S&W Front sight replacement

[highlander 5]

Gentlemen
Has anyone here replaced the parridge front sight with a fiber optic sight ?
The Patridge sight is getting tough to see,going to have a smith do the work. Going to use a HiViz front sight.

 

[alfsauve]

Well, depends. There are, depending on model and engineering revision, three different types of front sights. One piece with the barrel, they aren’t replaceable. Then there are the pinned ones, which require drilling the new front sight to match up with the drift pin, finally there’s the DX that’s held in the slot by a spring and are somewhat easy to swap out. DX are recognizable but the hole in front of the sight just above the barrel. Which do you have?

 

[sparkyv]

The DX sights are GREAT! Wish ALL my S&W revolvers had them. My M617 front sight was pinned. I'd call this an intermediate level shadetree gunsmithing activity. For starters, it requires a non-standard punch and a special drill bit.

 

[357 Terms]

I replaced the patridge front sight on my 629 Mountain gun with a Hi Viz.
I didn't bother with the oddball sized punch and pin.
I drilled the stock pin out with a 1/16th inch bit and used a Ruger pin I had.
Pretty simple.

 

[Jim Watson]

The integral blade on my M67 got milled off and a cross dovetail cut in the ramped base. The dovetail now holds a fiber optic sight of the right height for the Weigand rear blade.

 

[alfsauve]

I bought a bag of the right sized drill bits. Broke one off and used it as the drift punch.
But then just up-sizing to a 1/16" roll pin works quite well.

 

[jmorris]

I have done it each way. The 2nd from the left, looked just like the one on the left before I machined the sight off, milled a slot, made the sight from bar stock to fit my slot and drilled to pin it.

The 3rd from the left is a factory pinned sight and the one on the right is the easiest, push the spring loaded plunger back (little hole above bore) with a tooth pick and lift the sight out for replacement.



The easiest methods start at the right and get more difficult, with the far right being the easiest by a huge margin. One I'd change for you for free and one was enough work, had I not done it myself and had to pay someone for the one off work, I would have just sold the gun and bought another revolver with a removable sight. A lot of ways to mess up that one and time consuming to avoid them all.

 

[highlander 5]

The front sight is pinned so it shouldn't be that tough to replace.
I'm going with the snith on this one. Wish S&W used the Ruger or Dan Wesson method to hold the front sight in place.

 

[bangswitch]

Put a dab of fluorescent orange on the back side of the Patridge post and see if it improves visibility. Cheaper than gunsmithing to replace the sights and sometimes is all you need. I won't modify my S&W's, they are all dead stock and the value isn't affected (mine are all older than 1980).

 

[Pat Riot]

If your front sight is pinned here is a thread that may help you that includes a video that I used to help me. I also posted some photos of what I did to change a pinned front sight on a S&W model 63.
It should be on page 4 of a 5 page thread.

S&W 63 22lr vs.................

>>I ended up selling the Ruger LCRX 22LR off. I liked it, but never really loved it. It always felt.....odd in hand.

www.thehighroad.org

 

[highlander 5]

Put a dab of fluorescent orange on the back side of the Patridge post and see if it improves visibility. Cheaper than gunsmithing to replace the sights and sometimes is all you need. I won't modify my S&W's, they are all dead stock and the value isn't affected (mine are all older than 1980).

Tried that with nail polish still tough for me to see. I've green fiber optic sights on my 2 Rugers a GP100 and a Super Redhawk and find them much easier to see.