TargetTalk

I finally took my grip off the IZH 46M, sanded it down on the outside, and reattached it. Afterwards, I found the pistol was shooting far to the left. It was missing the trap. I had to step in to about 5 meters to hit the left edge, and start sighting it in.

At this point, I have adjusted the windage all the way to the right, and it is still shooting a little left at 10m. What caused this? How do I fix it?

The rear sight of the 46m is well above the grip, no part of it making contact with the grip in any way. And the frame is small and rather simple, not a lot to go wrong unless you've modified the shape of the mortise somehow... which could not have happened if you only worked on the outside of the grip.

All I can think is that you moves the rear sight blade somehow when dismantling or reassembling the pistol. Check the tightness of the sight blade fixing screws. It could be that they're slightly loose, allowing the blade to shift significantly when you set the grip-less pistol down but just tight enough that the looseness was not obvious. There is a fair bit of room for side-to-side adjustment of the rear sight blade on the 46m before tightening these small bolts. At least 5mm or more, which would be more than enough to account for such a dramatic point of impact error. The bolts turn counter-clockwise to tighten.

Thanks! You solved my problem.

I found a lot of screws on this pistol were not tightened down at the factory, and I had to tighten them down. I never noticed those two screws on the back of the rear sight, but they needed to be tightened down.

I readjusted the blade and tightened it down and it was a lot easier sighting in than ever. I sort of felt like the sight was drifting, and now I know why. :-)

Well good, glad it worked out. The 46m is easily as precise a shooter as any top of the line pistol, or so close that 99.99% of 10 metre shooters will never find the difference. Having the sights go wonky could really put someone off this otherwise fine pistol, heavy though it may be.