I have a 1901 Rifle with 1901 rear sight.  I read that you release the sight base to adjust windage by flipping that flipper, moving the base, then flip it back?  My flipper don't flip.  Stuck?

I removed the sight, tapped the side a bit and got the 0 lines lined up.  Then remounted the sight.

My question is, do these thing tend to get sticky, rust or am I not doing things correctly?  Should I soak it in something for while? 

When my 1902 rear site arrived it was so gunked up that I could not turn the windage knob.  After much soaking, blasting with carb cleaner and such, it is still sticky and I need to find a punch small enough to knock out the pin holding the windage knob to the screw.

Thanks for that.  Great picture.
Where is that windage release lever positioned when tight/loose? Is it a detent, or merly a turn CW till tight arrangement?

I have a jar of red kerosine handy.

Pentz:  (In regard to 1902 sight windage adjustment).

  From my experience, there is a lot of slop and 'backlash' in this adjustment on a 1902 rear sight.  It does not turn smoothly like a fine target sight.  On the other hand, it works.  It allows windage adjustment and holds its setting.  Get things close and then concentrate on sight picture and centering of shot group.  I see a lot of shooters who fiddle too much with fine adjusting their sights.  They end up frustrated because they have not allowed things to stabilize and get into a shooting rhythm.  IMHO

butlersrangers wrote on Mar 11^th, 2014 at 3:13pm:


You do need to be sure the screw is properly seated, and that the sight base fits snug to the barrel, since the screw head is hollowed out for the curvature of the barrel. If improperly assembled, the lever will never lock. Start with the lever swung all the way out to the left, and jockey things until everything is snug and it starts to bind up when straight ahead.

Note:  My Krag Model 1899 carbine, with a type 1901 carbine sight, requires the lever to be farther to the right to lock in place, than the rifle sight I photographed.  (Both are 'correct' and working properly).

All,  thanks again for the info, no matter who you directed it to, I'm taking it all in.

In a perfect world, I'd set my sight to zero windage, shoot a well-aimed round through the xring at 1-200 yards in no wind, and that would be where I left the windage.

But that ain't gonna happen.  I will adjust the rear sight windage to get that shot, draw or photograph the sight, and leave it there unless there a major ammo chnage or something nessesitates doing it again.

If this were an M1, I'd make a small shift in the front sight to make mechanical zero and no wind zero of the rear sight, same same.

I've wanted a KRAG for a loooong time.  I bought a "junker" from CMP that was complete and I'm going to bring her to life.

Speaking of 1901 sights, check out this thread:  (You need to Login to view media files and links)

I don't think I got to the guy soon enough and he's likely broke the pin that keeps the elevation binding knob from being lost.  But it sounds like he was planning on forcing the handguard down over the sight.  Hopefully he didn't get around to that yet.