Tweaking the sights on an antique S&W

[Exmilcop]

Good day all. Forgive a small re-cap, but here's my dilemma. I have a beautiful S&W DA in .44 Russian. From the low serial number it's early production but at some point in its life I believe it went through the hands of a master gunsmith and was completely refurbished. The condition is astounding, given its age, but it wears replacement grips and was thoroughly refinished. I finally got it to the range with some Fiocchi ammo and it was about 10-11" high at 20 yds. My thinking is this. With the fixed sights, there's very little room for adjustment. I was thinking of drifting out the little pin that retains the foresight and fabricating a ramped foresight block with a dovetail that would then be fitted to the rib and allow for different foresight blades. If I make a tail that fits into the slot for the original foresight and pin the ramp in place, I would not damage the original parts or destroy the integrity of the pistol. Your thoughts? I would make one blade for plinking loads and another for full factory spec loads.

[Hondo44]

Quite likely, as is not uncommon with these old war horses, the original 1/2 round sight has worn down from holster use over the years.

Your idea is a good one!

A replacement won't need a great deal of additional height to get you on center target. I'd just make one original style for the factory load to keep with the gun, and the two ramped style for shooting your two loads.

[5-Shot]

If you reload you might try a lighter bullet. I "adjust the sights" on many of my fixed sighted revolvers by juggling bullet weights.

Ed

[glowe]

All these guns may have been sighted for a bottom of the bullseye, probably using 148g HBWC or 158 SWC. Since you are probably not shooting in competition with that revolver, I would simply hold a foot low and keep shooting. Remember that this generation of guns came just a decade or so after percussion revolvers and rifles were the only thing out there and almost all had fixed sights. One thing I learned about shooting Pennsylvania rifle and cap & ball revolvers is to learn where they shoot and apply the ever popular "Kentucky Windage & elevation change" to my shooting or change the load until the gun shoots where you aim. I would suggest you first hold at the bottom of the bull rather than center and bet your results will improve. Also, if you are shooting lighter bullets, you will shoot higher.

If you have a 6" barrel, you will need a front sight about 1/16" to 3/32" higher than you presently have. Just a note that since I started collecting vintage S&W revolvers, I find that almost all that I own shoot high if I shoot to the center of the target, so believe it was common practice to focus on the bottom of the black rather than the center. That is what was called the "American way" when shooting standard targets with 6" to 8" bullseye at 60 feet.

[WR Moore]

There's a thread in the Antiques secton (something about #3 Russian?), with scads of information on front sights and loads. Search is your friend.