SR1911 Front Sight Broken

Yesterday was one of those days… one of those days where everything seems to go wrong. One of those days where you long for getting out to the shooting range to get rid of your frustration and worries. And then this happens:

sr1911-no-front-sight

Yep, that’s right: the infamous “SR1911 broken front sight”. I’ve never dropped the gun, always been careful with it (this is supposed to be a carry-gun, while mine is treated like a piece of porcelain) and then, BOOM, while sending lead down the range, suddenly I saw a big gap in my sight picture (note, this must after about 1000 rounds).

When googling for this issue, it seems to be a pretty common one. Ruger uses a MIM front sight which is sub-standard. There is nothing wrong with injection molding in general but they clearly messed up this one. Note that the sights are advertised as “Novak style”, meaning the back is a real Novak sight (machined) and the front is a cheapo produced licensed sight. If you don’t believe me, check out the pricing in the Ruger shop (checked 12/3/2014):

  • Original sight “SR1911™ FF03200 Front Sight” – $6.25
  • Novak’s® SR1911® Plain Black Front Sight – $24.95

In any case, again reading the internet, it seems that Ruger has been fair about it and replaces the sight without any problems (well with the same sub-par part, but anyway). Unfortunately, I’m in the old continent in a country with strict gunlaws. I can’t just DHL my gun to Ruger. I took it back to my local gun shop, they will contact the importer – round-trip time will heavily depend on whether they have a sight in stock. Let’s hope for the best…

 

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