Front sight caps - were these ever removed by soldiers?

[Ovidio]

John Garand's design intended that all adjustment be made on the rear sight, period. Moving the front sight should have been unnecessary, so access was restricted.

When I read the question from Michael, I was a bit surprised in fact. With that wonderful rear sight, why would anyone need to move the front one?

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[ssgross]

why would anyone need to move the front one?

well, in addition to mechanical correction for tolerances, not everyone's eyes see the same sight picture. To prove this, I've done the following experiment. 1) zero a rifle perfectly at 100yds, and shoot a nice tight group in the X ring off the bench as a lefty shooter. Then, being and ambidextrous shooter who favors lefty, I switch to righty and shoot an equally tight group, 2-3 MOA right and slightly high. I've also been shooting with a friend (righty). We will both shoot very nice groups, but if I zeroed the rifle and shot out the x ring off the bench, he shoots out the target on the top right edge of the aiming black.

Starting with mechanical zero, and hitting the center of the target, is a luxury not everyone can do. And, like others have said, it isn't necessary to have as long as its acceptable that any shooter's zero will be within +- a few clicks of mechanical - like with such a good rear sight as Garand's. Mechanical zero don't get us zero'd in practice either - even holding all other variables fixed. Depending on the bullet, spin drift can be quite noticeable - 150gr flat base gives a ballpark of ~.75MOA at 100yds. Like most, I like zeroing the rear at mechanical center, and play with the front sight - makes it easy to return the rear to zero - and I'm grateful Garand put that screw in there

[RCS]

Here is a photo from the Rock island Arsenal Shop Manual 1943 showing the tool used to install the front sight seal. This tool if found today would be quite rare !

Later the wide base gas cylinder and deleted front sight seal provided additional adjustment