10/22 Front Sight Removal

I'm trying to remove the front sight from my son's 10/22, and it just will. not. come. off. At this point, I'm beating on it with a 4 lb baby sledge hammer and a hardened steel punch. I finally had to stop before I did some damage. And yes, I'm driving left to right. (Which, I think, is a firearm standard.)

I've watched the u-tubes, and I've read the instructions. I've removed a Model 94 front sight by the same method with no issue. I put it in a vise. I have wailed on it with every ounce of power I can muster. Nothing is working. It won't budge.

At this point, I would normally just take it to a gun smith, but my son is shooting it tomorrow in youth rifle league; any gunsmith I go to will be a minimum 6 week turnaround. So, I have to either do this myself or not do it. And I can't break the sight because I can't have any down time with the gun.

Suggestions?

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/new-ruger-10-22-front-sight-removal.768339/

Interesting. Apparently, the front sight is now glued/soldered/bonded somehow to the dovetail. This guy had to cut his out with a die grinder.

Yet, I know 2-3 people who have done this with no problem in recent weeks. Another parent at youth leagues ordered tech sights one day after I did, and had them on his daughter's gun in minutes. smh.

Sixty days later and I got it done, but it took a tremendous amount of violence to do it. My son finished the league with the factory sights, but my trying to drive the front sight out moved it enough that every week, as the target distances increased, I had to drift the rear sight over to compensate.

I took the rifle over to my girlfriend's dad's house today where there is a large vise. I wrenched the vise down hard on the barrel wrapped in a cloth diaper and wailed and wailed and wailed...and wailed some more on the front sight. 4 lb hammer. Everything I could put on it. Had to take a beak part way through. Beat on it for almost half an hour. When the front sight finally came out of the dovetail, it went flying so far so fast that it's gone. The Tech Sight front sight had to be hammered into the dovetail but not with nearly as much force.

Interesting side note: I found no evidence of spot welding or adhesive inside the dovetail.

Jury is still out on whether or not I damaged the barrel with all that pounding on it and clamping it into the vise. I'll find out next week when I shoot it.

BBBBill said:

When the sight is to be sacrificed it is far better to just slit it horizontally with a hacksaw or other cutting tool to relieve the pressure on the dovetail. No risk of crushing/bending/mutilating the barrel that way.

Click to expand...

Yeah I probably could have, and should have, done it that way. In fact, I had my Dremel tool with me for that very reason. To be honest, I felt like I had an equal chance of wrecking things with the Dremel tool as I did with the hammer. I've been conditioned, through years of aviation maintenance experience, to avoid using hammers and power tools at almost any cost, so for me, it felt like a 50/50 coin toss and, for some reason, I felt like the hammer was the lesser of the two evils. Hope I was right.