I hate doing dovetails

[Travis Gregory]

If it is snug enough that you can shoot with it then do it. Then make a reference mark on the sight and barrel and remove the sight. Put a couple drops of red loc tite (#271) at the edge of the dovetail in the barrel and drive the sight back in to the reference mark. The sight will be solid in a couple hours and you wont be able to see any daylight underneath either.

 

[Stophel]

It's a big sight and looks good on the gun but if you turn it just right and look, you see daylight under the sight, like it's riding high in the dove tail.

I have found that it is humanly impossible to file a sharp inside corner (or a perfectly flat surface). No matter what, the sight dovetail corners are going to ride up inside the un-sharp corners on the barrel. So, the sharp corners of the sight need to be knocked off, and the bottom "flat" of the sight can be filed up a little towards the front and back edge to match the imperfectly shaped barrel dovetail a bit better. :wink:

I will fit my sights/tenons to the barrel a bit at a time, and my dovetails are ever-so-slightly tapered, so it keeps getting tighter as you go in.

 

[54ball]

You cant really tell to much but this is what i was working on.

I suggest ya do this. IF you can mount that sight in the vice upside down, then take the small ball part of a small ball peen hammer & start peening the back of the part going in the dovetail & expand it.

Thanks Keith,
That's what I did when I got up this morning. I worked on it most of the day yesterday peened the sight in the vise, tweaked this and that peened it again filed the base flat and she drove in. It sat a little high and I tapped it down a little to seat it good and it seems real solid with no gap underneath. It took about 30 minutes to fix this morning.

That sight does look a little big on that gun.

Hindsight is 20/20. I should have put masking tape on the barrel and I might not have scratched it as bad when my saw and file slipped.

This is my general use gun. I use it for nearly everything, 1813 militia and hunting.
That sight was polished but it's already started to turn as I wiped it with fouling.

Oh it shoots just a tad high and a hair to the left. Tomorrow I'm going to the range to give it a workout. :hatsoff:

 

[54ball]

I have found that it is humanly impossible to file a sharp inside corner (or a perfectly flat surface). No matter what, the sight dovetail corners are going to ride up inside the un-sharp corners on the barrel. So, the sharp corners of the sight need to be knocked off, and the bottom "flat" of the sight can be filed up a little towards the front and back edge to match the imperfectly shaped barrel dovetail a bit better.

I will fit my sights/tenons to the barrel a bit at a time, and my dovetails are ever-so-slightly tapered, so it keeps getting tighter as you go in.

Great advice :thumbsup:

 

[Birddog6]

Chris, that is how I do it as well. Same way on Underlugs.... you cannot file that sharp a edge the underlug has on it. So I file that sharp edge off just a tad to match the dovetail.

Works for me.

Keith Lisle

 

[M. De Land]

That is where the mill cut dovetail comes into play it will cut an inside female dovetail sharper than any male sight I have ever seen. Mike D.

 

[Vaino]

I make most of the components that fit into dovetails and they're made first and the dovetail is made to fit. All dovetail angles except the ones for the front sights are made w/ an upsetting chisel and for bbl lugs, the raised metal is peened down and filed smooth for a very tight fit. The raised metal at both sides of the rear sight dovetail is filed into a molding enabling more purchase w/ a shallower dovetail.

If by chance, a front or rear sight dovetail is made oversize, a new sight is made and the "old one" is used on a future build...don't like to "fix" a sight to fit.......Fred

 

[M. De Land]

I can see the point on simple open sights Fred but spirit level aperture sights with internal windage adjustment often cost a couple hundred dollars a piece and need to be fit correctly and on occasion "adjusted" to fit.
TIG or MIG welding has saved the Day more than once but of course then they have to be reblued and that is a pain in he keester. Mike D.