Help - Changing Rear Sight Blade - Ruger Mark III

[12many]

I wanted to change the blade in the rear sight on my hunter to a square notch, basically a swap from a 5.5 inch bull barrel. 678 hunter gets the square notch blade and the 5.5 bull gets the v notch.

Right now I am half way there and am stuck !!

I took the windage screw out.
The blade is spring loaded within the sight and is round notched at the back of the blade. By compressing the spring with a small screw driver I was able to get the blade out.
It took a bit of doing as it has to aligh a rounded key at the back of the blade with a matching notch on the sight. Both blades are now out.


First - the square notch blade does not want to find into the hunter sight. It is off by just enough to not want to fit. To ruger's credit, the steel is darn hard and my files seemed to not make much progress. I will try again to night. Only one blade won't go back in so it is just a bit too big and I know I can file it enough if I have too.

The second problem is that I am not able to compress the spring while sliding the blade into the sight. I am going to try some different tools tonight and am borrowing some old dental tools from my dad to see if that works.

Does anyone have a trick to get the spring compressed and the sight blade back in?. Any advice would be appreciated.

It might have been easier to just swap the entire sight assemblies, but that might have opened another can-o-worms.

Thanks

Chad.

 

[bob k]

I used a paper clip straightened out to compress the spring. Before you go wild with your file check and see if you can't get the blade in without the spring in place.

 

[12many]

Thanks for the reply.

Good idea regarding inserting the blade with out the spring. I did that and the square notch blade would not go into the hunter sight, but the v-notch does fit into 5.5 bull barrel sight. So, I know it is a hang up on the sight/blade, and not the spring. I just have one sight blade that is hanging up even without the spring.


Good advice regarding the paper clip. I could poke straight through or I can bend it enough to make an L hook to compress the spring but stay out of the way of the blade as I insert it into the sight. I also picked up my dad's old dental tool collection so that might help.

Any one else have any ideas?

I will report back tomorrow.

 

[12many]

THANKS Bob!!

I have both back together. You advice helped. I filed just a bit and the stubbon blade dropped right in.

I used a very thin dental tool pic to compress the spring while inserting the blade. The problem I was having was what ever I used before to compress the spring would get in the way of the blade as I tried to insert the blade.

Anyway, all is good now. I just need to sight them in this weekend. My 5.5 bull barrel has the fiber optic sight and the ramp sight while my hunter gets the targets sight with the square notch.

Thanks again.

Chad