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Posted: 9/16/2026 12:35:44 PM EDT
| My late grandfather's 1903A3 (he was TSGT during WWII and Korea) has a canted front sight. Cannot tell whether it's from taking a ding or another cause. Is this something that is best handled by an armorer/service in Anniston, or can any gunsmith fix it? I don't know that there are any "good" gunsmiths local to me. |
mildly retarded and always inappropriate
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| I had this same issue with an O3A3 years ago. The base on mine was canted and I took it to a gunsmith and they indexed the barrel a couple of degrees, it wasn't much but noticeable enough to tell the sight was crooked. Indexing the barrel over that little bit got everything straightened out. |
Unapologetic UkeBro
|
Originally Posted By FlipTopLid: If it’s just the front sight blade that is bent it can be replaced by tapping out the top pin and pulling the blade out. It shouldn’t be too challenging. I changed out my thin blade with the thicker one from Shooting Sight and it was easy. If you take it out it’s easy enough to set on a flat surface to check to see if it’s bent. That said, if it shoots to the sights with the rear windage near center I’d consider leaving it alone. Otherwise you need to look to see if the barrel is over or under timed and or drifting the rear sight base that is heavily staked to prevent it from moving. Drifting the rear sight base ham handedly can break the receiver dovetail. Ideally if the front sight is canted because of the barrel is timed incorrectly it won’t match the axes of the rear sight movement because you’ll likely cant the gun. That will cause discrepancies as you shoot farther ranges, unknowingly adding a hair of windage with elevation and vice versa. No big deal unless you’re shooting this in an across the course match without good preestablished data from practicing at those ranges. At 100 yards at your local gun range…..pfffffft. |
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