Staking front sight

[Bruce Koligian]

The front sight of my Remington M1917 is loose enough for me to move it with my fingertips. There is a staking mark at the center front of the sight base but before I try to tighten the blade by taking a whack at this thing, I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions as to the best way of doing it.

Thanks, BK

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[kcw]

The front sight of my Remington M1917 is loose enough for me to move it with my fingertips. There is a staking mark at the center front of the sight base but before I try to tighten the blade by taking a whack at this thing, I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions as to the best way of doing it.

Thanks, BK

The two common methods of tightening up a loose sight dovetail is to either raise the "floor" of the dovetail in the base up a bit by dimpling it with a sharp prick punch (three or four spots normally does it), or tapping down the lips of the dovetail a LITTLE bit with a flat nosed drift, or a combination of both methods.I like to keep all work more toward the center of the dovetail so that there's no problem in getting the insert started back into the slot. It helps to have an extra pair of hands to steady the rifle while doing this. The underside of the barrel/sight base needs to be supported on a firm surface
I've never seen the need to stake an insert after the dovetail is modified as noted above.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Which is easier to replace: the sight blade or the sight block?
The sight blade, of course, which can be treated as a "consumable" part, many rifles requiring a taller blade anyway for 100 yard target shooting.
And, don't forget, Enfield blades fit the M1917, so replacements are not a problem.
So you spread the dovetail as described by kcw. Not the block.

Patrick

[HotTom]

The point is (if you want it correct), staking is the way it was done. A complete front sight assembly should have a stake in it.

One of my M1917s was staked so well, I couldn't remove the stake and thus couldn't adjust windage. And I didn't want to bugger it by using brute force. My gunsmith removed it in less than a minute and restaked it after I adjusted it.

If it were me, I would get it staked by a gunsmith.

HT