I have a NECG/ recknagel masterpiece banded front sight that l'm hoping to use on an upcomming build. What is the thinnest wall thickness of the sight band that l should aim to use for silver soldering?
Currently the sight has an internal diameter of .595" and a wall thickness of .035". I'm hoping l can ream out the internal diameter to .614" and that will leave me with a band thickness of .025". Is this to thin?

That will work fine, but you don't need to silver solder it, soft solder is more than strong enough; use one of the 3% silver soft solders, or maybe Loctite 380.

if you plan to blue it after, silver solder it .. .025 is fine.. you can bore it rather than ream it, on a taper, and have it match the barrel taper. should NOT go on cold, imho

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
if you plan to blue it after, silver solder it .. .025 is fine.. you can bore it rather than ream it, on a taper, and have it match the barrel taper. should NOT go on cold, imho

Jeffe. WTH does that have to do with it. I have installed dozens of them and only used the Brownell's "Force-44" stuff. I am sure that John Farmer was referring to that type.

It will blue up just fine. Besides, silver solder gets the barrel too hot IMHO

Agree with Jim. The Force 44 from Brownells works fine. If you use high temp silver solder you will need to get the barrel to a near cherry red heat for it to work. This will often leave a coating of carbon inside the bore that is nearly impossible to remove and will destroy the accuracy of the barrel. Don't the sight bases have a set screw in them? If so, no need for any soldering of any kind.

There IS a setscrew in the barrel band front sight. If you get a decent fit between barrel and band, just set a dimple in the barre for the set screw to reside, loctite it down or put another on top to lock it. For some more info, those setscrews are metric; I usually retap to 6-40 or so.

quote:

Originally posted by clowdis:
Agree with Jim. The Force 44 from Brownells works fine. If you use high temp silver solder you will need to get the barrel to a near cherry red heat for it to work. This will often leave a coating of carbon inside the bore that is nearly impossible to remove and will destroy the accuracy of the barrel. Don't the sight bases have a set screw in them? If so, no need for any soldering of any kind.

That high temp silver solder you are talking about is actually silver braze.

3% silver solder flows at approximately the same temp as the Force 44. No need to heat the barrel to cherry red, that's silly.

Solder is sufficient if you do it right.

Oh, and you need some space for the solder to flow into. If you have to press it on, how the heck is the solder supposed to flow?

Some folks like to heat the band and the force it on the barrel. When the band cools it is stuck. It works, butI kinda like to avoid inducing constrictions into the barrel bore.

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
I kinda like to avoid inducing constrictions into the barrel bore.

Regards, Joe

"Reaming" them out can be a real excercise in futility. Set them up in the lathe and use a sharp boring bar.

Thank you for all the replies. The only reason l considered reaming over boring was due to the fact that l thought that the underside of the ramp would get in the way if l tried to bore it out from back end of the sight. Should l bore from the front of the sight band?
Finally, l too always thought that some clearance was needed for the braze to flow in between. So what clearance do l need to aim for or do l just bore it parallel and the small taper on the barrel will be sufficient clearance?
George

I set it up with the ramp pointed towards the tail stock...don't worry about "solder clearance" With the right temp and flux, you could solder a crabs ass.....and that's water tight!

Jim -- jesus, switch to decaf .. force 44 ...

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
Jim -- jesus, switch to decaf .. force 44 ...

NOW...WTH do you mean by that. I would definitely not be in favor of the silver braze method. Like the others have said, too much heat for that stuff and it does no good to the bore. That Force44 is great stuff and holds up to hot blue. As for boring the sight, I also bore it like Duane said and I usually set it up to taper bore it so it fits.