Front sight caps - were these ever removed by soldiers?

[fjruple]

I believe it had something to do with the mechanical zero of the front sight and base and the gas cylinder especially if it was swapped out to another M1 rifle. They did not want to have to send the rifle back to corp level or depot level to be mechanically zeroed. The ordnance folks want to push that function to lowest organizational level and get the rifle back to the folks that needed them quickly.