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The front sight on my M1 SBR flew off


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I have a recently built SBR, that I had a WWII front sight installed on. The gunsmith apparently soldered it. Well, it flew off while shooting and landed in two feet of snow, and I can't find it. Come spring I'll look for it, or I can buy another. Either way, it'll need to be installed again.

 

What's the proper way to install one of these sights? There isn't a hole in the WWII sight to install a pin, so I'm not sure the best way to proceed.

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You need to mill a hole in the front sight. They were not manufactured with a hole in them, that was done later during assembly. I suppose you could do it with a drill press and a proper size milling bit, but most drill press's have a small amount of lateral movement.

 

Andrew

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You need to mill a hole in the front sight. They were not manufactured with a hole in them, that was done later during assembly. I suppose you could do it with a drill press and a proper size milling bit, but most drill press's have a small amount of lateral movement.

 

Andrew

you'll break the drill bit every time ..........................not to mention it will walk all over and NOT drill where you want it to .

 

milling machine and a center drill to get the hole in the front ring sight................then put it on the barrel , and now you have a guide hole to drill the barrel.

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Thanks for responding, guys. I'm confused though. First off, why would the government supply these front sights in WWII, if they then needed to be drilled? Seems like it would have been much more efficient to have the supply of sights already drilled. Also, my sight is the standard blade sight. It isn't the compensated version.

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Thanks for responding, guys. I'm confused though. First off, why would the government supply these front sights in WWII, if they then needed to be drilled? Seems like it would have been much more efficient to have the supply of sights already drilled. Also, my sight is the standard blade sight. It isn't the compensated version.

Pinning a M1 or a comp to a barrel is the same procedure. You don't want a hole already in either of them. You mill a new hole through the barrel and sight at the same time so there is no chance of making a pre-existing hole in the sight too big/egg-shaped. It is possible to do it with a ww2 take-off sight, but my guess is you would have to mill it a bit bigger when installing.

 

Andrew

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the print doesn't really give a dimension for the hole it just shows the hole and says "at assembly"

 

but basically the hole is centered front to rear and the c/l of hole is equal to or just a skosh below the top of the diameter for the barrel hole .

 

post-261427-0-10644700-1515437615_thumb.jpg

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Thanks for responding, guys. I'm confused though. First off, why would the government supply these front sights in WWII, if they then needed to be drilled? Seems like it would have been much more efficient to have the supply of sights already drilled. Also, my sight is the standard blade sight. It isn't the compensated version.

The sights were pinned on during manufacturing they did not come needing to be pinned. I don't know why they sell replacement ring sights not drilled for the pin ... Probably a QC issue to avoid misaligned holes between the sight ring and the cut in the top of the barrel. I would contact Dan Block (deerslayer on this sight) He installed the cutts on my replacement barrel and pinned it. He's a very qualified Thompson smith.

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Thanks everybody! This is all starting to make sense. They (at least this is how I see it) couldn't drill the hole in the barrel for the pin, until after the barrel was installed, because then they needed to line up the front sight with the rear sight so the rifle fired straight, and every barrel likely lined up slightly differently once threaded on all the way. Once they got the barrel screwed on, and the sight lined up with the rear sight, they could drill and pin.

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I have a few take-off front sights. One looks like it has been reused a few too many times.

 

Also, for those who want to know the hole diameter is .1405". I also measured an original pin which mic'd at .1400

 

IMG_20180108_191720.jpg

 

Andrew

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I still can't find my WWII sight. It's now in 3 feet of snow ;)

 

It's got me thinking... I still have the original 16" Kahr barrel, and it has the sight attached. Can this sight be removed and used on the short barrel? It's already drilled, so it would be a little easier. The gunsmith would just need to drill in to the barrel and insert a pin.

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I just now measured this for you ...................

 

a ring sight is the same height as an original Cutts compensator .

using a dial caliper and eyballing to center of barrel

I get basically 1.050 on either , to the top of the blade from center of barrel

 

and that is the dimension that is also on the print for the front sight 1.050

Edited by 95mustang
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In reference to Paladin's question.

 

I would use the lock-tite to hold the sight steady while drilling the hole. I guess you still don't need a pin if using lock-tite, but I didn't just want a empty hole there either. The hole in the compensator is the drill guide. It worked perfect for mine without marring up the compensator or barrel. I had one barrel where the compensator was torqued to the correct alignment and a pinned was never needed. Just lucky on that one I guess.

Edited by halftrack
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