I don't know if this has been covered before or not. There are a couple on-line YouTube videos covering this, but they left out a couple key pieces of information that would have saved me a lot of time (and money) in the process.
First of all, why would I want to replace the rear sight ?
In my case, my Model 19 4" shoots low. I have the rear sight cranked all the way up and it still shoots a tiny bit low. I knew there were various sizes of these rear sight blades. So I did a search to find out what was involved in changing mine to a taller blade. I ended up going with an aftermarket Weigand rear sight blade (.190") which I felt was nicer than simply putting another S&W blade in it. As long as I am doing it, why not upgrade it at the same time ?
When you replace the rear sight blade, you have to break the screw that adjusts the sight and secures the sight into the gun. When I ordered my new rear sight blade, I ASSUMED it came with new hardware since you have to have it to use the new sight blade. Well.......you know what happens when you assume. What I got was exactly what I ordered: a new rear sight blade. So, now I had to make another order for the hardware which consists of a new screw, and nut, a spring, and a plunger. This of course was backordered, but I got it within a couple weeks.
So today, I finally sat down to install it. I (of course) didn't read the directions ahead of time or really see what was involved. Installing the thing is kind of tedious because the parts are so small. I ended up using a binocular magnifier. The next to the last step requires you to put the nut on the screw. This requires a "spanner wrench" which I didn't have. What this is: the screw goes clear through the nut and protrudes out past the nut. So you need a "split" or "U" shaped wrench to tighten the nut. Again, this isn't included and nothing I saw or read mentioned this.
So, I got it mostly together and it looks great. I am patiently awaiting my spanner wrench so I can finish the job.
As a side note, my hat is off to Brownells. I have of course bought plenty of stuff from them before, but this time I couldn't find what I needed. The search engine on their website basically sucks. I noticed that they had on-line tech support. I figured it would be a pain, but gave it a try. A live person came right on-line and steered me right to the wrench I needed.
So in summary, if you need or want to do this, you need a new rear sight blade, you need new hardware, and you need the wrench to tighten it. This ended up costing me more than I had anticipated by the time I paid three shipping charges plus the parts themselves. But, hopefully I can enjoy my Model 19 for many years to come.
First of all, why would I want to replace the rear sight ?
In my case, my Model 19 4" shoots low. I have the rear sight cranked all the way up and it still shoots a tiny bit low. I knew there were various sizes of these rear sight blades. So I did a search to find out what was involved in changing mine to a taller blade. I ended up going with an aftermarket Weigand rear sight blade (.190") which I felt was nicer than simply putting another S&W blade in it. As long as I am doing it, why not upgrade it at the same time ?
When you replace the rear sight blade, you have to break the screw that adjusts the sight and secures the sight into the gun. When I ordered my new rear sight blade, I ASSUMED it came with new hardware since you have to have it to use the new sight blade. Well.......you know what happens when you assume. What I got was exactly what I ordered: a new rear sight blade. So, now I had to make another order for the hardware which consists of a new screw, and nut, a spring, and a plunger. This of course was backordered, but I got it within a couple weeks.
So today, I finally sat down to install it. I (of course) didn't read the directions ahead of time or really see what was involved. Installing the thing is kind of tedious because the parts are so small. I ended up using a binocular magnifier. The next to the last step requires you to put the nut on the screw. This requires a "spanner wrench" which I didn't have. What this is: the screw goes clear through the nut and protrudes out past the nut. So you need a "split" or "U" shaped wrench to tighten the nut. Again, this isn't included and nothing I saw or read mentioned this.
So, I got it mostly together and it looks great. I am patiently awaiting my spanner wrench so I can finish the job.
As a side note, my hat is off to Brownells. I have of course bought plenty of stuff from them before, but this time I couldn't find what I needed. The search engine on their website basically sucks. I noticed that they had on-line tech support. I figured it would be a pain, but gave it a try. A live person came right on-line and steered me right to the wrench I needed.
So in summary, if you need or want to do this, you need a new rear sight blade, you need new hardware, and you need the wrench to tighten it. This ended up costing me more than I had anticipated by the time I paid three shipping charges plus the parts themselves. But, hopefully I can enjoy my Model 19 for many years to come.
