Front Sight Removal

[BacAway]

How does one remove a staked front sight? Case in point - removing the front sight on a RIA 1911 GI.

[gfavaron]

The simplest way is to grab the sight with vice grips and pull/twist it off. A somewhat less barbaric approach is to use a small ball cutter in Dremel to grind away the mushroomed head of the sight tenon inside the slide - then pull it out.

[log man]

Please don't try to twist it out as an original tenon is keyed into the slide and you could damage it. Use a 3/32"-1/8" carbide ball burr to grind the staked portion and it will loosen and can be pulled straight out. There's an article in the stickies of how to do that.

LOG