loose dovetail

[gferlitsch]

Does anyone have suggestions on how to correct a loose dovetail fit? It is the rear site and just loose enough that the sight can be easily moved by hand.

 

[bubba.50]

if it's just a bit loose you can lay a socket or somethin' similar across the dovetail & give it a light tap or two with a small hammer. tap lightly & check fit often.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

What rifle, custom or factory.

You could "grow" the sight with some selective hammering on the edges of the sight itself.

or

Depending on the configuration of the sight, you could peen the edges of the dovetail down to pinch the sight tight.

or


Might just be that the best solution is to fit a new sight to the dovetail.

 

[gferlitsch]

The socket tip worked beautifully. One light tap and the sight fits nice and snug. Thank you!

This is a TOW flintlock kit build.

 

[BigBoreBLR]

Glad it worked.

I remove the sight and take a center punch and hit from underneath 2 or 3 spots. It grows out you sight dovetail ebough for me.

 

[gferlitsch]

I'm sure that would work also. But the socket idea was just the right trick for my situation.

 

[Col. Batguano]

The other thing you could do is make the dovetail a bit wider by tinning the edges with silver solder Clean it off the top and bottom, and your sight will be a wee bit wider. But, like the other guys said, I'd try the peening route first. That seemed to work so the rest of this is for the next time, and there always seems to be.

On my current build, I had 1 barrel lug that was a wee bit loose, First I peened on the barrel, and then staked it in 4 places, just using a sharp chisel edge so I hit both the lug and the barrel with it. That did the trick. Since it's the bottom of the barrel it won't show anyway.

 

[Spikebuck]

I know you have it fixed, but just to throw in another option for some other time, a thin shim under a sight dovetail can also work.

 

[MSW]

i have a beat up set of feeler gauges (given to me by the mechanics where i work ... some of the have some rust on them, which is how i ended up with them.

as feeler gauges they're pretty much all done, but they make great shims :grin: