Sight question

[carprivershooter]

The rear sight on my Springfield Armory 1911 loaded came lose. It appears the material used to hold the sight in to milled cut didn't hold. I don't want to send it back to springfield unless it is really necessary. I have some medium duty locktight so I could use it to remount to sight. These are Knovak sights. I am thinking I would put the locktight on the leading edge of cut and at the mid point anf then slide the sight into the cut and then attemp to re- alinethe sights. then clean up any goo the finds it way out of the cracks. Does this sound like a plan? I want to get in right the first time and not have to beat the crap out of the sight after it's in place.

[Creeper]

It appears the material used to hold the sight in to milled cut didn't hold.

By this do you mean a piece of shim stock they used to tighten up the fit?

Get some more and/or thicker shim stock to tighten the sight to slide "wedge". You don't really want to Loc-Tite the rear sight... you might need to adjust it it some day. ;)

Cheers,
C

[carprivershooter]

The material appeared to be glue or epoxy. I scraped it off and use a dremal and wire brush to clean it up. That is why I was thinking lock tight.

[Creeper]

Ah... gotcha.

Yeah, I guess you can Loc-tite it, but you'd be better off carefully applying a center punch on the edges of the sight dovetails, on the bottom surface.
This will displace metal to the edges in a controllable fashion, effectively widening and raising the sight as necessary, and causing it to fit tighter in the slide... and still allow adjustability.

C

[carprivershooter]

Thanks Creeper, I did e mail Springfield Armory, I have to be out of town a couple of days so will hope for a response from them before doing anything. I had not thought about using a punch to apply a stop. Thanks for our input.

[dahermit]

The material appeared to be glue or epoxy. I scraped it off and use a dremal and wire brush to clean it up. That is why I was thinking lock tight. It was likely medium strength lock-tite. Nevertheless, no matter what it was, medium lock-tite will take care of your problem.

[Unclenick]

A punch is what I've always used. You just need to upset the metal around the punch mark into a high enough crater wall to add some thickness. That said, I've only done it where the fit was good to start with, so squeezing the crater wall is what kept the sight from moving. If the gap is serious, it sounds like either the sight dovetail is off or, more likely, there was some slop in the dovetail cut giving it too much width. That will mean that even with the punch upsets, you will have a crack between the bottom of the sight and the slide. You'll want to fill that to keep water out or use a rust inhibitor to fill it. An excellent rust inhibitor would be Lee Liquid Alox cast bullet lube. It is actually the same stuff Zebart uses to inhibit rust in cars. if you get the gap full of it, it should be pretty well protected, though it will soften in mineral spirits and may soften when exposed to some oils.

Another approach would be to shim the top front of the sight dovetail to push the whole sight down hard into the dovetail, at which point the crater walls of a single punch mark in the middle should serve as a friction keeper. However, use a feeler gauge first to learn height of the gap to see if that would lower your POI unacceptably.

If the punch crater walls will hang onto the sight well enough, once I was sure of the horizontal location of the sight I would just use JB QuickWeld as a gap filler to keep water out. The quick epoxy doesn't really stick all that well so it should be removable. You could even wax the sight and slide cut intentionally to prevent bonding so you can change the sight position more easily afterward.

If you want to use a Loctite type product, download their product application and look at the Retaining products (pdf page 6, their pages 10 & 11, here (http://www.gema-transmission.gr/Loctite%20Catalogue.pdf)). Find one that's designed to fill gaps the size of the one your feeler gauge measured. These products only harden in the absence of air, and if you use one that's too thin for the gap, the outer edges may never set up or you may have to use an activator. A product of theirs that I have used successfully on guns is the 660 Quick Metal, which has an aluminum filler and will fill gaps up to 0.020". An advantage to this approach is it will take several hours to set, so that if you did the sight insertion at the range, you could adjust it before the stuff set up.

[joseywales44]

I understand your reluctance to send your gun back, but let me say for the record, I had to send my SA 9152L back and the turn-around time was VERY quick. The service (warranty) was exactly what was needed to fix the problem and it turned a weapon that I was seriously considering selling off into a daily carry that is scary accurate. I sent the gun Fed-Ex and got it back the same way. I can't remember how long the work took, but it was less than 2 weeks total time.

I have no doubt that you CAN do the repair yourself, but SA warranties their product for a lifetime. They will fix your gun "as good as new". :)

[Unclenick]

That's a good point, too. I've twice returned guns to their manufacturers. Both revolvers as it turned out. Both were returned with complaints about their inability to group well and both were returned shooting dramatically better. Having someone give some personal attention to a weapon who is very familiar with all its foibles and who has access to an essentially unlimited supply of replacement parts and who can reapply the original finish if he dings anything up, can be a real advantage.

[g.willikers]

I've had good luck with using the punch on the bottom of the dovetail.
It displaces a little material and raises the sight up into the narrow part of the dovetail.
That seems to tighten the sight, too.
It probably comes down to where it's loose.

[Strafer Gott]

The methodology espoused by Creeper, G. Willikers, et al. is what I used when mine came loose. The advantage is you can drift it back in alignment when you get back to the range, which you will surely want to do. I have not had a repeat occurence, in about as many rounds as it took to come loose the first time.

[carprivershooter]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I contacted Springfield Armory about the sight coming lose. They want me to send it back and they will reinstall the sight and make sure it is aligned correctly. Springfield is paying the shipping both ways.Only drawback is 2-4 week turn around. This way it gets fixed right and I will not boggier it up by trying to do it my self. I could see myself hitting the slide with the punch and hammer and the punch scraping across the slide leaving a nice deep scratch. Thanks again.

[Creeper]

This way it gets fixed right and I will not boggier it up by trying to do it my self.

Better safe than wanked. ;)

They'll fit a new sight to it. Chances are, the slide is at the max of tolerance while the sight is at it's minimum tolerance. They'll pull a sight at the larger end of the acceptable tolerance range and send it back. Don't sweat the turn around... you'll have it back in 2 weeks or less.

Cheers,
C

[g.willikers]

But scratches and dings make a gun look experienced.
You don't want to be taken for a neophyte, do you?