Repairing old Charter Arms front sight...

[golfer393]

I just purchased a 80's Charter Arms "Undercover" .38 special from a friend. The little gun is stainless and had never been fired. I just took it to the range to give it a little workout. The gun shot and functioned great... HOWEVER, the front sight flew off. Fortunately I found it. The sight looks like it's part of barrel (about 1 1/2 inches long), but it appeared to have been only glued or expoxed onto the barrel. (I had just heated up the barrel pretty good)

Question: Should I simply expoxy or glue it back on with JB Weld or Hot Stuff, or should I take it to a gunsmith and have him reattach it? Is there a better product to reattach it?
Thanks.

 

[Unclenick]

My blued Charter's front sight appears to be soft-soldered on. I think your's was supposed to be, too, using a special stainless soft-solder flux. I would guess the flux was applied, but it missed the soldering stage, leaving the sight glued on by the flux. Clearly, Charter was saving the effort of aligning the site before screwing in the barrel by doing this step last.

You want to take it to someone who knows how to do this kind of work. Stainless may be silver brazed, which is the strongest hold, but can be hard on the steel if the person doing it isn't skilled at bringing the heat up slowly and evenly. He has to know how to soap-stone mask the joint so you don't have the braze wicking out beyond the edges or adhering to the frame.

You may also find someone who knows what flux he needs to soft-solder the site onto stainless. I bought a surplus gallon of stainless soft-solder flux once - highly acidic and didn't seem to work all that well. I presume someone who's spent more time on it than I have will know better what to do about it?

Nick

 

[ribbonstone]

Not the first charter Stainless to toss it's front sight. It's things ike this that gave them the reputation of spotty quality control. On a guess, when Charter started to make stainless guns, they used the wrong flux and didn't get good joints; haven't hear of many blued guns tossing the sight.

Take it to a gunsmith that understands what he'd doing.

It is a job you could do at home, Brownel's has teh right materials to do the job, but unless you've done this work before, I'd not take it on as a first job.
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BTW: A big fat kintergarden pencil (or an artist's #1) seems to work pretty well keeping the soldier off the other surfaces.

At lest parly dissassemble the gun...at least take the cylinder and crane out, then heat sink the barrel near the frame ( big copper clamps work...so does a large wrap of copper wire). Don't want any accidental heating to cook the springs. This proably isn't needed for a soldering job, but i tend to be cautious.

Will scrape the foot print of the sight, scrape the base of the sight clean, color all the metal around that footprint with #1 pencil, flux and tin both parts, lightly flux the tinned surfaces, clamp them together, and heat until the solder flows. What oozes out just balls up on the layer of graphite left by the pencil and rolls off. Once cool, unclamp and clean up.

Low temp. will work, it's plenty strong enough for a font sight ramp, and you won't heat the steel high enough to scale the inside of the barrel or seriously discolor the surface.

 

[Unclenick]

You mean I bought that box of soapstone for nothing?

It's things like this that make me miss the old cadmium silver solder. Nothing since has wicked as well.

Nick

 

[ribbonstone]

You mean once I use the last of this old stuff up, it's gone for ever and I'll have to use that lumpy, never really flowing, new stuff?

Son of a...


Well...obviously I must have breathed in too much cadmium and been totally unaware that it's not available.

Thank you EPA...first you take away the termite treatments that acutally work and now ya'll won't trust me not to suck fumes...what next, take the lead out of my primers?

 

[Scorch]

Take it to a smith and have him drill and tap for a small screw, then solder the sight in place. Newer solders can get brittle.