can "fixed" sights be adjusted

[plumberfishes]

straight, perfect.... I was acctually thinking of trying to draw this myself.... THIS IS HOW YOU AIM A PISTOL! not holding over or under or dropping a sight out of alignment....but shooting low power loads with 158grn slugs it shoots high..... and I got a definit answer.. It was built to shoot .357magnums! and it was designed to shoot them with the compensator that is built in.. result is without the force of the magnum loads through the comp the gun shoot high.... shoot mags and it shoots correct poi for ANY WEIGHT OF BULLET... shoot .38's and it shoots high due to lack of pressure out the comp...Straight, thanks for the picture!

 

[Ownerus]

you should be thanking your lucky stars that your problem is not one of windage. THAT would be a quandary.

FWIW, I once successfully adjusted the windage on a fixed sight revolver. It shot consistently to the left. Tightening the barrel just a bit rotated the front sight to the left enough to bring it on target. The front sight was not canted enough to be particularly noticeable. Won't work in all cases obviously but can be done. Don't know that I'd have tried it if the barrel needed to be rotated the other way (looser).

Also, if one decides to file on sights, a bit of simple math will get you real close rather than a lot of cut-and-try. The ratio between the sight radius and the distance the front or rear sight needs to move will equal the ratio between the distance to target and the amount the bullet holes need to move. Simple ratio and proportion geometry will tell you quite closely how far the sight should move. The real trick is measuring what you're cutting so you know when it's moved that far. Not always easy, depending on the gun. A milling machine is handy for this if you're shortening the sight. I've also added steel to a sight via silver brazing when necessary. Plenty strong when done properly and you're usually not adding a whole lot of steel anyway.