Removing an ornery small set screw?

Been watching this thread as I've had similar problems. I took a Martini to a gunsmith I know because it had a broken sight screw. He had a very fine chisel and put it on what was left of the screw end and hit it on one side in a counter clock wise direction and voila - out it came. Yours should come out without this as it still has the allen head. Let us know how you make out.
 
i have a small set of mastercraft Grabit .damage screw remover you can put them in a drill or just a hand driver thy will pull your screw out with easz thy are only a few bucks but well worth it looks like you need a number # bit DUTCH
 
The sight should slide out to the RIGHT side of the gun.

Since the LEFT side of the sights dovetail looks like it is already damaged (peened) from hammer hits it is doubtful the sight will slide out even if you remove the screw.

You are supposed to use a brass drift punch on the sight and hit THAT with the hammer, NOT the sight itself...
 
Marcel B. said:
...You are supposed to use a brass drift punch on the sight and hit THAT with the hammer, NOT the sight itself...
Click to expand...

Of course- and that's what I've used, although it does appear that someone else didn't! It must be able to move a little in either direction to adjust for windage, however and given that there is a set screw to secure it, it shouldn't be all that tight in the dovetail in the first place.

I won't have time to work on it until Tuesday but I'll post the results when I get there.

:) Stuart
 
Dental burrs (the bits the dentist uses to grind out cavities for fillings) and a Dremel tool are one option. I've used them for cutting out broken small and tiny taps. The set screw should cut really easy by comparison.

You can grind a drill bit so that it will cut in a reversed direction.

Set the slide up in a vise on a drill press table, use the butchered drill bit in the chuck. Use the drill press to control the pressure on the screw and turn the chuck by hand. If you ground the tip correctly, and used a drill about the same diameter as the set screw, it should grab on to the setscrew (best case) or start shaving away the screw (worst case, and time to switch to a drill bit that will fit inside the thread size of the screw so that the threads on the sight itself are not munged.

If the wrong Loctite was used, or nailpolish or super glue, or any other type of makeshift screw retaining compound was used on the screw, drilling it out may be the only real decent bet.

Good luck!

Cheers
Trev
 
Drill it out almost full size, that should get rid of the bottom of the screw where it is touching the dovetail. Drift off the sight and then drill and tap one size up. You have plenty of meat there to go up one or two sizes. You shouldn't need a carbide bit to drill a set screw, I never have.
Kim
 
Got it!

After a liberal application of heat from a heat gun plus the use of a 1/16" hex bit:

Hex bit.jpg


I got the screw out no problem. There doesn't seem to be any Loctite on it; the threads are clean and the screw goes back in with little resistance. But there was a ring on the dovetail cut where the screw had been cinched down pretty tight.

Getting the sight out was a bit of a struggle and required the big ball peen hammer on the brass punch. There seems to be some disagreement on which way the sight on a S.A. is supposed to be driven in, but it appeared that this one had been put in from the left, which may explain the peen marks on it, so I drove it out to the left.

Rear sight out.JPG


I will now carefully dress down the burrs, repaint the white dots and put it back in.

Once I get some experience with this pistol I may consider an adjustable sight but there seem to be few that will fit a .330 x 65º dovetail and I don't want to go to the additional expense of having the cut redone.

:) Stuart
 
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