My friend has a new to him Browning Model 53. To prepare it for metallic silhouette, he installed the Lyman 17a front sight. He says he had the action open when he installed the sight, simply drifted out the factory sight and drifted in the Lyman. The new sight went in snugly but with no problem. He did nothing else to the gun, the gun worked normally before he installed the sight. When he got done he went to close the action and the action wont close. The lever comes back maybe 1/2" or so and the bolt or something comes up against something very solid. Any ideas? Thanks.

I called a friend of mine that is an expert and told me that more than likely when changing the sight the action got jarred and finger lever link pin or link screw moved and is jamming the lever, he said it only takes a quarter of a turn on the link screw for the lever link pin to jam the lever. Hope this helps.

I know this sounds awfully simple but have your friend first make sure the lever is in it's loosest non-binding position, then turn the rifle onto its right side where the loading gate is (now facing down) and just smack the rifle a couple times using just his hand. Then turn the rifle back to vertical (without letting it go the the left beyond vertical) and gently try the lever. My brother had a very similar problem and it turned out that the finger lever pin was sliding out of position (because of a defective and short finger lever pin screw) and was binding up the bolt.

Just a thought since it sounds so much like the problem he had. Just replaced the finger lever pin screw and problem solved.

Hope it's this simple.