Overtightened or bent barrel (or foresight blade)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rayg
There must be a reason the sights on the carbine were made to have the bore point to the right of the sight.
Rayg, you are assuming, quite naturally, that the rifle is as made. I think that this is something you need to check very carefully. There is one very simple possible explanation for what you observe - that the barrel has been overtightened at some time, and that is the reason why the foresight appears to be over to the left.
Simple eyeball judgement may not be adequate to check barrel alignment. One way of doing it is as follows:
1. Use a stable, flat tabletop or large sheet of glass as a surface plate.
2. Place a suitable block of hard wood or metal on the table, so that you can place the rifle upside-down and rest the base of the backsight on this block.* This is to ensure that the backsight base is parallel to the surface.
3. The front end of the barrel should also rest on a block, so that the foresight blade is not touching the table surface. Depending on the position of the center of balance of the carbine, you may need to weigh down the barrel so that everything sits stably. A wobbly setup will invalidate the measurement.
4. Now simply place an engineers square (or a suitable trued-up block) on the table surface in front of the muzzle, and on the bore line (i.e. central) and sight along it towards the foresight. The foresight blade must point vertically downwards. If it is visibly skewed, for instance so that the blade is to the left of six o'clock as you look at the muzzle, then the barrel has (probably) been overtightened. Or the blade is in a dovetail, and has simply been pushed over. Or - wierd but possible - the blade itself is bent.
Of course the answer may be that the barrel is bent! I hope not. But even that can be fixed.
Check it anyway.
Patrick
:wave:
*This will require folding the backsight leaf right over to expose the backsight base.