Garand Front Sight Adjustment

[ron]

You can qualify with any rifle! Why not use an easier to shoot AR?
A friend of mine can do the qualification. Let me know if you are interested.

 

[ma96782]

Ok, I went shooting on Friday.

I learned that I do like shooting my match grade Garand and even my regular Garand.

However, I learned that (for me) the NM front sight with the regular rear sight is a better combination vs. a regular front sight with a regular rear sight.

I took the rifles home and went to work. I started by removing the front sight. Then, filing only the right side of the regular front sight. I brought it down to just about 0.062". Ok, I also took a few passes on the left, just to straighten it out. Hint: get a mill file with "safety edges." I finished with some cleaner degreaser and touch up blue. Then I reinstalled the front sight.

Now it's back to the range. Hopefully, sometime this weekend. Wish me luck.

Aloha, Mark

 

[ma96782]

I just got back from the range.

Lesson learned.....

In this case....taking a file to the right side of a Garand's front sight was not of much help. Note that the front sight started out at about 0.075 inches and I took it down to about 0.062 inches.* I then replaced the sight block back to where I last had the groups being centered. In other words....it's still on the gas cylinder, all the way to the left edge, though not hanging off of it. Based on my observation.....I did get tighter groups. Course, I just shot at 25 yds to see the groups and later took it out to 100 yds. to confirm that I could still hit paper.

So, I did end up with a thinner front sight. I'll take that as half a win! And, it didn't cost me anything. Except for some, "filing time."

*Filing a front sight probably works better when done on pistols.

Aloha, Mark

 

[F2CMaDMaXX]

Kind of what we said then?

Seriously though, filing that much is off is only going to be the equivalent of moving the post (adjusting) by exactly how much you took off.

 

[rjmt]

Methinks you're treating the symptom and not the disease.

I had a similar problem some years back with a custom match M1A rifle.

Turns out the barrel was screwed in a miniscule amount too tight, which canted the front sight a tiny amount to the left. The front sight looked just fine - perpendicular to the bore looking at it through the rear sight. But I had to move the front sight all the way out to the edge of the sight base in order to get it to shoot center with the rear sight at MZ (mechanical zero). It bothered me.

So I took it to a ex-military gunsmith with the proper barrel and action blocks and described the problem to him. He said "no problem". He made a witness mark with a punch on the bottom of the barrel at the barrel/action junction and proceeded to use that to rotate the barrel just the right amount to clear up the problem.

By measuring the physical amount of rear windage needed to shoot zero with the front sight centered, and the diameter of the barrel at the witness mark, and the height of the tip of the front sight over the center of the bore, he was able to calculate the amount of barrel adjustment needed to correct the problem.

Damned clever fellow. He explained the mechanics of the calculation and I remember I understood it then. But alas the sands of time have erased my memory of how it worked.

Anyway, he did and it was nicely successful. Rifle how shoots center with only 1 minute of windage and the front sight centered on the sight base.

I also had a M1A with the barrel screwed on off set
I could adjust my site at 100 yds, but then started going farther off as I went out
sold the rifle
but this is a possibility on a Garand also
RJMT