Roughneck20
Active member
so what is the best way to remove a front sight blade i bought this tool on ebay thinking it would go smoothly and it did ish and of course my sight screw is poop so thats gonna be fun so am i missing something ?
front sight removal
- Thread starter Roughneck20
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Roughneck20
Active member
i was paying attention but i had no other option than to keep going a punch wasnt knocking it out and the tool is of good quality just needs refining from the maker to be better i already have ideas of what to make for this tool to be better
Sauer_Kraut
Senior Member
You should have used a spacer, even a cut up pop can. The screwing action introduced friction on the parts which took off material. A simple piece of scrap would have stopped that from happening.
Peter S
Senior Member
If you were paying attention, you would have noticed that the screw was digging into the front sight base at which point you should have stopped and considered other alternatives. That is why the threads of the screw are all chewed up. The tool probably works just fine for adjusting the blade but not for pushing it out of the dovetail.
Roughneck20
Active member
well lucky for me this was a test piece already janked up on a bubba cut down barrel and your right it worked perfectly for adjusting just not so much for removal
thisistheway
Well-known member
I have the same tool. It’s great for making the final fine adjustments, which is exactly what it is for. A brass punch gently tapped against the base (not blade) is how you remove it. And just in case you are referring to how you remove the whole front sight base assembly, that screw you now have access to is a timing screw, not what is securing the base to the barrel. The base is soldered on, and to remove it you will need to apply enough heat to soften the silver soldering. This process creates an abundance of toxic fumes and if done wrong can permanently damage your barrel. Based on what happened with the blade, this may be a more advanced project than what you’re ready for right now. The simplicity of these rifles’ design belies a certain level of complexity in their assembly.
Muncher 1953
Senior Member
my sight adjusting tool looks just like the OP’s,(“before”) and the screws came with it as you described, with turned down points. If one pushes the blade over 1/8 “ THEN uses a brass punch (so one doesn’t hit the overhung part of the blade dovetail, making it fatter or bending it) it works as intended, leaving no marks. I have two other types of sight pushers for other guns, neither of them will work as a ‘remover’.
Roughneck20
Active member
it totally slipped my mind about the sight post height and yes my plan is to turn down a screw to have a longer pusher and it should work much better and yes i full well know the tool is not for sight removal only for adjustments and it works perfectly for that but my intentions was to see if i could use this to remove sights and experiment with it im very competent in my skills for proper gunsmithing and the like my phone takes really good pictures and it makes things seem worse than they actually are the meaning for this post and my pictures was to ask if there was a better or proper way to remove a sight or if there was a proper tool to do so and to inform others that the way i used this tool intentionally is not the correct way and shows what could happen it is in no way showing my failures or screwups this was 100% on purpose and was done on a bubba barrel i would never do this to a more valuable piece
waw44
Member
Yes, very....
Seriously. Perhaps ask first then screw things up if you need to , instead of the other way around?
Why would you do this in the first place? I looked through the threads about your 2 rifles and neither needed the front sight to be messed with.
Roughneck20
Active member
the 2 rifles i posted about are not the ones i did this to i have other bubba rifles and barrels etc that i mess with i wont post pictures of those rifles until im ready to or maybe not at all and i dont have to post or share anything on here but i do and all i get is attacked or ridiculed and just want good replies with knowledgeable input or advice but i dont give a hoot its my choices
Roughneck20
Active member
its fine i intentionally used it wrong so its of no fault to the seller or product its all my doing in showing what not to do with it and what happens if you did and if it could be done
waw44
Member
OK, glad the two rifles you showed before weren't involved. As to being ridiculed. You have to admit that there is a difference between a honest mistake (Geez, I tapped the sight in it's dovetail front right to left, instead of left to right, and now it's loose) and just ham fisting the front sight like you did above.
I'm still not clear on what were you wanting to accomplish that necessitated removal of the sight blade.
Finally, The sight tool you have is usable, but not with the screws you have in there. Get some softer metal hex head bolts from your local hardware store and machine down the last 1/4 of it to a thinner profile. I mean the ebay tool you bought even has that in the pictures. The bolts have a turned down profile at the tips instead of the full threaded section like you shown above.
Last edited:
R.W. Parker
Well-known member
That "sight tool" isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it's pretty close.
You'd have been far better off securing the barrel in padded vise jaws, and tapping that sight out with a short length of brass rod ground to clear the dovetail slot.
You'd have been far better off securing the barrel in padded vise jaws, and tapping that sight out with a short length of brass rod ground to clear the dovetail slot.
