Tech Sights

Oh MY removing the front sight is a task!

So the purpose of installing after market sights from Tech-Sights is to approximate the military sights I have on my M1A (or the Garand, or a an M1 Carbine, etc). Instead of a notch and post you get a peep sight near the back of the receiver and a military style protected post up front. The rear is easy enough as it mounts on two of the scope rail mounting screw holes that are already there. But you have to remove the Ruger factory sight from it's press fitted dovetail mount on the barrel.

The instructions say "use a brass punch and tap the factory sight out, left to right, with the barrel well supported."

Uh huh. Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap! TAP! TAP TAP! TAP TAP TAP!!!

No movement.

DAMMIT!

Ruger probably press fits it with a GREAT big machine with lots of force in a ready made jig to hold the barrel.

Brass punch? No. No way. I used steel and tried to be very careful to not mung up the barrel. So there is some stress there, trying to be careful.

The decision is made that that sight isn't going to make it out of there alive. I'll buy a replacement if I want to restore to original condition. And I'm desperate. Time is a factor because at this point it's less than a week from when I might actually need it for a training evolution.

I break out the hack saw and triangle file.

Uh huh. I went there.

No wimpy Dremel for me.

I do NOT recommend this. But it's a $250 .22 rifle. And I'm committed down this path.

Well the sight isn't aluminum. It's surprisingly resistant. But I sliced on down as close to the steel of the barrel as I dared. I figure when it gets that low it will be easy to pinch it together and relieve it from the dovetail. The triangle file was just to start the saw cut, but when the saw relief cut wasn't enough, I got aggressive filing out a v-shaped relief. More tapping. Failure. Dejection. Bedtime.

I thought on it, and came upon an important resource. Archie. My crotchety WWII veteran neighbor. He was an auto-body man back in the day of metal cars. The internet told me acetone of some other solvent might help penetrate and relieve and Loc-Tite that the factory may have used, too, so before Archie I started it on a solvent soak.

Archie's assessment? Solvent won't help. The internet don't know what it's talking about. His solution was: HEAT!

So a little blast from the propane torch for a few seconds and a good wang with that hammer and punch (careful, don't burn the hand holding the punch by touching the now very hot sight...) and... SUCCESS! Only a tiny bit of cosmetic damage from my earlier wailing on it.

Never misunderestimate the resourcefulness of a WWII veteran.

Mounting the new stuff was easy. 10 minutes following the rest of the directions. And I was able to hit the range again the next evening. Here are the targets.

The left target was the first 10 shots, but that was at 25 feet and you can't really zero at that distance. Sure enough, at 50 feet the shots were VERY high and a bit to the right. I worked on the elevation adjustment on that right target at the further range with a supported rest and got it down to what you see there (you can't see the older targets or the holes the pasters cover)

So I'm close to the zero, but not happy yet.

Things I noticed: The hole on the Tech-Sight rear is small considering how far away it is from my eye. I can get closer on a Garand configuration. Also, that dark front post is hard to see in a dim range. The 50 foot line is well lit, so it was actually easier to see the red center spot over the post when twice as far away. It's hard to adjust the windage without a ball point pen to push the detent button. I'll go down one more click and over one click before the next range trip and see where I am. I shot 150 rounds that trip, and only stopped because I was out of ammo.