How high to make the front sight??

[jspick]

I have a 629 with a 5" barrel that has the interchangable front sight with the spring loaded pin to hold the sight in place.
My problem is The gun groups about 5 inches high at 50 ft. The rear sight is bottomed out. I have a bad 629 barrel so I cut the front sight out of it and and ready to cut the cut outs in it to fit it in the ramp.

My question is this how much higher do I want to make this new sight than the one that came in the gun?? .060", .100" or what??
Thanks, John

 

[armorer951]

http://www.brownells.com/GunTech/Sight_Height_Calculator/detail.htm?lid=13186

 

[jspick]

Thanks, armorer951, now how do I measure the rear sight on the fame of the revolver?
John

 

[armorer951]

Here's another one from David Kaiser..... see attached photo.

The one at the bottom of the page should be do-able. Break out the calculator!


I came up with .060" .....front sight will have to be raised by .060". (If your sight radius is 7.25")

 

[jonh1373]

Dawson Precision sight web page also has a calculator. Pretty much as above.

 

[scooter123]

I hope you realise that 5 inches at only 50 feet is HUGE, a really really giant error. IMO it's an error that is more likely to be shooter related instead of handgun related. Having done some experimenting with the relationship between Recoil Management I can only conclude that you are too "free" in your Recoil Management. Before you start fooling around with your sights I would suggest that you practice on firming up your control of the muzzle rise during recoil.

BTW, that experment I referred to was with a 6 1/2 inch 610 at 25 yards. When shooting from a rest supporting my hands the POI corresponded to the reflex sight installed on my 610. When I allowed the muzzle to flip up with very little restraint the POI shifted 12 inches above the sighting point. As for why this experiment, I've determined that longer barrels can be very testing of consistency in Recoil Management. Meaning, I was having problems getting good consistent groups. I tried letting the barrel flip freely to see if that had any real effect on group size. What I learned is that there is no substitute for plain old PRACTICE and working at developing good fundamental skills.

 

[Alk8944]

Why not just replace the rear sight slide with a lower one?????? That's is why S&W makes different heights of rear sights.

Why does everyone always want to screw with the front sight?

Scooter has a very good point!

 

[ontargetagain]

I just had a similar experience with a new Dawson sight that was supposed to be a drop in for my Redhawk. Wow it shot 7 1/2 in high from 30ft off a rest!
First maybe see if you can get your hands on an original sight for this gun to compare it to what you have just in case someone put on one that wasn't correct. Then if that fixes it you know what sight height you need for any other sight you might want to put on.
Here is the helpful info from the Dawson website: