Removing Foresight Block from Model 1886 Mannlicher

[peregrinvs]

I need to swap the foresight block from the scrap M1886 Mannlicher barrel on the right to the nearly complete rifle on the left. I have tried giving it a good blast with a blowtorch and then hitting it from the side with a large pin punch, but move it would not. Is it likely to have been brazed on and I don’t have a hot enough heat source? I could in theory try to cut the barrel out from under it, but that’s not an elegant solution.

Grateful for any suggestions or help.

Cheers,
Mark

[peregrinvs]

Update. It turns out I was labouring under two misapprehensions:

1. The foresight block on the gun on the right will never move. It was machined in place when the barrel was made - the same as the rear sight protectors.

2. The gun on the left has been shortened by about three inches. (I can’t believe it has taken me nearly a year to notice) Hence at some point in the past an armourer / gunsmith has attempted to transplant a foresight on to the shortened barrel by machining a groove into the top of it.

So there’s not a lot I can do really other than try and carefully cut the foresight block away from the scrap barrel, file it to fit and then graft it into the groove. It won’t be very pretty, but c’est la vie.

[browningautorifle]

So there’s not a lot I can do

You can take the original barrel and cut the required length off and sleeve it onto the barrel you wish to keep. Takes some skill but it's not a new procedure. It'll give original length and contour...

[mmppres]

Have a machinist cut an mate the old to the new barrel. Just as Jim stated. Just have the old barrel drilled out to be a smooth bore like a counter bored barrel.

[peregrinvs]

Thanks for the replies. You could do that in theory, but I don’t have the facilities or skills to do it and I doubt the value of the rifle justifies paying someone else to do it. (It is never going to be fired) Then there’s the issue that the stock has also been shortened by about three inches. (Done quite neatly, which I think is one of the reasons I didn’t realise)

[peregrinvs]

Postscript.

In the end I paid a friendly gunsmith to fabricate and fit a lookalike foresight block to the end of the barrel. I’m happy with how it looks and it doesn’t really matter if the sights are now slightly out of alignment as the gun is never going to be fired.

I actually think the slightly shortened gun is more aesthetically pleasing than full length as the gaps between the barrel bands are now equidistant. (Perhaps that was the intention?)

The sling is a very nice repro that came from the Czech Republic. As such it kind of has some real Austro-Hungarian DNA in it.

PS. And now onto my next restoration project: a French Model 1874 Gras infantry rifle made by Manufacture d’armes de Tulle in 1879.