doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com UNUSUAL SIGHTING

Can anyone enlighten me as to the possible purpose of a flip up sight on the top lever of a T Page Wood 12ga. box lock? Front sight is a standard bead.

Originally a 'ball and shot' gun?

Older shooter whose eyes went bad. A sight like that will do much to bring the front bead and target into focus.

Or it is not a sight at all and only a place to install a cord
to allow one to break open the gun, if the person has hand issues.

I'd lean towards it being a sight, too. I think if it was for some sort of lanyard the rear of the top lever would have just been pierced from side to side, creating a hole, instead of creating a flip up jobbie.

'Tis true that an aperture sharpens the focus, but it is usually in the range of the front sight, not way out at the target, and especially so for an aperture this large. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth of field in clarity. Here's a good article on how this works, and the parallax suppression effect of an aperture sight. The effect of making the front bead clearer would only work against good shotgunning, because the focus should never be on the bead, or muzzle, but on the bird.

Strange deal on a break open gun, but as has been said here many times before, in other contexts, one could have just about any contraption one wanted on a gun if willing to pay the price.

http://dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Aperture_Sight.pdf

SRH

Looks like a peep sight to me.
Many such sights are found on older double rifles. It is not uncommon for the sight to pop up from the tang rather than the action opening lever. Here is a link to a rather elaborate such Sauer rifle:

https://www.walterborg.se/sv/auktion/auktion/h17/dubbelstudsare/4655_1

sure these are mentioned in greeners bible for longer range shooting - never seen one and couldn't comment on its effectiveness but i've certainly seen drawings.

Most likely.

I would go along with the Ball & Shot idea. It would be flipped up & used for Ball & down thus unused for shot.

It is true that small apertures increase the depth of field of the focus, but equally true they Dim the visibility. Very small apertures are primarily for use on target guns under good light conditions, in the Field, the bigger ones are better.

I was never good with open sights, but successfully squirrel hunted for several years with a .22 equipped with the old Williams 5D sight. I would sight in with the little hole, then screw it out & just use the large threaded hole for hunting. It shot to the same place but gave one much better sighting in the early morning or late afternoon under low light conditions when the squirrels were most active.

Also, the closer to ones eye the peep is the better. To use one on the opening lever though it would need to be on a gun which the lever was always centered. On a gun with wear compensating bolts where the lever goes left in compensating the point of impact would change with lever position.

Never thought of that after some wear a fellow would have to do some Kentucky windage.

I bet they fired the guy that thought it up.