"High Center" hold - OR - fix 46m rear sight?

[jr]

OK, so I get to a match last weekend and start in on my sighters. I get a nice (for me) 9-ring sized group, but it's centered in the 6-ring, at 6 o'clock. I'm a little confused, because the gun was sighted in properly before, but anyway I raise the sight up 12 clicks (that's 4 scoring rings on the Izh-46m) and I shoot 5 more. When I roll my target back, I see that I now have a 10-shot group in the same place - low, just under the black.

I inspected my rear sight and saw that it was no longer held firmly in the vertical dimension - it was just resting in its lowest position, and turning the adjustment knob had no effect. I could freely move the whole sight assembly up and down with my fingers, but it just went back down to the bottom.

So I did "Kentucky elevation" and made a high-center hold and aimed for somewhere up around the 8 ring at 12 o'clock (so like a center hold, but higher). I ended up with just over 500 for the match (which isn't too bad for me, anyway), but now my problem is that I can't seem to figure out what held the rear sight in place, or how to fix it!

Are there any Izzy shooters out there who may have had a similar problem? Is there a spring that goes in there somewhere that may have fallen out? Is there a dealer who sells the entire rear sight assembly, or someone who fixes them? Because I don't really think the "High Center Hold" is such a good idea, at least not for me...

Thanks,

jr

[slofyr]

...I inspected my rear sight and saw that it was no longer held firmly in the vertical dimension - it was just resting in its lowest position, and turning the adjustment knob had no effect. I could freely move the whole sight assembly up and down with my fingers, but it just went back down to the bottom....

The sight has a spring-tensioned beveled plunger that maintains the adjustment. Looking down on the sight it should be visible on the left side of the blade block. If the plunger/spring is still there, the fix should be a drop of oil to free it up. If missing, pyramydair.com might have parts.

[641]

...

[jr]

...I inspected my rear sight and saw that it was no longer held firmly in the vertical dimension - it was just resting in its lowest position, and turning the adjustment knob had no effect. I could freely move the whole sight assembly up and down with my fingers, but it just went back down to the bottom....

The sight has a spring-tensioned beveled plunger that maintains the adjustment. Looking down on the sight it should be visible on the left side of the blade block. If the plunger/spring is still there, the fix should be a drop of oil to free it up. If missing, pyramydair.com might have parts.

Thanks for the advice, 641 and slofyr.

With that information I was able to see that it was indeed the spring-tensioned beveled plunger that was stuck. I tried oil (didn't work), then oil + overnight (didn't work), then twisting and pulling on the plunger with needle-nosed pliers (didn't work), then taking the whole thing off for more forceful twisting and pulling (still didn't work). It took some forceful language from me along with a carefully directed flame from a torch plus the needle-nose to finally got it free. There was a surprising amount of rust in there! Anyway, polished it all up, gave it a bit of oil, and now it's back in business!

It's a different long story, but I'm pretty sure the rust got started earlier this year when the gun spent a few weeks in the tropics, mostly outdoors, in one of the rainiest places on earth. Obviously that wasn't exactly the kind of environment it was designed for, but it's disappointing that the 46m didn't get the same all-weather invincibility as the AK at the Izhmash factory...