M1 Garand rear sight aperture

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Doug Lee

New member
Hello All,
While field stripping my M1 Garand yesterday, I noticed that the rear sight aperture does not retract below the plane of the rear sight housing bars (not sure what the bars on each side of the aperture are called) I assume to protect the aperture. I noticed this when I placed the rifle on its sights, on a hard surface, it will rock, should the rear aperture retract lower?
Thanks,
Doug
 

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D

Doug Lee

New member
Thanks for the response.
Is the retracted position supposed to allow the aperture to "stick up" above the rear sight bars on left and right of the rear sight aperture?
Thanks
Doug
*
 
B

bamaranger

New member
sights

Your sight looks correct to me, but I went and checked my (2) rifles as well. When "fully retracted" the aperture still is slightly above the level of the protective ears of the rear sight assembly. A straight edge placed across the ears will "rock".

From a design standpoint, another 1/8" of an inch or less of height on the ears would indeed protect the aperture more fully if the sight were bottomed out prior field strip. As is, the sights are still dang durable and thought to be best of the era for a battle rifle.

I'm reluctant to be critical of the "greatest battle implement ever devised".;)
 
T

tangolima

New member
The sight is mos certainly not full retracted in real use. It is about 9 clicks up for 100yd zero. The ears provide some protection, but not total protection, in the field.

M1 is a great rifle. But greatest could be too high a bar to reach.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
4

44 AMP

Staff
I'm reluctant to be critical of the "greatest battle implement ever devised".
Click to expand...

The quote from Gen Patton left out the word, "yet"...;)

And there was plenty to be critical of even in Patton's day. However, over all, its a good rifle, and was better than anything anyone else fielded at the time.

But its not without faults. One big one was the Army's fault. :rolleyes:
 
H

hps1

New member
M1 is a great rifle. But greatest could be too high a bar to reach.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but bear in mind the rifle was adapted 85 years ago. :D

On January 9, 1936, the "U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30 M1" was adopted by the Army as its new battle rifle.
Click to expand...

Regards,
hps
 
D

Doug Lee

New member
M1 Garand rear sight

Thanks for looking shafter, I thought it might retract below the rear sight ears.
Doug
 
R

Reloadron

New member
Yours looks fine to me. They do not go below the protective ears. If you open it up the guts look a little like a rack and pinion.

Rear%20Sight%203.png


Rear%20Sight%202.png


The parts do vary from revision to revision and manufacturer. If I recall correctly the Winchester manufacture had a thicker aperture than other manufacturers. Shoot it and enjoy it, they work fine and last a long time. :)

Ton
 
M

mehavey

New member
Light application of just about any auto bearing grease will do.
(Nothing fancy or dramatically applied.)
 
U

Unclenick

Staff
If you look at the bottom end of the arched rack, you see a short length where there are no teeth cut into it. That was to stop soldiers from accidentally (either in the heat of battle or just fiddling around) from cranking the elevation up so high that the sight fell out and got lost. However, In converting the sight to match use, the peep was drilled out and a small rotating hood and spring detent set into it that would change the elevation ½ moa so you could adjust the sights between the full-moa clicks on the elevation knob. That rotating hood had an unfortunate propensity to fall off during a match, so a lot of match gun's sights had that whole toothless portion of the rack ground off completely so a failed rack could be removed and replaced without taking anything else apart (though your elevation zero would probably be off a little when you did that).

Removing the sight cover (the stamped spring steel retainer) is so easy, I don't see a real advantage to that grinding. The one thing you lose by grinding the sight base is the standard range of 11-13 moa up from the bottom for a 200-yard zero (200 being the shortest range standard target on the National Match Course and also a good point-blank zero range). Nonetheless, if you keep your gun is a soft case or otherwise anticipate conditions in which the sight could get dinged and just want to get it to go down a little further, you can either grind that toothless portion off like a match site or you can just trim some of it as shown in the modification I made to Ron's image, below.

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R

Reloadron

New member
Below is an example of what Unclenick describes where a rear site is converted from 1.0 MOA clicks to 0.5 MOA by rotating the rear site hooded aperture.

Sight%20Rear%20NM2A.png


In this case the entire rear sight is swapped for a NM/2A which also allows for 0.5 MOA windage clicks. The match rear sight is often complimented with a NM front sight with a 0.062 blade diameter.

Just the hooded aperture can be swapped out with a standard rear site base.

Sight%20Front%20NM.png


Been years since I have seen any on a Garand. The images are of one of my old Garand rifles.

Ron
 
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