time.  Big deal if you mess up the $5 sight.  You will probably have to make a new sight if you end up messing with the dovetail slot anyway.  You MIGHT be able to salvage the sight.  Straighten the dovetail.  Pene the sight into the slot, from the top with a flat end punch.  Dress it down smooth after.

I see some guys staking the sight in place with a punch.  I think that looks terrible.  The old system of raising the dovetail with a chissel give lots of metal on top to use for sight tightening purposes.  That one aspect of it is a big plus to me. 

[smylee grouch]

Raising the metal up with a chisel can cause another problem. It can be hard to re insert the sight so the blade is against the barrel if that metal has been raised up.

[retired fella]

been there, done that....

Easy fix is to gently bend the back side of the sight.  If it is leaning out of vertical that is another story you will break the sight from the base.
Then resight using the back sight to zero. 

If you want to fix the dovetail, I agree with Smylee, but before removing I would want a new sight in hand.  That way you won't miss out on
shooting it.  Lots of turkey shoots this time of year.

[PPatch]

As near as I can tell, using your pictures, your sight dovetail is filed out of square with the long axis of your top barrel flat.

As is, this causes the sight to sit cockeyed. Looking at the top of the barrel put a square along the side flat and check your slot. You'll find it slightly askew, mark it. Carefully file the slot square, go slow, check your work often and only file on the side needing to come square. Once you have your slot squared up try your sight in it. It will be loose, the front or back more square than the other side. Take your brass sight, anneal it, and peen the bottom of it to widen it just a tad, light blows will do. You should be able to peen it enough for a firm fit in the slot. If not...

...consider soldering a thin brass shim on the bottom of the sight flat. From there you can dress the sight base to fit your slot. Or, make a sight, they are not hard to do, just tedious, and you could use the sight blade you have and fabricate a new brass (steel, copper, half round-bar) base.

I wouldn't be taking a pair of pliers to that sight, it won't bend, it will shear off.

dave

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

OK.  I think the idea of squaring up the dovetail slot sounds like the surest bet.  The reason I came here was because I didn't know what to do to get the sight base to fit the enlarged slot.

So. . . to anneal brass it is just the opposite of steel right?  Heat and quench.  Heat to red-hot?  or ??

Fixed the photo size.  Hope that helps.

[smylee grouch]

If after you square the dove tail up and your sight is only just a tad loose you could do as Dave said, or you could tin the bottom of the sight with soft solder and re insert the sight. you won't see the solder but that very thin layer of solder might be enough to make every thing snug.

[Pete G.]

Looks like maybe the sight base was filed a little off square also. I would first order a new sight to know how much room you have to work with and then work on the barrel dovetail. Use a square to determine how much the slot is off and go from there.

Incidentally, there is a jig available that makes cutting dovetails almost fool proof, but it will really eat up your files.

[Clark Badgett]

The dovetail slot is out of square. See if you can find a sight with a wider base and square of the dovetail. Good luck.

[Daryl]

The blade, to me, actually appears to be crooked. The front sight tail- that part above the dovetail appears to be almost in the centre of the base, while the larger rear portion appears to be further left of centre.
It is not the shadow making that appearance - to my eye.

[Joe S.]

I'm with Daryl, sight looks to be the problem,dove tail does not look that bad.

[PPatch]

So. . . to anneal brass it is just the opposite of steel right?  Heat and quench.  Heat to red-hot?  or ??

Heat and quench, or not - with brass (and silver, gold) it does not matter and can let it air cool if you're not in a hurry.

It does not take a lot of heat, barely dull red is fine, do it in a darkened area so you can stop as soon as you see color in the metal, which will begin to happen very soon after the brass blackens from the heat.

Only you can determine if that sight slot is actually out of square, or if the pictures you posted just make it look that way...  

dave

[WadePatton]

I'm with Daryl, sight looks to be the problem,dove tail does not look that bad.

mee three

[Darkhorse]

That front sight dovetail was cut by TVM wasn't it?
Do you know to use a safe file when cutting in or dressing up a dovetail?
Knowing how to make a front sight is a good skill to have. I make a 2 part sight where the blade is mechanically locked to the base. Brass for the base and german silver for the blade.

[hdsjr]

Did you really drive that sight hard to get it in the dovetail?  Looks like flakes of brass on the edge of the dovetail.  It's possible that the sight was driven in crooked or bent it while driving it.  I agree that the barrel dovetails look straight in the picture.  The sight shouldn't have to be beat into place with a sledge hammer - I mean you might want to move it later to adjust windage.  File the base slow and easy.  You don't want brass shearing off the dovetail edges as you install.  If it does, knock it out and gently file the base a little more.
Just my $.02.

[Dave B]

Just looking at the pictures it is the dove tail that is off.  Cleaning up the upper right edge and lower left edge with a safe three corner file will get it back to were it is supposed to be. cross pean the bottom of the sight base to stretch the sight base just enough to tighten it up in the slot. It looks like the base is higher than the barrel flat so you should have enough to make it work.

[Natureboy]

  A not high-tech method: I took a transparent right angle designer's tool and laid it along one of the barrel flats, using the photo, of course.  The dovetail seems almost straight, but the base of the sight looks like a parallelogram, which makes the sight crooked.  I eyeballed it, of course, but the dovetail looks only slightly out of square to me.  Look at the edges of the sight's base--they're not parallel to the barrel flats, so the base might be off, or both the dovetail and the base combine to make the sight really crooked, more crooked than the slight off angle of the dovetail.  Perhaps a slight adjustment of both would make it work right.  

[EC121]

Try shortening each end of the sight and filing the remnant square with the barrel.  Or shorten the big end some file then muzzle end to match it.  Looks like you have plenty of brass to work with.   No one said the sight has to to be that long.  The dovetail fix can be done later if the filing doesn't work.

[Scota4570]

It is nice when the dovetail is perfect but it dosn't need to be.  The blade needs to be correct.  Remove material from the sight base to allow it to be turned in the dovetail. Pene the base to fill the gap.   

[Don Stith]

That sight appears to be a cast piece using whatever yellow metal foundrys are using as brass these days. Not sure how well it responds to peening or annealing
 Perhaps some one  can educate us on that.

[T*O*F]

I just did one this morning.  A beginner has been coming to the shop every Friday since the week after June Friendship.  He was building his first rifle from a blank and just finished it last week.  He had cut his sight dovetail slightly cattywhompus and we straightened the blade with a pair of needle nose.  No heating involved.  Then he was sighting it in at home and filed too much off the front sight.  He was also having problems seeing the sight in low light conditions.

We removed the blade and made a new one from silver and then soldered it to the base, straightening it up in the process.  Easy peasy...done in less than half an hour.

Quit overthinking this problem and just fix it.