Crooked front sight on 1903A1

I noticed earlier today that the front sight on one of my 03A1's is just barely obvious as being canted to the right when I sight it through the rear peep hole or the triangle opening in the drift slide. It's not just the sight blade, which is not bent or curved at all. Its the entire front sight assembly. And, it's also not a result of me holding the rifle at an odd angle.

I haven't shot this one since last summer, but I know it was never like that previously. All I can think of that could have caused this was sometime last fall I snapped on a USMC front sight protector (of which I have a small collection), and later found it difficult to remove....my experience has been that they just don't snap on an off with relative ease. To remove it I used a short piece 1/2" dowel and a rawhide mallet to drive it off. I remember being on the left side of the rifle (with the stock clamped into padded, steel rifle rest/cleaning vise), but don't recall if I drove it off straight forwardor if I had the dowel positioned on the top of the hood at a slight left to right angle when I drove it off with the rawhide mallet.

Thus, I'm now wondering if I somehow either drove the base slightly to the right or if perhaps when driving that sight protector off whether I might have slightly turned the barrel a few thousandths or so clockwise (clockwise, that is, from perspective of looking at barrel from behind the action). I checked headspace and its fine. I'm not sure but it seems as if there may be a couple of witness marks where the barrel meets the receiver, but am wanting to avoid stripping it down and removing the rear sight base sleeve to double check. I also haven't tried to take my 1/2" dowel and mallet and try to drive the sight base a little to the left, though it has been tempting. Also have not tried to uninstall the complete front sight assembly and then reinstall it to see if that would correct it.

Any thoughts on what might be going on here or how to correct this would be greatly appreciated!

p.s. Also, if someone knows of the proper way to remove a front sight hood, whether the standard Army version or the taller Marine version, I'd be glad to hear about it.

Well probably not the barrel but the sleeve on the barrel the the front sight slides on, I had this same problem on an 03 and at first thought it was the front sight but taking a closer look I was able to move the entire front sight left or right! I still haven't repaired it but not sure how to go about it. It looks like originally they were soldered into place.

An M1903A1 front sight base is rigidly splined to the barrel. You did not like turn the base on the barrel. But, you may have bent it.

It's possible that you may have turned the barrel in the receiver, but not likely. The receiver ring has a witness mark on the left front side. If you turned the barrel, the witness mark will no longer align with the edge of the rear sight base.

Hope this helps.

J.B.

You say, when you look through the peep sight you notice it. Is it noticeable without looking through the peep? Is there a chance you wear corrective lenses and have a stigmatism in your shooting eye? This is a common occurrence, but usually more prominant when the peep is much closer to the eye.

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Originally Posted by Randy A

You say, when you look through the peep sight you notice it. Is it noticeable without looking through the peep? Is there a chance you wear corrective lenses and have a stigmatism in your shooting eye? This is a common occurrence, but usually more prominant when the peep is much closer to the eye.

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Mystery solved. No glasses or astigmatism. Sighted down other 03's plus a Rem. M12 with tang peep sight, along with an M1A, M1 and M1 Carbine, and they all looked straight eXcept I noticed the carbine looked a little canted to the left (dam_ it!) compared to the sight pictures of the M1 and M1A.:eusa_wall:

But, by doing just as you suggested Randy...that is, by NOT looking through the peep I could easily tell the front sight is indeed as straight as it ever was but that the rear sight collar is on slightly crooked to the left. Not sure how I managed to screw that one up :icon_redface: when I replaced the old worn out collar last fall with this nice used one, but I now know what needs to be fixed. Plus, I now need to also double check what's wrong with that M1 Carbine's sights (which I have absolutely not touched! ...yet, anyway.) :icon_lol: Actually, I'm now thinking that it might not be a bad idea to pull everything with rear peep sights out of the safes and do a complete s-X-s comparison of them all.

Thanks very much everyone for all your input on this!

if your front sight is out of index, and the rear sight base is indexed correctly, then the rear base is out of index with the barrel,
and the barrel itself is likely out of index with the rifle.
if you re index the sight base with the front sight, you will find the barrel is out of index.