Space Force 6: Build Part I

This is where this build is going to get a little fancy.

Usually, I'm not into cosmetic only modifications to guns. Even if something is 90% for looks, I like to make sure that there is at least some purpose. That's exactly the case for the front sight on this gun of the future.

Since this revolver is going to have a red dot, I wanted to have co-witness back up iron sights. This is common in the AR and semi auto pistol worlds. It's unheard of in the revolver world. I suspect that's because I'm the only guy building revolvers for the future.... in space.

I thought about using something like one of Blitzkrieg's Front Sight Posts and then drilling and tapping a piece of aluminum to hold it in place. However, I'm not that confident in my ability to center, drill, and tap in a way that would hold the front sight post secure and plum. I also didn't have a good plan for how to make it adjustable, other than 2-3 set bolts. That seemed clunky and heavy.

There aren't any super-low profile picatinny mount front sights on the market so I knew I was in for some custom work. Here's the plan: get a very small piece of white jade, attach it onto a modified shotgun front sight (I'm using one from LPA), and then run a small bit of optical fiber from the flashlight I'm mounting under the barrel to the base of the jade so that it's illuminated when the flashlight is on.

White jade bead next to 9mm round for scale.

The best fit I could find for small, circular white jade is a bead set on Amazon. I needed one 4mm bead. It comes in a pack of 200. So I have 199 white jade beads. I'd be more than happy to send a bead or two to someone who wants to try similar front sight project.

Seriously. Let me know.

Why white jade? I wanted a material that was white enough to see clearly in daylight and translucent enough to glow when lit. White jade, moonstone, and other similar stones fit the bill.

I'm planning on gluing the bead to the front sight post on the LPA Front Sight. Spheres don't glue well, so I broke out my friend Mr. Dremel and ground down one side. You can see the flattened side in the image below.

With one side flattened, I taped it onto one end of the optical fiber and tape the other end onto a flashlight. The cable and bead lit up beautifully.

I also learned a couple other things from this test:

1. The optical fiber does not have to be directly in front of the light source to transmit light to the bead. This is good news because it means I can mount the optical fiber to the side of the Micro Scout Light I am using on the gun rather than directly in the way of its beam.

2. By changing the angle to and distance from a light source, I can control how much light travels through the optical fiber. You can see in the image below that there is so much light passing through the fiber and into the bead that it's shinning light on the work bench. I want the front sight to be illuminated, not illuminate its surroundings, so I'll mount the light receiving end of the optical fiber far enough away from the Scout Light to just light up the bead.

Testing the glow of the white jade bead... not bad.