Author Topic: Fitting dovetails  (Read 430 times)

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Offline cooper

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Fitting dovetails
« on: March 01, 2005, 08:34:37 AM »
I have a front sight (Lyman 17A) that I need to fit into my Shiloh Sharps, and the dovetail on the sight is a bit too small.

I cut a piece of brass shim stock (.013" thick), and a bit smaller than the base size of the dovetail.  I was just going to tap all of this into place at one time, with a hammer and a nylon or brass drift punch.  

But before I do, I thought I would ask here  -  is this a good way to do it?  After I get everything in, and make sure that I'm centered, should I use locktite or something like that to make the setup more permanent?  

Is there a better way to do this?

Offline gunnut69

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Fitting dovetails
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2005, 09:43:58 AM »
Kinda depends on how much oversized the dovetail cut is and in what direction.  If only a tiny amount I would use a very sharp prick punch to raise tiny burrs in the base of the dovetail cut. These will raise the floor of the cut and tighten it. It's also possible to use a polished smooth faced punch to lightly peen the edges of the dovetail cut. This is especially helpful if the cut is too wide as opposed to too deep.  This works really well but the flat faced punch must be truly polished and flat spot avoided like the plague.  The challenge with shim stock is keeping it aligned with the bottom of the sight base as it's being driven into place.
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