Carbine front sight removal questions?????

[Mike in NC]

Presuming you are talking about a US milltary carbine or mil spec carbine, you must first drive out the pin that runs sideways through the front sight. It may help to first soak the pin area with WD-40, Kroil, or other similar product. Then find a correct size punch, preferably one that is fairly short and drive out the punch. I keep two punches for this purpose. The first a very short one to start the pin moving and a second longer one to finish driving the pin out once it has started moving. Driving out the pin is usually the hardest part of the project.

After the pin is driven out, the sight is either pulled off with a special puller tool or if you are lucky you may be able to drive it off with a block of wood or punch (if you don't care if you mar the old front sight). Clean the surface and lubricate the surface before driving the new front sight on. Drive the front sight on until the hole for the pin lines up perfectly with the cut out portion in the front sight key which you will have observed after removing the old front sight. There also is a very nice tool to help drive on the front sight without maring it as well. If this is the only time you are likely to replace front sights, it may not be worth buying the tools. If you do it more than a time or two, the sight puller and installer tool come in real handy.

You can do a little math to figure what the front sight height should be or just very slowly remove a little material until the group center is where you want it.

Information

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[Bear57]

Mike....
Thanks for the help. Yes, it is a Winchester I recently picked up from the CMP. I now see that I won't have a problem removing the pin, as the pin is missing. It seems as the front sight is on fairly tight right now. How necessary is it to have the pin? I've got it soaking in Kroil right now and will try the wood block process tomorrow. I'll have to check around to find a replacement pin..I assume there is only 1 size?

[BrianQ]

Before you attempt driving the front sight off double check to make sure there isn't a roll pin in the front sight. A lot of the carbines worked on by the Germans and Austrians have roll pins in the front sight instead of the typical normal solid pin.

[Bear57]

It's good to know and thanks for the info. I've checked and there is zip, nadda, nothing in that hole. It is empty, so I'll let the Kroil go to work for a few days and see what happens before I try the wood block and hammer.

[shadycon]

I changed a couple of barrel bands a while back.I used a small two jaw puller and a penny to pull the sites.Penny goes over muzzel.A battery end puller is what I used .Being carefull and left no marks.Used a block of wood to start it back on and finished with a brass punch. Worked for me.