Room for a Dovetail?

[stansdds]

I wonder whether it would be practical to do a front sight installation like this on a standard forged front sight... you could mill the top of the existing sight flat, then dovetail it for the new blade. It might be necessary to mill off the edges of the dovetail part to be even with the sides of the existing sight.

Froggie

But on the 3rd gen slides, the raised portion that provides the base for the front sight is about 0.320" in width. The front sight on on 1st and 2nd gen slides is only the width of the sight, so there is not a lot of metal for a dovetail.

 

[Sigma40sw]

Just a thought, Novak makes a Front Sight for Colt Officers models,that is a thinner dovetail. Officer Model slides are also thin in the front sight area.
It may be worth a look.

 

[WR Moore]

Novak has front sight blanks with dovetails either 0.060 or 0.075 in deep. They also use a vertical roll pin toward the front of the blade to further lock the sight in place once you've got it centered.

I looked at an older GPI catalog and the S&W auto skematic shows what appears to be a 3 digit compact. The slide is shown with a dovetail front sight.