Former owner tempered with the front sight. There seems to be a fissure/hairline crack/fracture in the front sight base. Would you help me assess the damage?
What can one do about it?
Former owner tempered with the front sight. There seems to be a fissure/hairline crack/fracture in the front sight base. Would you help me assess the damage?
What can one do about it?
Last edited by overton; 08-22-2020 at 12:23 PM.
If it were me, and it shot to POA I would put some cold blue on the sides of the sight and repaint the front, and keep on keeping on!
But you're not me so if you don't like the front sight, go to Brownell's and order one or more of many front sights and a new sight pin and replace. Easy fix.
Thanks for your input! But what concerns me is not the front sight itself, but there seems to be a fissure/hairline crack/fracture
in the base. I guess that is very hard to repair as any welding operation will induce heat to the barrel.
Last edited by overton; 08-22-2020 at 12:03 PM.
The 'base' is part of the raw barrel forging. If it's a current production gun S&W will probably just replace the barrel.Originally Posted by overton
For something that isn't stressed in any real way, I would assume that it probably won't get worse unless you start hammering on it.
What is your interest in the gun? Collector or shooter?
That looks an awful lot like a mountain gun / mountain revolver barrel.
Yep, .44 Magnum Mountain Revolver I got for 330,-
A pure shooter/hunters backup. I just don't want the front sight including base to be gone when I need it the most.
Well, at least you didn't overpay.
Do you have a top-down pic of the crack. If it's not very deep I'd really just not worry about it. It's not like there's a slide hammering the cracked section with every shot or anything. I have a hard time seeing it becoming worse unless you repeatedly drop the gun on the front sight.
Ill give ya $400
Seem to recall that's about what I sold my .44 mountain gun for.
Of course at the time pagers were more common than cellphones and 15-round Glock magazines went for $100, but still.
Back when S&Ws were real guns they installed the ramp on the barrel rib. In your pictures I think I can make out a fine line that may be the junction between the rib and the attached ramp base. If I'm right then a competent gun smith can probably make and install a new ramp with a front sight of your choice. Worth looking into as you don't have that much invested and it could be worth spending some money to make it right.
Dave
Unless it starts to move & grow, I would pretend it is not there and keep shooting it based on your intended use.
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