front sight removal

[Mack in N.C.]

have a front sight on a gun that i dont like.....looks to be soldered? on....can it be removed and if so how and then also can it be put back on and how??...thanks mack

[trotterlg]

It is most likely silver soldered on.  It is much stonger and works at a much higher temperature than regular soft tin lead solder.  The metal needs to be close to red hot to melt it.  Put it on the same way you take it off, it will hose up the finish on the barrel however.  Larry

[Flash]

You can get silver solder from Brownells that melts at around 450 degrees. You need to heat the sight to remove it and if you keep the heat at around 500 degrees, the bluing will not suffer too much. If you got the steel nearly red hot, you'd change the temper of the steel. The melting point of Silver solder is nothing close to the 900 degrees it takes to get steel cherry red.

[JustaShooter]

If it melts at around 450 degrees F, then it is silver bearing soft solder not what is usually called silver solder.  Silver solder is more of a braze, and depending on composition can melt at as low as around 900 degrees F, but more commonly at around 1100 - 1300 degrees F.  Or at least that's what I thought I remembered from metal shop, and just confirmed with a bit of Googling... ;-)

Hard to say what exactly was used to attach the sight, it might be worth a shot at heating to 500.  But if I were you I'd probably take it to a good gunsmith, he might be able to give you a better idea of what it would take after looking it over.

Just a Shooter

[Flash]

  as I posted, this is all you need. No matter what the silver content, it is all called silver solder..........soft or hard.
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=709&title=HI-FORCE%2044?%20SOLDER

 At $11 an ounce, you can be sure that the firearm companies, certainly aren't going to use a high percentage silver solder to install every sight. 
Metalshop? Hell, I haven't heard that term in 35 years.