M1917 Performance with Original Sight

[Chief TC]

Hiya,

There is a company that offers match grade (CMP legal for vintage rifle matches) reduced size aperture sights for the US service rifles. For the M1917 they offer an exchange program where you order the sight, you ship them a sight and they ship you back a modified sight in exchange. (They do this as the supply of spare parts for the M1917 isn't as plentiful these days) Also, if your rear sight is not centered when your zeroed, they can offset the new aperture slightly so that you can bring your windage adjustment closer to centered. (I have an '03-A3 with the sight base staked to the receiver slightly to the right so the windage was to one side, they offset the peep hole in the insert so that I was able to bring the windage closer to center so I have almost full windage adjustment again.)

As far as the M1917 being "terrible for target work", that's news to me as the GSMM CMP match lines for Vintage Military Rifles are filled with shooters with M1917's, Swiss K31's and Swedish M96/M38's. My M1917 will go toe to toe with my K31 and my M96's in matches but my M38 (Husky '42) with it's pristine barrel and wonderful 6.5x55 will outshoot all of them out past 400 yards.

If you want to keep your rifle original, you can do what I did, get a spare sight off ebay or Sarco/Numrich/etc, send that to them, when the modified one comes in, swap yours out and store it in a safe place. That way if you sell your rifle you can just put the original one back on it. (it's one screw)

https://shootingsight.com/?product=m...duced-aperture

Tom

That is great to know Tom! Really appreciate you taking the time to pass on this info. I'm definitely open to having a spare and keeping the original. Best, Tom

[M-Tecs]

Properly focusing on the front sight is incredibly difficult. A trick that works well for service rifle shooters using irons and a post front sight out to a 1,000 yards is too smoke the front post and use a sharpened needle to put a line on the sight. If you can't see the needle mark clearly you are not focusing properly on the front sight.

[Chief TC]

Properly focusing on the front sight is incredibly difficult. A trick that works well for service rifle shooters using irons and a post front sight out to a 1,000 yards is too smoke the front post and use a sharpened needle to put a line on the sight. If you can't see the needle mark clearly you are not focusing properly on the front sight.

Thanks for that tip M-Tecs. The rifle got parkerized so it has a nice flat finish rather than producing any glare. Never heard about marking the sight.