I've started shooting my dad's 41, 7 in barrel, with iron sights. According to S&W its probably 1959-60 vintage. I want to put a Match Dot on it but I do not have drill holes to mount directly onto the barrel. I will not have the barrel drilled. I ordered a mount from BME that slides into the dovetail on the rear sight. The problem is that my dovetail on my gun is really small, like 1.5 to 2 mm. The dovetail on the new mount is probable 1 cm. Has anyone been able to mount a red dot onto a similar vintage?
Hi BonnieB68 and Welcome to the forum from Canada as well. My suggestion would be to shop around for a different barrel which is already Factory drilled and keep the original one as original to the gun. They are out there in lengths of 5.5" that are pre-drilled from the factory for a easier mounting of many different eye appliances.
After shopping around, I found a predrilled new in the box factory barrel on GB last year for $315. Changing the barrel might take a whopping 15 seconds and requires no tools, but you may have to fit the new barrel first. Fitting is easy to do with a small file and a Sharpie marker.