X-five rear sight ? (one or two springs under it?)

[toddm]

Well my new X-five made it almost 100 rounds on it's first range trip, kinda hoped by now Sig would have worked the kinks out of it with their usual pattern of early customers being free QC testers. 

 

It was shooting 4" low and 2" left for me at 7 yards, even off the lane table. I figured it's a new gun, first couple mags of the day, picked up the Shadow 2 and XDm and right down the center.   Had the RO shoot it, same issue.  So I started to adjust the sight, which worked, but two mags after that was dialed in the rear sight flew apart.   I should have just stopped while I was adjusting because I remember looking at the gap between the rear sight and the frame thinking something must be wrong to have to adjust it that far.   

 

I didn't think about it at the time but I was using a "center hold" as I do with every target gun I won, so I expected impacts at the top of the sight post centered in the bullseye.   If I had covered the bullseye center with the fiber optic I probably wouldn't have needed as much adjustment but it still would have been way high in the rear.   Looks like I'll need a significantly lower front sight.  

 

Amazingly I found the screw and one spring, I should have bought a lottery ticket cause I could lose parts in a clean room sealed in a zip lock bag.  However when I looked under the rear sight it looks like there's two round recesses cut out side by side, so perhaps there's 2 springs under there.   So it looks like I may need another spring.  I checked the manual and it doesn't look like Sig lists parts for the rear sight, just the entire rear sight and optic cover assembly as a whole.

 

Either way I'll have to call Sig and request a lower front sight if they offer one, or replace it with a Dawson.  Seems Sig isn't test firing these to check the sight alignment and is just hoping there's enough adjustment in the rear sight to cover tolerance stacking, these days with Sig that's probably a bad assumption.

 

 

 

 

[Jeff_Alan]

The front sight on the X5 is made by Dawson I believe. 

[BillGarlandJr]

The front sight on the Xfive is a Dawson. I’ve gone to a .205 tall front, which has allowed me to keep the rear sight screwed down lower in its adjustment range.

 

What you had happen sounds similar to what I’ve experienced with an Xfive I purchased recently. The build date of mine is the end of March 2018, and what the problem was is I wasn’t feeling really positive clicks when turning the adjustment screw for elevation adjustments. It turned very easily. Too easily. I shot mine to get it zeroed, and what I was finding is the only thing holding the adjustment screw in place was the tension provided by the springs you speak of in your post. So what would happen is when the slide moved reward in recoil the sight would get pushed down which caused the springs to get depressed, thus letting up on the tension holding the elevation screw in place, which caused the screw to “loosen” with each shot. Instead of holding an elevation setting the point of impact would move up with each shot. I suppose if I shot enough rounds the screw would have come all the way out eventually and caused the springs to come flying out like with your pistol.

 

I contacted Sig and the customer service rep I spoke to was sort of clueless as to what I was talking about, but he did send a shipping label to send the pistol back to Sig so they can fix it. I was kind of disappointed I have to send the entire pistol back to get a removable rear sight issue taken care of, but what the heck, they’re paying for it. At any rate, I’d give Sig a call. Once you get that squared away you’ll have a great pistol. I love mine. I have one I purchased in July of last year and it has been totally reliable.

[toddm]

Yeah this one was built in early March.  I was surprised when I was adjusting the elevation that there was no detent in the adjustments, and the screw moved pretty easy.  I want to say there was for the left/right adjustment but honestly I don't remember for sure.  There was also no loctite on the elevation screw.  I didn't notice the POI drifting high, my guess is I was on the last thread or so to get the POI raised enough, cause the rear sight was way up there.   I read, probably here, that Dawson recommends a 0.205 for the x-five, but as high as mine was I might even try a 0.180.    I wonder if SIg is putting a highest front sight they can get away with on it to better work with their Romeo reflex sight that has the rear notch in it.

 

Sig's new theory seems to be that if you have any issue, the whole gun needs to come back, it's getting pretty ridiculous.  I was recently told the same thing for the MPX on firing pins, I have an older Gen 2 (without the firing pin spring that's known to break firing pins) I had broken one but still had an old version spare I'm shooting now.   In the past Sig just sent out an updated carrier and firing pin for those that had issues.  Now the entire gun needs to be returned to be updated.   

 

They've also stopped selling various parts.  I was unable to get them to sell me a spare bolt buffer, ejector, extractor, gas plug etc. for the MPX.  They said those were not replacement parts and if there was a failure of one the entire gun would have to be returned for the parts to be replaced.   That alone turns me off, I like to make sure I have a variety of common spare parts for my guns for the exact reason that I don't want to be down a gun for a couple months.   Perhaps Sig's new plan is they want to motivate people to buy 2-3 of all their guns for spares to avoid downtime. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by toddm

[toddm]

Answering my own ? there are definitely 2 springs under the rear sight.  There's a picture in the large X-five thread of someone having an issue with disassembly that has the rear sight screw removed and tilted up and you can see 2 springs under there. 

 

I do see there is a tiny detent ball in the top of the rear sight and the rear sight elevation screw is notched for the detent.  My guess is I had to raise it so much that the springs were no longer applying any pressure for the detents to be felt.  They appear to be very short 1/4" but very stiff springs.  

[Sandbagger123]

On 5/27/2018 at 12:04 PM, BillGarlandJr said:

The front sight on the Xfive is a Dawson. I’ve gone to a .205 tall front, which has allowed me to keep the rear sight screwed down lower in its adjustment range.

 

What you had happen sounds similar to what I’ve experienced with an Xfive I purchased recently. The build date of mine is the end of March 2018, and what the problem was is I wasn’t feeling really positive clicks when turning the adjustment screw for elevation adjustments. It turned very easily. Too easily. I shot mine to get it zeroed, and what I was finding is the only thing holding the adjustment screw in place was the tension provided by the springs you speak of in your post. So what would happen is when the slide moved reward in recoil the sight would get pushed down which caused the springs to get depressed, thus letting up on the tension holding the elevation screw in place, which caused the screw to “loosen” with each shot. Instead of holding an elevation setting the point of impact would move up with each shot. I suppose if I shot enough rounds the screw would have come all the way out eventually and caused the springs to come flying out like with your pistol.

 

I contacted Sig and the customer service rep I spoke to was sort of clueless as to what I was talking about, but he did send a shipping label to send the pistol back to Sig so they can fix it. I was kind of disappointed I have to send the entire pistol back to get a removable rear sight issue taken care of, but what the heck, they’re paying for it. At any rate, I’d give Sig a call. Once you get that squared away you’ll have a great pistol. I love mine. I have one I purchased in July of last year and it has been totally reliable.

I called them also about my X5 shooting low. they told me that they are sighted in at QC .  i told him that shooting low seems to be a common issue. told me he never heard of it.  he told me that i could send it in to have them check it.  he also told me that if i sent it in and they found nothing wrong they would charge me for both shipping and checking out the gun.  

 

i asked him what would they do to check it out. Do they have a lower front sight to fix the issue? No lower front sight is availble i was told.  So if i send it in and they have no front sight and they determine that all is good in their opinion i am gonna be charged?  screw that.    it would be less to just by a new front from Dawson then take my chances with Sig. 

 

this is my first Sig in 25 years and will be my last.   perhaps some of you have had good CS from them, but my experience is the opposite.   never had this issue with SW, Ruger and others.   

[toddm]

Yeah we'll see what Sig says, my last couple interactions with them on my MPX were less than impressive.  If I have to send it in, and there's no lower front sight option from them anyway, as you said there's no point.   The Glock/XD and S&W rear sight service kits from Dawson appear to have springs that look very similar to those in the X-five rear sight for $10 ,  another $30 will get a lower front sight from Dawson.   If Sig can't send me a lower front sight and rear sight springs, I see no point in sending it to them.  

 

I thought about not bothering since I was thinking of putting a red dot on it, but if the front sight is too high and I try to co-witness the rear notch in the red dot with the front sight I'll probably run into the issue of the front sight being visible both under and over the dot.  I may still try it out before ordering a front sight.

 

 

[Sandbagger123]

On 5/27/2018 at 10:59 AM, Jeff_Alan said:

The front sight on the X5 is made by Dawson I believe. 

yes it is. i had a email discussion with a Dawson tech.  He said it was Sig that speced the sight height and Dawson knows its the wrong one.   i don't fault dawson as  you give the customer what they want .   

[Jeff_Alan]

yes it is. i had a email discussion with a Dawson tech.  He said it was Sig that speced the sight height and Dawson knows its the wrong one.   i don't fault dawson as  you give the customer what they want .   

Well that was stupid on Sigs part not to listen to the sight manufacture. I thought mine was wrong but didn’t shoot it that much before I installed optic. Did Dawson tell you what height they recommend?

[toddm]

I ran across a post here earlier (below) on the issue and I believe Dawson's recommendation then was the 0.205x0.90 for the X-five.  The stock is a 0.252.  Looking at Dawson's sight calculator as low as mine was I'd probably try the 0.180.   If Sig wanted a 0.252 it's hard to argue with their specs, again I wonder if it's to get it to work with the Romeo1 sight with the rear sight notches to co-witness.   On the plus side for Dawson they probably sell a lot of 320 front sights

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by toddm

[Sandbagger123]

5 hours ago, Jeff_Alan said:

Well that was stupid on Sigs part not to listen to the sight manufacture. I thought mine was wrong but didn’t shoot it that much before I installed optic. Did Dawson tell you what height they recommend?

.205.  what Sig should have done is include both sights in the box and let the end user decide depending on which way they decide to set up their X5

[Jeff_Alan]

.205.  what Sig should have done is include both sights in the box and let the end user decide depending on which way they decide to set up their X5

Thanks Sanbagger123