Loose Rear Sight Blade, Colt Gold Cup

[Krogen]

Can I tighten rear sight blade slop on a Colt Gold Cup adjustable sight? It's not the dovetail; there's no wiggle between the sight body and slide. It's also not the elevation adjustment. The internal spring keeps the elevation adjustment arm snug. Rather it's the blade itself which wiggles in the groove on the elevation arm. The blade pitches fore and aft leading to elevation slop. It's like the groove it rides in is too large.

Eyeballing it, I think I'm getting 10 or 20 thou of vertical sight notch movement. While it's probably the shooter, I want to blame my vertical stringing on the slop - at least until the sight is fixed.

Is there any way to snug this up short of replacing the entire sight?

Thanks,

Krogen

 

[Ruger 13]

Any chance of posting pics?

 

[Krogen]

Sure. Later today . . . I have a Bullseye match this morning. And I have a ready-made excuse for poor scores!

 

[s&wchad]

There were a number of rear sights over the years (Ellison, Micro, etc…). Which Gold Cup/National Match (Post-war, Series 70, Series 80)?

.020" front to rear play would have a negligible effect on the height of the blade and shouldn't cause stringing. Try shimming it with a piece of paper or card stock and see if it tightens up your groups. I suspect it won't change a thing.

 

[Krogen]

Here's a picture of my loose sight blade. The gun is a late model Gold Cup; only a few years old. It's a series 70.

The issue was difficult to explain well in my original post. The back surface of the sight moves up and down and the top moves fore and aft as shown by the black arrows. It seems the gaps where the yellow arrow is allow the sight blade to rotate around the windage screw. Agreed that fore and aft movement wouldn't cause stringing, but it's also moving up and down. I have another gun with this sight on it and the fitting between blade and sight arm is much tighter; no movement. This one is loose.

 

[minconrevo]

The sight looks like the Chinese made sorta copy of a Bomar. I had lots of dealings with them about 20 years back. Blade sloppiness wasn't a common issue.

 

[chief38]

Call Colt and ask them if you can send them the Slide so another sight can be installed. If you are capable of doing it yourself, just ask them to send you a new sight.

A slight amountt of movement is normal but not excessive slop. I have a little more "slop" in my M41 rear sight than on my Gold Cup, however since the M41 groups incredibly well and tight I have chosen to leave it alone. I am not going to mess with sub 1" groups at 50 feet!