The new Ruger came outfitted with an impossibly tiny gold bead front sight, so miniscule that I literally CANNOT see it inside the rear sight notch under most lighting conditions. Fortunately, New England Custom Gun offers a whole line of replacement front sights that slide right into the front sight dovetail.
That assumes, though, that you can get the factory front sight OUT of the dovetail. I couldn’t. It doesn’t help that the design is a bit awkward. The front sight fits into a longitudinal dovetail on the front sight base, sliding in from the muzzle end. At the breech end of the sight base, a spring-loaded detent plunger rises up into a hole in the front sight to hold it in place. Use any handy pointy object to depress the plunger and the sight slides forward and out of the gun.
At least that’s how it works in theory. This particular sight was apparently driven into the dovetail with a big hammer, wedging it in so tightly that I feared it had galled and cold-welded itself to the sight base. I could depress the plunger freely, but the sight refused to move forward. And since Ruger put the detent plunger BEHIND the sight blade, if I had a punch in place holding the plunger down, I couldn’t tap on the back of the sight blade to move it forward. Problematic.
A 24-hour soak in CLP, 2 hours of VERY CAREFUL and nerve-wracking work (nothing like taking a hammer to a brand-new gun!) and one ruined pin-punch later, I finally coaxed the sight free with no damage to either the gun or the sight. A few minutes of judicious work on the bottom of the front sight with an India oilstone reduced its dimensions just enough to allow the sight to slide in and out of its dovetail freely.
Hopefully I’ll have significantly less trouble getting the new sight installed…
Good advice.
Just make sure you clean the CLP off, you don’t want the front sight moving about.
Brass punch?
Nope, the detent plunger is too small for a brass punch. I had to depress it with a steel punch and tap the side of the punch with a hammer to break it free.
Smart move using the soak method. It’s why I loves me the Kroil. Another method is thermal expansion. Put the whole gun in a freezer, and then apply gentle heat to the sight ramp, being careful not to warm the sight blade. I love using cryospray to get stuck cases out with this principle.
So which NECG sight blade did you install?
I don’t have the new sight yet; I had to pull the original one first so I could measure it.
I just ordered the 3/32″ white bead and the NECG peep. Should make for a nice set-up.