SA GI Sight Upgrade - What to buy?

[nad3ooo]

My Father-in-Law needs some 3-dot sights put on his SA GI 1911. I was thinking about taking this project on myself, just staking in a new front sight and replacing the rear, any recommendations on replacement parts?

I dont really want to have the slide sent off and have dovetails cut, so I was thinking about ordering the replacement sights out of Brownells, from those parts lists(Colt 1911) in the back? Am I barking up the right tree?

Is the GI a wide tenon?

Sorry for the greenhorn questions, I appreciate the patience.

 

[VinnAY]

Having attempted this myself last month here's my take on it:

I bought the staker tool from Brownells, and went at it. I stopped abruptly when it appeared (to me) that I would need a fixture with which to support the slide in my vise while I hammered on it. I already had ~$40 invested in the staker and I wasn't about to buy something else to go with it.

Sights I had bought, another ~$40, are the Springfield Armory 3 dots from the milspec model, by the way.

I ended up sending back the staker tool to Brownells for a refund. Sent the slide to springfield and had them do it. Going with those sights there are no mods to the slide such as dovetail cuts, etc.., Springfield charged me $20 for the install and sent back the slide FedEx saturday delivery. I had it back in about 10 days.

You can try it but I was in over my head on this one as far as the necessary tools; brass punches, staker tool, vise fixture. It was alot to invest for ONE sight install at great risk of damaging the sight/slide/etc..,

EDIT: Also the GI front tenon is the least common, medium tenon.

 

[Jolly Rogers]

Springfield uses a proprietary size tenon for the front sight. It is in between the Colt size and the wide tenon. Either order the sight with dot from Springfield,(they will sell it to you if you ask) or order a wide tenon from Brownells or Midway and file it to fit. The next issue is can you stake it tightly enough with what tooling you have available?

I added a white dot to the front target sight on my 9 mm Loaded by CAREFULLY grinding a divot in the front blade with a small diamond grit ball burr and a Dremel tool. Filled the recess with White Out (TM). If you aren't confident using small metal eating tools don't try this at home...
Joe

 

[nad3ooo]

thanks guys, im going to order the sights from SA, i like the milspec 3-dots, so if the GI has the same sized tenon as the milspec, im encouraged.

thanks again,

nad

ps- had no idea about the medium tenon