Removing a rear dovetail sight-which way to drift

[Purebred Redneck]

I'm trying to remove this ridiculas rear sight on the sidelock handgun I picked up last fall and replace it with an adjustable cva sight.

I've asked around and so far I have about 10 different answers.


Is it removing it Left to Right? And putting it in Right to Left?
So the right side is the point of focus.
And then from which view am I looking at it - as the shooter or as the target?

thanks, I'm sure I'll get the correct answer this time

[dovehunter]

If it's just a regular dovetail slot it shouldn't make any difference which way you drive out the old sight.

[twomoons]

All right, factories cut standard dovetails with straight sides. Hand cut dovetails are slight taper and the sight goe's in left to right behind the gun. As long as it's a factory gun just tap it out either way, with a BRASS drift or put a 22 case on a punch. If the new sight is tight the prefered method is to file a little off the BASE of the sight to fit the gun's dovetail. BUT... some of the foreign guns aren't cut to a standard 3/8 dovetail and you might actually have to open up the dovetail on the barrel to standard dimensions. For this take a standard 3 corner file and wet grind all the teeth off one edge to make a safe file. A commercial safe file is a paralell sided file but you can get by with a tapered file IF you work slow and CAREFULL. Keep the sided square and work slow fitting every few stroked till the sight will just start into the dovetail. Light tapping should be all you need to push the sight in place and then when sighted in use a center punch to dimple lock the sight in place.