Dovetail cutters

[HisSoldier]

Hi, I have a .380 Guardian that came to me without sights. To me every gun should have sights, so I bought a large assortment of sights from off Gun broker. I found a nice combat rear of the right size and a small dovetaill front sight that should work in the small amount of space available.

The problem is that the front sight has a 40 degree dovetail, as measured using a loupe and holding the sight up to an angle measuring tool. Brownell's sells 65 and 60 degree cutters. I have a shaper, but I'm wondering if I found some kind of oddball sight?

The width of the dovetail at the narrowest point (top) is approximately .1875", approximately because the knife edges of the caliper actually have a flat on them, of course. The bottom of the dovetail measures .200, and the dovetail is .153 high. I guess I could use math to determine the angle but 40 degrees is very close.

I guess I'll cut a 3/16" endmill cut .155" deep and take it to the shaper to finish it out, it seems like a lot of work. Is there a wider variety of dovetail cutters available to gunsmiths? Thanks

 

[john323]

Try these guys http://www.mcmaster.com/ .
John

 

[HisSoldier]

I looked the site over, and saw no cutters that would cut small enough. I'll look at MSC tomorrow, but machinists typically don't use cutters that small either.

 

[NCsmitty]

Here's a site that shows dovetail cutters with different angles available, including 40 degree.

http://www.harveytool.com/products/...ategory_id=1&gclid=CPbYk-rxjKcCFQFM5Qod2lGzeg



NCsmitty

 

[brickeyee]

Be sure to use a straight mill to hog most of the waste.

 

[HisSoldier]

Be sure to use a straight mill to hog most of the waste.

Yeah, at best those tiny cutters are wimpy. I might save the money by making a straight groove across and using the shaper, especially for the front sight with it's weird angle and shallow depth. I think the NAA guns are made of 17-4 stainless.
Thanks for the ideas all.

 

[dirtyjim]

since you have a shaper id use it instead of trying to find the oddball dovetail cutter.
shapers are getting harder to find for sale and i wish i would have picked one up about 15 years ago when i was working at a machine shop