How does S&W align the sights?

[Johnmuratore]

I've seen some posts lately about sights that appear off center. Does anyone know how Smith's sets them up at the factory?
I would guess a laser boresighter, but it's just a guess.

 

[ronnie gore]

sights

I don't think they do , when the rear sight is put on the blade is in the center, almost every s&w with adjustable sights I have ever had needed to be adjusted, they are not usually off by much, not like a scope can be.
I assume you are taking about handguns.

 

[Johnmuratore]

Ronnie
Yes, handguns. Sorry I should have been more clear.
There was a post from a fellow with a Shield who included a picture of his rear sight which was noticeably off center and it got me wondering why it would be shipped that way unless someone at the factory had done some kind of alignment procedure.
If I were to trust my boresighter, I would want to move my rear sight; but I don't and I won't.

 

[dullh]

How does S&W align the sights?

Fact is, they don't. You have to "align" the sights if you find them to be off when you take your new pistol to the range. This is done on M&P autoloader models by drifting the front sight whatever direction it needs to go for POI to equal POA.

All they do at the factory is slap them on...if they look centered, off it goes...The one time it's fired before it leaves the factory is not for accuracy; it's fired for the sole purpose of producing a fired case to stick in the box with the gun that fired it.

 

[Redlegvzv]

Very interesting. I am waiting to pick up my new 9mm Shield. It will be interesting to see if I need to drift the sight for windage. All four of my Ruger SR pistols were right on the money for both windage and elevation with their fixed sights. The Shield is my first S&W semi-auto.

 

[Fastbolt]

Last I knew, they use a hydraulic fixture/press to install the sights on the M&P's. The press installs them to a pre-determined position in the slide.

Any minor adjustments as may be needed by a particular owner can be done using a sight pusher. Using a drift punch is the old fashioned way, but if night sights are involved care must be taken not to damage the glass vials in the sights.

FWIW, over the years of being an instructor & armorer I've resolved more POA/POI issues by adjusting the shooter (trigger technique) than by adjusting sights.

I've had the occasional stubborn shooter who REALLY wanted their sights adjusted to "fix" the gun, which I did ... only to have to go back and re-adjust/return their sights back to where they'd been originally, after their trigger control technique had improved.

 

[dullh]

As much as I love my M&P family I will say that only 1 out of 5 came with the sights spot-on from the factory. All the rest shot left and had to be adjusted...well...I didn't actually adjust the factory sights...

I pushed all of them off and replaced them with night sights.

A poster above stated you need a sight pusher tool. That's a BIG 10-4. I have MGW tools for the FS and Shield. I do not recommend beating any sights at all, ever, with a punch if they can be pushed off.

 

[shawn mccarver]

Fastbolt is correct. Pistol sights are installed at S&W by placing the slide in a fixture, and a hydraulic press pushes the sights to the location programmed into the machine, which has always appeared to me to be dead center.

Adjusting the sights is a joke around here. Almost no shooters other than the oldies can shoot a group tight enough a 25 yards to even figure out what adjustments to make to the sights. Certainly 5 or 7 yards tells you absolutely nothing.

These days, since everyone "graduates" to a full power centerfire, such as 9mm, .40 or .45 the moment they start shooting, the cost of ammo, the inability to check for "flinch," and all sorts of other factors mean that most new shooters do not practice enough, and they have no knowledge of how to control the trigger, to align the sights properly or to properly follow-through to really ever become a decent shooter.

"Minute of B-27" at about 10 feet is about the norm for most, if not all, shooters on the line at every range I visit.

Every new shooter would be wise to get a 22 first and actually learn to shoot. Shooting is not "instinctive." Shooting is based on a considerable amount of consistent practice in which hand and eye coordination is carefully developed to weed out the bad habits, the "flinching," and it is based upon many thousands of rounds of "muscle memory" being properly developed.

We are all very fortunate that shooting is NOT instinctive. If it were, all of the miscreants of the world would kill many more people than they do.

Oh, and about sight adjustment: Even if a factory shooter adjusted the sights before the pistol left the factory, it would be a waste of effort as every shooter "sees" the sights enough differently to require adjustment to suit the individual. That said, however, until you can hold all of them on, say, a paper plate at 25 yards, don't waste time adjusting your sights. Adjust your grip, get your arm directly behind the pistol, and learn to break that trigger when the sights are on target without a "flinch." Only then will you even know if the sights are off.

Adjusting sights without first learning to shoot is sort of like seasoning your food before you taste it - you have no idea what it actually needs.

 

[Rastoff]

Just because the sights are not in the physical center of the slide doesn't mean the gun won't shoot to the Point of Aim. The shooter not hitting the center of the target doesn't mean the sights are off.

To determine if the gun is off, it MUST be fired from a rest. Anything else is a waste of time.

Saying that your sights are off before the gun has been fired is even more ridiculous.

 

[Johnmuratore]

Of course you guys are right, and I agree and appreciate all that you've taken the time to post. I'm a retired engineer and have been sort of addicted to precision in my working life. The idea of a laser boresighter seemed like a quick and easy way to verify the mechanical POA of my M&P .40c. I guess if the red dot had appeared right on top of the front sight I never would have asked the question.
What really matters is whether or not I can hit what I'm aiming at with reasonable consistency with all my non-precision, human shooting characteristics; and the only way to do that is to practice.

 

[Rastoff]

I'm a retired engineer and have been sort of addicted to precision in my working life.

I'm a measurement geek. I've been a Metrologist for about 30 years now and love every minute of it. Well, maybe not EVERY minute.

The laser bore sight is a wonderful tool if used properly. There are some serious flaws with using one though. First, the bullet flies in a arc, not a straight line, but the laser is straight. So, it's critical to know the distance you'll be shooting in order for the laser to give a valid indication. Then, you must understand that recoil affects Point of Impact (POI). At pistol distances the effect is small, but it's still there.

So, at what distance did you use your laser?

 

[Johnmuratore]

Ras,
25'. The same distance as I've been shooting. It appears to be high and right of the POA when I have the front sight centered in the middle of the rear "U" in a rest position.
I have tried rotating the sight 90 degrees at a time to see if the dot moves and it doesn't. I first suspected an error in the seating of the sight in the chamber but if the laser wasn't true in the fixture itself, rotating it would show that, right?