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SETTING YOUR SIGHTS ON A FR8 SPANISH MAUSER CARBINE Reworking the tapered, post style front sight of the FR8 Spanish Mauser Carbine is easy! |
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| Article Written by: Mark Trope | |||||||||
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One of the great things about hanging out at the gun shop during lunch break is being there when someone brings in a Mil-Surp to sell or trade. I was at West Texas Military Surplus, 2413 – 34th St, Lubbock Texas 79411, (806) 785-4867, www.gunsandblades.com recently when just such an event happened. The fellow had just traded in a FR8 Spanish Mauser Carbine in caliber 7.62 NATO. After Randy Ward, the proprietor, completed his deal with the customer, and the customer left, I quickly snatched up the FR8 and saw one of the most, if not the most pristine barrel I’ve ever seen in a Mil-Surp rifle! Needless to say, I immediately made my deal to acquire the FR8. The FR8 Spanish Mauser Carbine is one of the slickest military bolt guns ever conceived. For the full story on the FR8 Spanish Mauser Carbine and Spanish Mausers in general, read these two articles: http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/fr8/index.asp http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/spanishinquisition/index.asp The front sight post is a very unique design. It is adjustable for both windage & elevation. The bottom of the post has very fine threads. Turning the post counterclockwise will raise the level of the front sight post, effectively lowering the POI (Point Of Impact) on the target. A second, interesting feature of the FR8’s front sight post is that it also has a windage adjustment feature. The post is eccentric on the base. That is, it is not centered on the base, but slightly off set. This way, turning the base very slightly effects a change in windage POI. OK, so why would anyone want to modify this set up? The front sight post is tapered. It starts 0.122 at the bottom and tapers to 0.054 at the top. Not the best front sight picture for an aperture sighted rifle. A front sight post that has parallel sides is usually a better sight picture for most shooters. The 03/A3 Springfield, and the Enfield #4 MK1 & Enfield #4 MK II have front sight posts with parallel sides and they have very good sight pictures. I’m told the FR8 front sight post is the same one as used on a light machinegun. However, I haven’t been able to verify this statement. It does make sense though. A machine gunner is concerned with hitting the target, not making a nice, small group. A larger front sight, one that can be picked up easily during the recoil of an automatic arm, would aid in quick target acquisition. But, we, as Mil-Surp shooters, are concerned with making those small groups. A parallel sides front post is better for our purposes. Now the question is, how does one change the post? The first step is to remove the front sight from the rifle. First, I sprayed some penetrating oil on the front sight and let it sit. The penetrating oil soaked around the threads on the front sight and most importantly soaked the threads of the little lock screw. After a few minutes the little lock screw came out easily, and then the front sight was unthreaded. As I didn’t want to modify the original front sight, I acquired another one from www.ebay.com for the princely sum of $5.00. The front sight I got from ebay appears new, and even included a new lock screw. I had a feeling the sight would be mild steel. To verify this I turned it over, clamped it in a vice, and using a tiny drill bit, just “dimpled” the bottom of the sight. Sure enough it tiny bit began to cut into the steel. The next step is to remove the post from the new front sight with a Dremel tool. An impregnated cu-off wheel works best for this. Lacking a Dremel tool, the post can be removed with a hacksaw & the sight dressed up with a file. I decided to use a RCBS decapping pin as the replacement front post. A RCBS decapping pin is .072 thick. I used a # 50 drill bit (0.070) in the drill press to drill through the sight base. Lacking a drill press, a hand drill will work, provided the sight base is held firmly in a vice. The decapping pin can be driven in with a small ball peen hammer. In addition to a better sight picture the new sight is higher, this helps with 100 yard zero. |
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FR8 front sight & lock screw |
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Impregnated cut-off wheel on Dremel tool removes tapered post from sight base. |
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Sight base after tapered post has been cup off |
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File dresses up sight base |
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Center punching sight base, make sure you hit in the exact center of where old, tapered post was |
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Drilling sight base |
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Completed sight base |
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Original sight on left, reworked sight on right |
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Homemade front sight adjustment tool for the FR8, the shank of an old, flat tip screwdriver reworked with the Dremel tool & a Impregnated cut-off wheel |
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Tapered post in rifle on the left, new parallel post in rifle on the right Notice little lock screws in front |
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Twins, well, almost! Rifle on left has plastic NATO muzzle cap |
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Another view. |
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Reworking the front sight of an FR8 takes less then 30 minutes and results in a much better sight picture for those of us with aging eyes & pop bottle glasses. The fun returns when you can once again see what you’re aiming at! |
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| Article Written by: Mark Trope |
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