How bad did mess up my dovetail?

[Coinneach]

This was a Traditions kit and came with plastic sights with the rear sight being mounted using two drilled and tapped holes in the barrel.

My advice is if you want to learn more about building them, use that Barrel and sight to practise installation, and fitting out the overall kit same same. Take your time and enjoy the carefully measured work itself, Craftmanship has to be developed over time and experience; its a journey sans deadlines.

Measure everything and be sure before cutting, drilling; and inletting; and always in increments a little at a time rather than full on that way you wont go too deep; too wide etc.

I recommend 2 good reference books that I still use from years ago, "The Art of Building the Pennsylvania Rifle" and "The Gunsmith of Grenville County" (Peter A. Alexander) the latter being a best choice. Study the whole book and pencil in /underline whatever. Then when you start to work flag the relevant pages and refresh in your mind step at a time, your knowledge from study will enable the right positive experience you win through a practical application.

Once you feel more competent then buy a more upmarket kit of your choice worth owning, why waste your hard earned on "the druthers" ?

PS, it was admirable of you to share a failure, thank you sir.

 

[Coinneach]

The webpage indicates they are out of stock.

Thanks for replying, I'll scout out TOW and others for it.

 

[Coinneach]

Snyperx, good decision, i have a few barrels laying about that i upscrewed.
for future reference, there is no reason for a dovetail to be deep. there are even dovetail chisels that when stabbed into the flat raise a edge. repeat in the opposite direction and you have a flush top dovetail. flush with the top of the barrel with no file work.
many ways to install a sight.
glad you thought of going to the source.
best of luck.

Looking at the photos I suspect that the OP thought that the upper surface of the Sight had to be flush surfaced with the top Barrel flat.

 

[Kansas Kid]

WRONG!! The diameter of the drill holes is a fraction of the area exposed by the ridiculous filing of the dovetail area. Maybe you should be the first one to fire it!! Then let us all know how that worked out.

I finally get to use the ignore button.

 

[Mr. Flintlock]

Welp….took the plunge and said “F’IT” and tried my hand at doing a dovetail. Yeesh. It ain’t purty, but the rear sight is on my Hawken. Any “constructive” criticism would be appreciated.

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Looks like you took a pretty good chunk out of that barrel. I'd measure the wall thickness to insure your not going to blow up your barrel.

 

[FlinterNick]

Its definitely too deep in my opinion i wouldn’t shoot it, Bobby Hoyt. Might be able to fix this with a weld and then reinstall the rear sight. The Sight mortise should be an equal thickness of the sight base. The bases on my guns i often shave them down to a thinner gauge, especially for round barrels.

 

[andy52]

For your consideration.

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I thought the same thing but considered it best left unsaid..

 

[deerstalkert]

FT3000 dixie gun works
FT3000 DOVETAIL FORMING CHISEL (dixiegunworks.com)

 

[Secesh]

FT3000 dixie gun works
FT3000 DOVETAIL FORMING CHISEL (dixiegunworks.com)

Excellent suggestion. The chisels work great and they make the job look way better than a milled dovetail, IMHO. A good depth jig is a must have tool as well when forming those dovetails.

 

[Colonial Boy]

An ordinary cold chisel can be sharpened to do the job, especially a cold chisel that can be sharpened with a file because they require no heat treating, just a sharp tap or two on a piece of scrap steel to set up the edge.