I have a different brand than a S&W with a canted barrel. I've seen a lot of posts here over the years about canted barrels. I thought this would be a good place to ask.

The gun in question's barrel is canted slightly to the right. I've been trying to get it zeroed by moving the rear sight to the left...didn't work. I moved the rear sight to the right and acquired zero. It would seem to me to move the POA to the left would zero the gun, but no.

Thinking about it with a canted barrel the front sight should still be in line with the barrel bore. So lining the rear sight with the front sight should provide a straight line with barrel bore, front and rear sight.

Please correct me if my thinking is wrong. If canted right move rear sight right - the opposite if canted left.

Left for right cant. mysterious magic!

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Bob P.

The rear sight is set to the right about the distance the front sight is right. It is dead zeroed at 20 yards. Its a .22 revolver.

I do not understand the mechanics of it, whether the sights and barrel bore are out of alignment from the factory is possible.

who else is sending out canted barrels besides smith and wesson?

Its a Rossi by Taurus. Beautiful gun. Everything seem right except the canted barrel.... Just like my 686 no dash and its barrel

Many years ago, I bought a Ruger Blackhawk 41 mag with 6 1/2 inch barrel. The front sight was canted to the left. I did manage to shoot OK with but it always bothered me. I sold the gun much later. Now, I would send it back to be fixed.

As long as it hits where its pointed I don't care if the barrel is canted. Its just a beater anyway. I only pack it if I'm walking in the woods.

it is beautiful.....not something you are looking forward to im sure, but you might have to send it back to taurus to get it fixed if the adjustments wont work and you want it to hit where you are aiming..

It hits where its aimed. I can put 8 in the 10 ring at 20 yards. My reason for posting is because moving the rear sight to the right with a front sight canted to the right and still being zeroed is a mystery to me. It goes against every thing I know about sighting in guns and moving sights. I can only conclude from previous posts that the barrel bore and front and rear sight must be out of alignment from the factory other than just a canted barrel. OR by moving the rear sight to the right lines everything up... a result of a canted barrel.

Unless reading all of this has gotten me confused, or if I have just forgotten, if you want to move your bullet strikes on the target to the right while using a correct sight picture, you move your rear sight to the right. If you are moving the front sight to do the same thing, you move it to the left! That's left and right looking down the barrel from the rear, of course.

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So long ... Ken

^^^^
This.

If you move the rear sight to be centered, the hits will be to the left of POA, right..?

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S&W J/K/L/N/X

This is correct:
It might be easier for the original poster to visualize if he thought of sighting in a rifle for a few hundred yards out with sights that are off to one side of the bore by and inch. He'd make his line of sight almost parallel to the bore but with a very slight angle toward the center. His front sight is off to the right so to get his line of sight parallel to the bore the rear sight also needs to be off to the right.

With the rifle there are a few other items that do not do much to clear up how to sight in a pistol. We'd consider bullet drop. Also I'd zero the rifle to hit one inch to the side of point of aim to to keep the bullet's trajectory in a vertical plane parallel to the bore. That way I would not have to remember it'll cross over to the other side at long range. Deer do not care much about an inch. This comes up mounting scopes on rifles that eject straight up.

...if your front sight is canted right...you have to move the front of the barrel left to line the front sight up with the rear sight...and the shot will go left because you just pointed the barrel left...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

You could move the front sight left by screwing the barrel in a tad. Logically, barrels are most likely turned in past 12 O'clock to get them to seat tight enough and and not turned in all the way to 12 O'clock because they got tight before 12 O'clock. If the barrel already is torqued in very tight it might have to be removed and a hair shaved off its shoulder in a lathe. Without a frame wrench the frame is easily bent. Bent frames go to steel recycle. If that's news a gunsmith should be consulted.

As pointed out above, you move a front sight opposite the way you want to move point of impact so turning the barrel in further will move point of impact to the right.

I recently send my Smith back to fix a canted barrel. I found the easiest way to tell which way it was canted is to center the rear sight, shoot off a rest and hold the gun a little clockwise or counter-clockwise to see which way makes it line up vertically.

Ruger sends some out canted as well ... seems all the manufacturers are suffering from the same lack of quality control. As long as the rear sight has enough range of adjustment, and you can handle the “tilted” front blade in the sight picture, no big deal. I do wish they could figure out a process that would avoid this but it is probably a question of cost control and the bottom line.

A canted barrel would drive me to drink. I wouldn't buy a gun
that way unless it was a steal. Then I would get rid of it. Seems
like a lot of them getting out of the manufactures. Rifles as well
no QC to speak of.

I have an 03A3 like this although the cant in the barrel is hard to pick out. To show it cuts both ways, I got one of the rare WASR AKs with a straight front sight.

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Release the Kraken

You never said whether your groups were right or left of point of aim.

That said, move your rear sight in the direction your groups need to move.

The problem is the S&W micrometer rear sight is designed so that turning the screw to the right moves the sight to the right, while most other revolvers will do the opposite, if I recall. So, move your rear sight in the direction your group needs to move.

I had a brand new Taurus 82 with the barrel clocked wrong/canted...Couldn't hit squat!

I took it apart and wrapped the barrel in leather...clamped it in a vise and used a block of wood to turn the barrel straight. Shot great after that.

I have a WASR 10 Romanian AK that everything on it is 'canted' one direction or the other!...It all seems to average out as it shoots accurate. I think the entire front end of the gun is canted to the left!

On Rugers, I noticed that the SP101 is plagued with under clocked barrels. The GP100's seem to be pretty spot on. With S&Ws, I've seen J-frames and L frames badly canted.

Here's something else to consider: if you look at the opening in the frame where the barrel screws in, sometimes you can see that the opening is slightly off center. Sometimes there is slightly more material on the left or right side of the frame where the barrel screws in. I therefore conclude that a canted front site might not always shoot off, since the front site lean is not the only factor in play here.

Just something to think about.