S&W Model 17 rear sight problem

First topic message reminder :

I posted this question at the Smith and Wesson Forum and thought I would ask it here as well. I recently picked up a 70s-era Model 17 that I find shoots about 8" above point of aim at 25 yds with the rear sight down as far as the adjustment screw will allow. I notice that with the screw bottomed out there is about .025" of space (by feeler gauge) between the frame and the bottom of the rear sight. It's been a while since I've had an adjustable-sight S&W revolver. Shouldn't I be able to lower the rear sight more than that? S&W tells me they're sending along a shipping tag for it, but maybe there's a quicker fix that I can do.

If it would help others, I can set up an image of how I bent the sight assembly.  It took forever to set something up, then only seconds to do the correction.  Rube Goldberg would maybe be proud of me.   :-)

Still, silly or not, the thing worked, it was easy to do, and I kept doing it a little further each time, bending slightly more each time.  



The "front end" of the sight leaf goes into a vice, held sideways, with aluminum covered jaws on the vice.  
Clamp the vice closed.

Use a large adjustable spanner (adjustable crescent wrench) from above, to slide the "jaws" over the leaf close to, but not touching any of the parts that are at the end of the sight.

Use another adjustable wrench clamped on the first wrench, so I can apply pressure to bend the sight in the "appropriate" direction, then release.  Repeat until the sight, when released, is not bent as far as before I started.

I needed to bend the sight more than I expected, to bend it far enough so it wouldn't spring back all the way.  

This means when the sight is mounted on the revolver, the business end of the sight, with the adjusting nut, will be lower.

This means the top of the sight blade will be lower, which the reason I needed to do all this.

Follow-up question on a different revolver.

First, S&W has most of these rear sight parts, and sent me everything I needed to rebuild my sight except the leaf, which was bent too much.  Straightening the leaf fixed the issue described initially in this thread.

Since they have all the sight parts, they apparently send them out at no charge to people repairing their old sights.  Go to Numrich first, and find the actual S&W part number for your gun, to make it easier for they to find the parts.


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A separate question about the rear sight.  I didn't feel like starting a new thread for this.

This is an instruction video on how to replace the rear sight blade:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6au83u4A78


If you watch the video at the two minute mark, you'll see the rear sight "flop" all over as the adjusting screw is being turned.  This is what happens on my Model 14. 

Is this normal?  I have a feeling I need to replace all those parts too, so the sight doesn't "flop" up and down like this.