Taller Front Sight For the 30/40 Krag.

[wildcat junkie]

One of the shortcomings of the Krag is the horrid military sights. Even if you can see well enough to shoot, they are generally calibrated to the 220gr RN military ammunition.

 

There are a few "no drill" receiver sights available such as the Pacific K-2. I was fortunate to score on on e-bay last summer.

 

Even these will sometimes not allow enough adjustment to bring the POI down far enough.. When I recently cooked up some modern (low pressure) loads with the Hornady 30396 FTX 160gr bullets, I was indeed about 4" high at 50yds with a 6:00 hold on the bottom of the 8" bull.

 

The solution was a taller front sight. Something in the neighborhood of 1/16" taller would do. I did some searching & found a Marble's front sight that ended up being .55" taller when I was finished with i, but it took about an hour with some precise file work to get what I needed..

Here is the Marbles .570" (from the bottom of the dovetail to the top of the bead) front sight and the front sight leaf from the Krag. The front sight is not the original military sight. The gun was "sporterized", probably sometime in the early part of the 20th century. The original sight measures .425 top to bottom and the Marbles sight, after the dovetail is removed will measure .480". That is .055" taller

 

Since the sight radius is 26 1/2" and 50yds is 150 x 12 = 1800", the factor is 1800/26.5 = 68. That being the case, the .055" taller sight will lower the POI by (.055 x 68 = 3.74) 3 3/4", just about perfect to allow a bit of adjustment for a 3" high 100 yd zero.

 

I will post some pictures of the file work involed later.

[wildcat junkie]

This would have been a lot easier with a milling machine, but since OI have more time than money & have learned how to use a "German mill" (mill file) It took me about a hour to get the sided flattened and perhaps another 45 minutes to file the rabbit cuts on the sides & another 45 minutes to remove the dovetail, grind the length down & fit the tang into the ramp slot. So about 2 1/2 hours of hand milling & fitting work was involved.

 

To start with I used my wide "safe file" that has the teeth ground off the flat sides leaving only the edges that cut.

 

This allowed me to start a cut along a flat section of the side of the sight post & continue it about 1/2 way along the side.I was able to file to a point where the sides of the dovetail were clamped in the vice.

 

After nipping off the little excess material outboard of my cut, I was able to turn the sight 180* & flip it up for down to clamp on the portion I just milled away.I was then able to mill the rest of the material away on that side.

 

Here is one side with the material rough cut away. Note that no material beyond the original flat dimension has been removed.

 

The same process was used to rough off the other side. I then clamped the sides of the dovetail in the vice & used a regualr mill file to dress the sides down to a consistent .125" thickness. I then went back to the "safe file" which just so happened to be the right dimension for my rabbit cuts. I needed a thickness of .055" for the tang that would fit into the ramp slot so I filed one side to reduce the thickness to .090" (.035" rabbit) and reduced the thickness from the other side to .055". (another .35")

 

Here is the result.

 

Not that the dovetail is still intact albeit scarred from the vise jaws.

Since the front will be ground down to match the original, I clamped this portion in a pair of vise grips and removed about 95% of the dovetail on a disc sander. I finished up with a mill file clamped flat in a vise to work the bottom over the file to remove the last few .001s of material. I then clamped the vise grips on the rabbit section to grind about 90% of the material from the front of the sight. That left me with perhaps .010 or so to file flush with the ramp after I pinned it.

 

Here is the semi finished product.

 

I'm sorry to say that I got a bit careless (lazy) & rather than go out to the garage to get a narrower file, I tried to finesse the side thickness with my wide mill file and flattened the sides of the 3/32" bead slightly. I'll go to the local hobby store sometime this week & get a piece of 3/32 brass rod to fabricate & solder on a new bead.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by wildcat junkie

[wildcat junkie]

I called Marble Arms this morning & they are sending me 4 new 3/32" beads for the cost of postage. How that's great customer service.

[wildcat junkie]

On 10/24/2016 at 0:32 PM, wildcat junkie said:

I called Marble Arms this morning & they are sending me 4 new 3/32" beads for the cost of postage. How that's great customer service.

Just saw the charge on my debit card. $2.94.