Article Contributed by: Ted Duncan

One day last month I was lying in a bed in a Coronary Care Unit, recovering, comfortably, from a heart attack. My first. The bed side telephone rang. I mustered up all the cardio-pulmonary strength I could. “H-hullo”, I whispered.

“Hey, ODD BALL. Yer wife told me I’d find you hanging out there with the sick, the lame and the lazy. I got bandwidth trouble again and its YER-DAM-FAULT. Those fat, fatuous articles you write soak up space on the ‘net like a sponge.....you take 500 words to say something that any NORMAL person could say in maybe 5. To top it off I’m stacking up email like cordwood around here, my readers are looking for an explanation, ANY explanation to the latest blather you’ve been smearing around here.”

It was my web boss, my editor. “Hi, Jam...”

“DON’T HI ME, HALF SHOT, Git yer lazy keester outta that bed and get it behind a keyboard, I got a couple of email questions and I them answered ASAP!”

“B-bbut, I just had a heart attack”

“I’ll give you a HARD ATTACK. Don’t make me drive out there and drag you outta that bed, You gotta write an article dealing with some of the confusion and questions YOU generated. I got emails with questions comin’ outta my EARS….Lessee, lessee, lessee, Oh Yeah, here’s one, “Why does my Enfield or Mauser rifle shoot high at 100 yards?” Here’s another: “How do you figure out how tall a front sight a Mauser or Enfield rifle needs to shoot on target at 100 yards?” I got another one here from some guy in Kansas City: “Dear Hip Shot, I don’t mind so much you coming over here keeping my wife company when I ain’t around, but when yer here, do you have to drink up ALL of my beer?”.

“Now lookeehere, Short Shot, I don’t care which one you do, but I need one article by this Friday and another by Tuesday or you’ll have more than a “Hard Attack” to worry about. Make the article a “HOW TO” and put some pictures in it!!!!”

*CLICK*

Kansas City???

Ahem.....Well, I suppose its true. As a famous, highly paid, international firearms journalist I do get a lot of questions from my readers. Lately, most of these questions have to do with the difficulty and frustration we seem to have trying to get our Enfield and Mauser rifles to hit the paper at 100 yards.

As I’m sure you all know, the height of the rifle’s front sight relative to the height of its rear sight, relative to the centerline of its barrel determines the height of point of impact of the bullet at whatever distance (range) you are shooting. Relatively speaking, that’s a lot of relatives. Of course, point of impact can vary greatly depending on about a billion other factors including type of ammo, condition of barrel, even ambient temperature, humidity etc, etc, etc.

But the sad fact remains, if the front site blade on yer rifle is too short, your point of impact will be high. If the site blade is too tall.....well, you can guess the rest.

Most WW I and WW II military leaders and planners anticipated battle lines of the Twentieth Century would be approximately 250, or more, meters apart. Therefore, they ordered rifles should be zeroed for that distance and trained their infantry to shoot at long distance targets. The extremes of this thinking are evidenced by the “volley sights” such as we find on the Lee Enfield No.1, Mk III Rifles of WWI. Volley sites allowed infantry to ACCURATELY place fire upon opposing troops at distances over 1,000 meters or more. It worked quite well, but please take my word for this one, boys and girls. Don’t try this at your local range!!!

Today, the average collector of military surplus rifles generally shoots at targets placed 100 yards out. I haven’t quite determined if we collectors are limited by available space for shooting ranges or are simply too LAZY to walk 250 yards to change targets. I tend to believe it’s the latter: I can’t help but notice that most shooters shoot at targets placed at 100 YARDS instead of 100 METERS thereby reducing the walking distance to the target by an extra 25 feet!

Anyoldways, because our rifles had been zeroed for longer distances, we find that our Mausers and Enfield rifles shoot high at 100 yards, maybe completely over the paper. This means we sometimes spend most of our valuable shootin’ time trying to figure out where the bullet went then we do shooting the damn rifle!

So. Can we determine what sight blades will allow us to zero our rifles at 100 yards before we get to the range?

In a word.......No!

At first blush it would seem to be a simple math problem. Determine the centerline of the barrel of your rifle, measure the distance between this centerline and the top of the front and the rear sights, compute the distance from the sights to the target and the barrel to the target, then muck about with triangles. But the math approach just won’t work because there are just too many factors that cannot be determined accurately. Like bullet drop due to gravity, or the variability of bullet drop due to other factors such as load, age, condition, type and weight of the ammunition you are using or wind speed and direction, or even air temperature. Even the condition of the barrel and its crown can effect bullet point of impact. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t Euclid up a “one size fits all” magical mathematical formula. Even my good buddy, Orin “Numbers” Trooskian, who just graduated Magnum, Magnum, Magnum cum Lordy from Rutgers as a math major no less, told me I just had too many variables.


For the military surplus shooter who wants to keep the configuration of his rifles as original as possible the answer lies in adjustable front sights.

NOTA BENE: To adjust or replace front sight blades of vintage rifles may involve require drilling, tapping, hammering, filing or grinding. Do I have to tell you guys NOT to perform these operations on a LOADED rifle???? Open the bolt, remove any and all ammunition before beginning and LEAVE THE DAM BOLT OPEN WHILE HAMMERING, FILING OR GRINDING OR OTHERWISE FOOLIN’ AROUND WITH YOUR RIFLES SIGHTS! SHEEESH!!!!!

So’s we’re all on the same page, when speaking of the HEIGHT of Mauser front site blades, I am referring JUST to the height of the blade, NOT including the “dovetail”.

When discussing the HEIGHT of Enfield front sites I am referring to the BASE that the blade sits on, NOT including the “dovetail”. You probably have noticed that Lee Enfield sight blades are different then blades of almost every other type of rifle.......The boffins over at Enfield did not adjust the height of their front sights by making the BLADE taller as in a Mauser front site blade......the BLADE portion of Enfield front sights are all about the same height........to vary the impact point of the fired bullet, the Elves at Enfield made the BASE of the blade taller. I have noticed that some wag down at the Enfield factory stamped numbers, i.e.: 025, 035, 045 and up, on the sight blade bases. Fer sure, the smaller the number, the shorter the sight base, the fatter the number the taller the sight base. But the damn number sure ain't a measurement of anything on the sight blade. I know, I measured every Enfield sight I own - every which ways! Unless they are meant to be some sort of part number, I have NO idea what those numbers stand for.

Refer to the below chart:

Take it from ol’ Uncle Odd Shot...just use the numbers as a reference. Little numbers equal short sights, bigger numbers, again I’m sure you can guess the rest.

The following procedures apply to ALL Enfield No.1, Mk. III’s, No.4's, No.5 Jungle Carbine's, 2A’s, 2A1's, Navy Arms Enfield’s, Gibb’s Enfield’s. It’ll also probably work tolerably well on US Model of 1917 and Pattern 14 rifles which are sort of “closet Enfields” anyway.

 

Speaking of requirements, to make an adjustable front sight blade for a Enfield rifle we will need a 3/32” drill bit, a 4-40 tap (with handle), and a bag of 4-40 X ¾” screws. The drill bit, the tap and the screws are quite common, you should be able to get them from any GOOD hardware store, HomBoy Depot, Sears and Robust and the like. Shop tools include a sharp center punch, a hammer, a hacksaw or Dremel Tool, a vise, lineman’s pliers or diagonal cutters, a file or some emery paper and an electric hand drill or a drill press. You should be able to find these in your basement workshop.
If you ain’t got ‘em, borrow ‘em from your buddy.

Kids, this is easy, there just ain’t a bunch of work to do here.

Chuck the sight securely in a vise.

Cut the sight blade from the base using a hacksaw or Dremel Tool. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:
 

Notice that the dovetail is biased towards one side of the base. Using a center punch and hammer, dimple the top of the sight base for drilling. Place your dimple so that it is centered over the middle of the dove tail and center of the top of the sight base. This will give you extra meat to drill and tap through. It will also give you a longer, hence more stable threaded.

Using a hand drill or a drill press drill the hole from the top of the base through the bottom.
 

This photo shows the base with the hole in it:
 

Chuck the sight base back into the vise. Following the instructions found in the aforementioned “Mosin-Nagant Front Sight Modification” article, run the tap completely through the sight base. A little oil or WD-40 works wonders here. Don’t just ram it in the hole dry, at least have the courtesy to spit on it!
 

Now, we’ll create the new sight blades. I like to have as much of the screw threaded into the sight base as possible so I make a number of them of varied lengths from 5/16” to ½” long. Just cut the screws with the pliers, hacksaw or whatever falls to hand. We’ll just want to use the “threaded rod” portion that we just cut off.
 

Now comes the tough part. Using the file or emery paper, or better yet, an electric belt sander, and working on the end of the “threaded rod” where we cut it from the head end of the screw, we will mill two flats about 3/32” long opposite each other, leaving about 1/16” of rod in the center. This will reduce the thickness of the threaded rod to the thickness of a “normal” sight blade for a good sight picture and give us a surface to grab with a needle nose pliers to raise and lower the sight blade.
 

And there you have it, an adjustable front sight for Enfield rifles. Apply a little “Light hold” Loctite, some silicon sealant, or a dab of a real thick grease on the threads of the “threaded rod” or just lightly peen the threads about 1/16” above the bottom “starter threads” of the new sight blade. This will prevent it adjusting itself in or out while you are zero-ing your rifle. Remember turning out the sight blade (raising it) will cause your round to hit lower on the target. Turning it in (lowering the sight blade) will cause the round to strike higher on the target. Once you have your rifle zero-ed at 100 yards, measure its overall height. You can refer to the above (its back up there somewhere) chart and kinda guess-ta-mate the height of a proper mil-surp, all original Enfield sight. Replacement sights for Enfield’s are available from Gun Parts Corp and SARCO among other fine retailers. Cheap.
 

Now I know that Mojo sighting Systems, sponsors of this website, sells an absolutely wonderful replacement sighting system for Mauser rifles. Its only drawback is that its not an “original” part.

The following procedures apply to Mauser K98 rifles as well as all Mauser variants including Swedish Mausers, Yugo’s and Israeli Mausers and are presented for all of us anal-retentative, “preservationalists” who were potty trained before their first birthday and want to keep our rifle’s as original looking as possible. Allow me to mention at this time that a wonderful article appears in the “articles” section of this website. This article titled “Mojo’n My Mauser” reviews the wonderful Mojo T-38 Front and Rear sights. Penned by our very own Jamie Magnum, my boss, this article details the installation and operation of these FABULOUS sights. I figure if smear it on deep enough they’ll front me a set for my very own. Can’t fault a boy for tryin’!

Much like Enfield sights, Mauser front sight blades come in many sizes.
 

As with the above Enfield sights, this adjustable front sight blade will allow you to zero you Mauser rifle at 100 yards and determine how tall a proper Mauser sight you should be looking for.

The good news is NO drilling or tapping is required to create an adjustable front sight for a Mauser type rifle. All you need is a pinch of that household miracle, JB Weld.

But first, ..........Page Two........

Ebenezer and Florence Feeney from Nearmiss, Alabama are celebrating 75 years of wedded bliss today. Seventy Five Years!


Some of you might be thinking that 75 years is a long time to be plowing the same furrow......but their neighbors report that these two have been carrying on like a couple of crazed squirrels for just about every day of it. Until, that is, Ebenezer started having some trouble with his prostate. Seems the old boy just wasn’t getting up to the job at hand. Ebenezer is still a pretty handy guy around the
house and decided before he hired the job out to some fancy doctor, he’d tackle the problem himself.

The first attempt involved some duct tape and a couple of popsicle sticks. This worked pretty well until Florence developed that nasty rash from the adhesive on the back of the duct tape.

What to do, what to do? Ebenezer wrestled with the problem – until he spotted that friendly red and black package on the shelf of his work shop. Of course! That miracle in a tube with 10,000 uses - or more! You know, it really IS indispensable for mechanics, farmers, homemakers and, well, almost everyone. Its J-B Weld........the worlds finest cold weld. For over 40 years J-B Weld has been the answer to some of America’s most difficult repair problems.

Florence tells me that Ebenezer mixed it following the instructions on the back of the package, he applied it with a putty knife and the two of them waited 4 to 6 hours for it to harden.

Glory Be.....the neighbors say that the spring is back in Ebenezer’s step and Florence is beaming with an unstoppable grin. Eb and Flo are BACK in the game.

J-B Weld. Now with 10,000 and ONE uses.

And now.......The Rest of the Story............

With apologies to Paul Harvey, just about any epoxy you buy down at the automotive parts store will work. A product I have had a great deal of success with is from a firm called Oatey. Their product is called Epoxy Putty, and just like it sez on its 8” long tube this stuff “Mixes in your hand” and “Hardens like steel in minutes”. My inner child has a real problem with that deferred gratification Crappola so that “….In Minutes” part DOES have a certain appeal. Don’t let the big tube put you of. I’ve had mine for about 5 years and it hasn’t gone bad. If I remember correctly I bought the stuff to repair a leak in an MGB’s gas tank.
 

If you have been shooting these rifles for a while you probably have a collection of Mauser front site blades that measure roughly .160 to .210 inch tall languishing in a drawer somewhere. To get your rifles to paper at 100 yards, you’ve been replacing the shorter sight blades with taller ones. Either that or you’ve (EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkk!) filed the sighting notch in your REAR sight almost down to the barrel to raise the rear of the rifle and lower the impact point of the bullet.

Take one of your spare, shorter sights.....

 

…..and as I’ve done, install the sight in a spare sight base and clamp the assembly into a vise. Truthfully, this procedure can be done on an UNLOADED RILFE, WITH ITS BOLT OPEN OR REMOVED.

Apply masking tape over the sight base to keep the epoxy from gumming up the works.
 

In this photograph you can see that I have drilled a dimple into the side of the sight blade. I did this to each side of the blade so that the epoxy has a little something to “bite” into.

Mix up a little JB Weld according to the instructions on the pack. You are going to want to let it harden a bit until it just about reaches the consistency of a putty, so you can “mold” it and put it in place without it going all runny on you. Those of you who bought the Epoxy Putty can skip the waiting part.
 

Take a pinch of the JB Weld and shape it onto the sight blade making it about ¼” wide at the back of the sight and about 3/8” inch tall. Taper it from back to front, from top to front, mimicking the shape of the original sight.
 

Let it harden about a day just like Paul Harvey on the radio tells ya'.

Now, go to the range and bring a couple of files with you.

With the site blade being about 3/8 the rifle will probably shoot low. Take about 3 shots to see where she's hitting. With a file, take a little off of the top of the JB Weld-ed blade to bring your impact point down.....fire three rounds to see where your hitting.....and repeat the procedure, filing just a little at a time, and firing your spotting rounds until you are hitting the mark.

Now you know how tall a sight you need.


Now, Paul Harvey will tell you that you MIGHT be able to use the JB Weld-ed site forever.......but my Daddy taught me that "mites" are found on a chicken's rear end! So I only use a JB Weld-ed site to zero in my rifle so's I can cut and fit it ‘til I have the proper height. Then I replace the JB Weld-ed sight with the real steel deal, trimmed if needed to be finely tuned to the correct height.

As with the Enfield sights, correct military surplus sights of various heights are available from Gun Parts Corp and SARCO among others. Additionally, SARCO, and others, sell a front sight blade for Swedish Mausers that is real tall, almost 7/16”.
 

SARCO will tell you that it won’t fit K-98’s and they’re sorta correct. Out of the box, it won’t fit. But, with some judicious filing of the dove tail and bottom of the sight blade, being careful to file and fit, file and fit, this sight blade can be trimmed to fit ALL Mausers. Once you have determined the height of the front sight using the JB Weld-ed sight, you can lower the height of this blade using a file and touch it up with some blueing. Be forewarned however – the Swedish Mauser tall replacement sight blade retails for $12.50, compared to about a buck for ratty old military surplus.

Tall, good lookin’ Swedes just don’t come cheap!