I am need of some help from someone/anyone who knows about these things.

I have a complete NM #3 latch/target sight assembly in my stash of spares. It carries no serial number---which is to say it likely came from the parts department rather than off a gun.

I have four NM #3's with target sights. ALL of them have the original service sight (rear notch) as part of the assembly. My spare sight assembly has no such notch.

So------------either the original service sight (rear notch) was removed from my spare sight, or it was never there (figuratively speaking).

Did S&W produce such latch/sight assemblies both with and without the service sight, or has it been removed by someone---somewhere along the line?

Many thanks!!

Ralph Tremaine

I think I understand what you are describing, but photos would help. All the ones I can recall have the notch. Perhaps your spare sight assembly didn't complete it's full manufacturing cycle and got discarded before it reached the notch step in the manufacture ??? Ed.

I think we discussed this once before. SIGHT STUFF

I was looking for some other older stuff and ran across it. I didn't remember either.

cb

A reasonable suspicion on your part. For my part, I suspect the notch has been there ever since the piece popped out of the forging die---------assuming it was forged.(????????) Given it was forged, the routine manufacturing process would include any machining afforded the notch.

A non-routine manufacturing step would be removing the notch. Non-routine manufacturing processes take time/cost money/would make Mr. Wesson's teeth hurt. Non-routine manufacturing processes performed for non-essential purposes (like grinding notches off) would make Mr. Wesson's teeth hurt A LOT. Then there would be a brief meeting where all but one of the participants would be subjected to getting their butts gnawed on----perhaps gnawed off. The meeting would conclude with all but one of the participants being sadder but wiser.

My other suspicion (in light of my totally worthless statistical sample---four with notches, one without) is all of the target latch/sight assemblies left Springfield with their notches intact----if for no other reason than they might come in handy one day---never mind they might also be considered a baffling redundancy.

Lacking any substantive wisdom to the contrary, I shall consider this "notchless" sight as the product of a long forgotten and aesthetically inclined "customizer".

Ralph Tremaine

And having made a brief visit to the past, "crossv" is absolutely right---we did discuss this before----with some substantive results---never mind all of that evaporated from my mind. I'll reinstall all that in my mind, and go from there.