ErikW Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 At the Northern California Section Championship today, the highly-touted (as bulletproof and indestructible) Wilson adjustable sight on my "A" Limited gun broke. The leaf portion sheared off behind the elevation screw and hit me in the face about 4 rounds into a 32 round stage. It was only a matter of time. I resigned myself to the fact it was going to break, despite the sight's praise by others. I only put it on my gun because there were no other options. Now I'm at that point again, but this time I really have exhausted all my options. Caspian, STI, Bo-Mar, and Wilson adjustable sights have all broken or failed. Heinie said he couldn't fit his fixed sight in my slide's Bo-Mar cut. At this point, I'm thinking of getting the sight cut welded up then having it re-cut for a Heinie fixed sight. It's expensive but it beats buying another slide and having it fitted. I would think EGW could do this... anybody else? Benny Hill? I heard Claudio at Briley is an expert slide welder. Somewhere I saw a prototype all-plastic adjustable sight and I thought it would be the hot ticket for me. Anybody know who makes it? Maybe it was R&R racing who had it at the Race Gun nationals last year? P.S. To heck with The Arbitrator or Second-Rate Master for a custom member title; I don't know why I didn't think of Destroyer of Sights sooner. P.P.S. I only had to shoot one stage with my backup "B" gun; on that stage its Bo-Mar hinge pin worked loose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Okay . . . I'm just a nobody here, but something kinda occurs to me . . . If you keep breaking rear sights, could it be that you are doing something unusual or perhaps your gun does something weird that puts too much stress on the rear sight? Just askin' is all. You might also try to find an old Wichita rear sight. They look a lot like a Bo-Mar on steroids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Larry Cazes Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Erik, what type of steel is the slide made of? some types of stainless are very hard to weld. I have a springfield stainless 1911 that had a staked on front sight that kept coming loose so I had the front hole welded up and recut to a dovetail by wilson. Wilson would not reweld the slide and we had to go to a local machine shop. Once filled in, Wilson recut the dovetail and replaced both front and rear fixed and re beadblasted the slide for under $100.00 in labor cost. The new fixed sights are wilsons and cost $32.00. The work and service was excellent and I would definitely recommend them to anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Thought about welding the broken halves of the adjustable sight together into one fixed sight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George D Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 If you keep breaking rear sights, could it be that you are doing something unusual or perhaps your gun does something weird that puts too much stress on the rear sight? The same thought occured to me. This seems like an unusual problem to recur with different brands of reputable sights. To (mis)quote the humorous cliche ... "Check the nut behing the rear sight". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Thompson Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Eric, I hate to say it but you ain't ever touching any of my guns that have adjustable sights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2alpha Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 This problem is supposed to be fixed by Wilson's redesigned leaf that has raduised corners on it, the old ones broke often. Is your's one of the new ones or old style? Have you ever tried putting a rubber o ring on the elevation screw between the leaf and base? This stops the sight from bouncing under recoil and usually stops breakage problems. If you run a light recoil spring and have a gorilla grip the sight takes quite a pounding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted June 2, 2003 Author Share Posted June 2, 2003 You can snicker about my gun all you want... but ferchrissakes, it's a long dust cover frame, heavy slide, bull barrel, 12-13# spring, with 180 gr bullets over Clays or N320. There's only a few thousand such guns throughout USPSA. It just so happens I've also broken Tanfoglio adjustable sights on different Tanfoglio guns, .40 and .45. You can snicker about me all you want... What, my incredibly tight Vulcan death grip makes a gun cycle weird? What's interesting is that this Wilson was installed just before the Race Gun nationals in September, shot a practice or two and the match, then put away until April or May, shooting club matches, Best of the Best, and Area 1 since then. I had just removed the RecoilMaster before this match. The sight survived a few thousand rounds of my hot Clays load (176+ PF) with the RM then broke after a couple hundred rounds without the RM. Hmmm.... It's a Caspian carbon steel slide so it should be weldable. I've thought of zeroing a sight and then JB Welding (epoxying) everything together. I just never felt comfortable doing that. I heard something about the cut being done wrong and causing the sights to break. I don't understand the cause and effect, but Heinie did say my cut was too deep for his Bo-Mar pattern sight. I wish I had a digital camera to show you the broken sight. It's a really thin, weak-looking part of an otherwise beefy, strong-looking sight. Brian, does Wilson warranty these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George D Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Erik, No snickering was intended. I've never heard of sights breaking in normal use (excluding being dropped etc) and to have so different many different brands break would tend to point to some external factor that is not usual. It would seem an extraordinary coincidence that you ended up with all the faulty sights from all these brands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detlef Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 the point is of course that even if it was warrantied (warranted??? confusing...), it'd would be no good in a big match. I intentionally put a fixed Heinie sight on my Prod gun (where adjustable sights would probably work fine w/o breaking, it's a nine...), and it's a great sight. I like it as much or more than my ole' BoMar. No more lost zeroes, flying blades and the like that I, too, had with my BoMars and STIs. If you found your load, a fixed rear is the way to go.... Welding the current cut closed *should* be possible... --Detlef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2alpha Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Wilson will send you another leaf no cost. If you look at the leaf from the top it looks like an inverted T. The corners that form the short legs of the the T were square cut on the old version or the sight. The new version has a radius there. It takes a little filing to fit a new leaf to an old base, no big deal. Don't know if you're reffering to me but I did not snigger at you or your gun, just making suggestions to help figure out what the problem is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted June 2, 2003 Author Share Posted June 2, 2003 I just got off the phone with EGW. They seem to think my gun is battering the sights to death, that I should be using a 16# recoil spring instead of a #12-13, and my mainspring should be heavier than the 17-19# I have in there. I'm going to send them the slide and have them weld it up and mill a Novak cut, then put in a Heinie SlantPro. Nothing to break; all it can do is come loose. I have a new-in-package Wilson I'm going to put up for sale in the classifieds. I'll include the spare springs and screw from the broken sight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detlef Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 you might want to look at the old-style Heinie sights, too. Given a choice between slant-pro and old style, I voted for old style. Obviously, your gun is killing the sights. But we knew it wasn't meteorites from outer space doing it, so no useful piece of info has been added by that analysis... --Detlef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolan Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 Erik, Before you send your slide off to be welded up (which may change the slide/frame and slide/barrel fit, etc...) You mention that the sight cut is too deep. Where is the sight blade in relation to the cut when the sight is zero'ed for you? If the sight blade is waayy up in the air that may be the reason it's breaking. On my limited gun the sight is almost at the bottom of the travel. I just barely can move it down against the spring. If yours is up at the top of the adjustment it may be bouncing too much so 2Alpha's suggestion about the rubber o-ring may fix the problem. You've got another Wilson sight, check it to see if it's the new/improved version and put it on with an o-ring/rubberband/accu-wedge/etc... before you send the slide off for expensive modifications that may cause other unforseen problems like fit/function problems or cracking. Just my .00002 cents worth (OK, so I'm cheap) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolan Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 I just had another thought (wow, 2 in one day) If your rear sight is too high and the bouncing is causing the breakage, a shorter front sight would move the rear sight blade down. Anyway change the cheap easy stuff first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 If you're going to weld up the cut and re-install Novak's I hope you don't have the same guy do the revision that did the initial installation. If he couldn't get it correct the first time, chances are he won't get it right this time either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted June 2, 2003 Author Share Posted June 2, 2003 I've tried the o-ring under the elevation screw. In fact, I think that setup broke on the Bo-Mar on this gun last summer. I don't have the sight jacked up high. It's closer to the bottom of its adjustment. One more thing, I had a lot of trouble getting the recoil plug in after switching from the RecoilMaster. This slide has had a goofy plug tunnel since day one, but its edge seems to get hammered and prevents insertion of the plug. I'll check out the other fixed Heinie sight. The guy at EGW said he doesn't like the deep serrations and mills them off then re-does his own shallow serrations. Sounds good to me based on the Heinies I've seen. I'm not gonna bother with the spare Wilson, o-ring kludge or new-and-improved or whatever. First it was, "Don't use those crappy Caspian/STI sights, get a Bo-Mar, they never break." Then it was, "Don't use those crappy Bo-mars, get a Wilson, they never break." Now it's, "Oh you need the new-and-improved Wilson, it never breaks." Funk dat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detlef Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 good thinking If the Heinie sight breaks, there's a spell on you... --Detlef Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted June 2, 2003 Author Share Posted June 2, 2003 Yeah, it's the yin-yang of my gun karma... lucky at the chrono, unlucky with sights. Did I mention I chronographed at about 180 PF at that match? Nothing like seeing four digits displayed when you're shooting Limited! I know, I'll bet a shock buffer will prevent me from breaking sights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 Erik, First, please ignore my post in your other thread recommending you to buy a Wilson site. If you're dead set on going fixed, then ignore the rest of this as well. The o-ring recommendation really helps. Before my non-breaking Wilson, I used that trick for years; it really helps to keep the sight from beating itself to death. I used the weld technique on ALL my Tangfoglio's. I'd sight the thing in and then weld the ENTIRE thing. But even then they'd start to bend over time. On that gun I'm sure the problem was due to "slide velocity." I'm sure, by stacking the variables of - "Vulcan death grip," loose, non-o-ringed" sight, no shok--buff, light main and recoil springs, and fast burning powder - all toward the same end, the unfortunate result may be your case. Was it the older style sight or the newer one? I'm sure Wilson will warranty the sight. Did you buy it from me? If so, I can take care of it for you. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 I just got off the phone with EGW. They seem to think my gun is battering the sights to death, that I should be using a 16# recoil spring instead of a #12-13, and my mainspring should be heavier than the 17-19# I have in there." Hmmmmmm. My Wilson .45 - complete with Wilson adjustable sight, natch - has just over 23 K through it. The vast majority of those have been fired with a 17-pound mainspring in place. Started out with the 18-pound recoil spring Wilson put in the gun. That didn't continue for long. About 15-16 K with a 14-pound recoil spring. Maybe 5 K ago switched to a 12-pound recoil spring. And just a few hundred rounds ago dropped down to an 11-pounder. Your sight fits in the Bo-Mar cut, yes? Mine is the "lozenge" shape/installation Wilson developed for this sight, that's supposed to distribute/survive recoil better than a Bo-Mar installation. That's the only explanation I think of for the relative durabilities of our two different Wilson sights. <knock wood> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasonub Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 try to see if your hammer is hitting the bottom of the sights. Its incredible to break different sights on the same gun. Since the cut is low, your hammer may be hitting the sights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted June 3, 2003 Author Share Posted June 3, 2003 The hammer isn't close. BE, I'll mail the sight to you so you can deal with it. Honestly, I'm just going to sell the replacement here in the classifieds. I don't know whether it's new or old. I was checking it out and it would seem its beefiness was part of its downfall. The back section with the blade is very heavy, but it is connected to the leaf with sheet-metal thin pot steel. I am dead-set on going fixed. In fact, I have given thought to ShooterGrrl's recommendation that I give up Limited, with my sight and magazine troubles, and go Open. My other Limited gun is a problem. It still has a Bo-mar in it, but it's hard chromed so I can't weld it up. Maybe the Heinie fixed sight for Bo-Mar cuts will fit in this one. I called EAA and they don't have any more of those fixed target sights for BM cuts. Too bad because I really like their fixed sight on my Tanfoglio after breaking the SuperSight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul B Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 I've broken the rear blade on 1 Bomar and 2 of Para's copies. I finally found out that I was overheating the blade when I angle cut the edges on a small belt sanding machine. The new para was angle cut the same way, but I was verrrry careful about keeping the blade cool as it was ground. This one has lasted 12,000 plus rounds with a 12# recoil spring and it's a para! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detlef Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 ....On that gun I'm sure the problem was due to "slide velocity."I'm sure, by stacking the variables of - "Vulcan death grip," loose, non-o-ringed" sight, no shok--buff, light main and recoil springs, and fast burning powder - all toward the same end, the unfortunate result may be your case..... I usually leave our host alone... but I don't see how the powder choice (given a constant PF) could have any effect here. Remember that the bullet is out of the barrel and all powder long burned before the slide even BEGINS to move. The adjustable sights on my 45 (later 40, no change) Para broke with great regularity on average every 10k rds, too. BoMars broke faster, STIs took a little longer, and the breakages were different, but they still broke. Ran a 17# recoil spring on the .45, then a 10# on the .40, sights broke on both... Anyway, Erik's not alone in his misery... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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