Rear sight collar

[el Woodman]

Is it possible for me to remove the rear sight collar that has no pin?RIA 318xxx with a 1932 SA barrel.....

[Richard H Brown Jr]

el Woodman:

Ordnance Maintenance Manual TM 9-1270 (avail online to d/l at various places) has the procedure to remove the collar. With the pin removed from the collar, it has to be driven forward off the rear of the barrel by driving a chunk of wood agains the rear of the collar pushing it forward. See paragraph 15 pg. 55, and para 16 for reassembly.

Hope this helps.

R Brown

[John Beard]

Is it possible for me to remove the rear sight collar that has no pin?RIA 318xxx with a 1932 SA barrel.....

The rear sight collar is normally held in place by a transverse pin across the bottom front of the collar. The ends of the pin are dressed to the curvature of the collar so as to be "invisible." To remove the collar, you will first need to remove the pin by driving it out with a pin punch. Once the pin has been removed, then the collar can be removed by driving it towards the front of the barrel. But you'll be very lucky to get it off without damaging it. I suggest that you find a large piece of steel pipe that abuts against the rear of the collar to keep from damaging it.

J.B.

[JimF]

. . . . .I suggest that you find a large piece of steel pipe that abuts against the rear of the collar to keep from damaging it.

J.B.

As per usual, John nailed it!!!

The very best way to remove the base . . . . WITHOUT DAMAGE . . . . Is to remove the barrel from the receiver, then use an arbor press to remove the base . . . using immense, steady pressure, forward, off the barrel!

[el Woodman]

Thank y'all for the scoop; I found the pin....Destruction of the collar is not an issue, as Bubba ground pert of it off making his deer rifle....Got a cherry 5-32 bore!

[Richard H Brown Jr]

Heh, so there *IS* a pin on the collar, did a quick look at my *possible* USMC 1903, and did not see it, but did see that someone did bask the crap out of the collar front edges (on the front sight side) putting it on my RIA 1918 barrel. I was using the pix at Numrich, and the pfigs in the ordnance maint manual. But the pin isn't listed on Numrich pages, afaict. Learn something new every day.


R Brown

[John Beard]

Heh, so there *IS* a pin on the collar, did a quick look at my *possible* USMC 1903, and did not see it, but did see that someone did bask the crap out of the collar front edges (on the front sight side) putting it on my RIA 1918 barrel. I was using the pix at Numrich, and the pfigs in the ordnance maint manual. But the pin isn't listed on Numrich pages, afaict. Learn something new every day.


R Brown

The pin is not considered a separate replacement part. The rear sight collar was carefully aligned and accurately pressed onto the barrel in a fixture. The barrel was then placed in a separate fixture on a drill press and the hole for the pin was drilled. An extra-long pin was driven in the hole and the ends of the pin were dressed off to match the contour of the base so as to be invisible. All the preceding work was done with the barrel and rear sight collar in-the-white. The barrel with front and rear sight collars pinned in place was then blued or parkerized, as appropriate, to further hide the pin. Army Ordnance did not want front or rear sight collars removed in the field. That's why the pins were made invisible.

And to el Woodman, if you want to remove the damaged rear sight collar the easy way, take a Dremel motor with cutting wheel and slit it down the bottom.

J.B.