doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Modern Single Shot - work in progress

Brent, IMO the key phrase in your post is "when I was younger". Well, when I was younger, I remember wanting a number of things that later proved to be, shall we gently say, quite unfortunate in their eventual results. I think you'll find that extensive testing by several reliable people, among them Finn Aagard, has demonstrated that rear iron sights work best and fastest when using a peep positioned close to the eye or a wide vee notch positioned relatively far from the eye. Now, a square-notch barrel-mounted rear as used on some Continental target rifles is also quite accurate with a post front but is slow and, again, you'll find that many if not most of these target rifles have their barrel-sight dovetails running quite far to the front so as to get both sights into as nearly the same focal plane as possible. Now this is JMO and worth every penny you paid for it but that's my story and I'm sticking to it at least for the time being.

It would be interesting and might make part of a good article to actually test perfomance at the different eye-to-sight distances and see just how much difference resulted with shooters of various ages. I used to have a very accurate little Mauser 350 22LR with the long dovetail arrangement that would have been perfect to use to test this, but it's long gone. Too bad.

Brent, it just occurred to me that some here might think I was flaming you with the above, but I hope you know me well enough by now to realize that if I had intended anything but respectful disagreement then there'd be no doubt. I figure that you knew this but some others might have been wondering. We've been courteous & respectful posters on this new forum, at least we have for the most part and so far, and let's hope it stays that way.
Regards, Joe

Joe, when I was young, I wanted what I wanted, and would have had it if I could have afforded it. Back then, like now, the benefits of sight radius and focal plane forms a trade off. But the slopes of those two functions change with age and hence, so does the optimal position fo the trade off. So, back then (only 10 yrs ago) I might have had something like this.

Also, Aagard might have likened bestest with fastest, but I don't and never did. I think it has a lot to with application, and individual. And I figure that the irons are to be a last ditch alternative to the scope so sight placement might make some sense in the scope of all the various tradeoffs for what amounts to back up a sighting system. For sure, that rear sight is FAR better than what exists on most hunting rifles for back up to a scope.

If you want to do the eyesight testing thing, Paul Matthews had a pretty good way of measuring accuity in a practical target shooting sense. It is described in detail in the Paper Jacket. I'm game to help out (and do the stats of course). Don't need to fire a shot either.

And Joe, you and I can always disagree and git along. We have done it before and will do it again. Thank goodness their is still someone who will call me on things once in a while, so no worries there. After all, we shared the same foxhole that is the ASSRA and emerged victorious after all of that!

Brent

Very sophisticated metalwork, and I especially enjoy the drawing even if I can't read millimeters.
As for the rear open sight placement, when I worked for Green River Forge building muzzleloaders for guys who were then my current age, the standard was about 25" from the buttplate. I think you will find this working quite well for serious open sight shooting.
I wrote two columns about my thought on iron sights for primary and auxiliary use in recent issues of Sports Afield.

I like it! It's a back-up folding rear site. Tucked away nicely under the scope and out of the way. If it's needed, I'd bet most anyone would find a way to adapt quickly and make the shot with it.
I'd hate to see it moved up forward and spoil everything. It's a custom rifle after all with a 'scope site on it,,not some sort of a survival weapon.

I picked-up this rifle a few weeks ago on a trip back home. Its maiden hunt was four days spent chasing Sambar dear in the Victorian bush and it has its first few honour scars.

It occurred to me I never thanked anyone for the comments and suggestions, especially regarding the placement of the sight bases and rear sight on the rib. Hope it's not too late to do so now. After taking some more measurements and discussing further with the gunsmith, we agreed to make a new rib, with the position of the rear sight and forward scope mount reversed. That puts the rear sight approximately 1 1/2" ahead of its previous position. It works fine for me there, and more importantly the 3-9x40 scope I'm using mounts properly and with correct eye relief.

Here are some more pictures I snapped this afternoon






























Thanks again for the comments and thanks for looking.

cheers,
- stu

Very nice work, thanks for sharing. I looked at a custom rifle about a month ago and the rear sight was about at the forend tip. It looked strange but after seeing the sight picture I decided that it looked swell.

a true piece of art nice to know there are still fine gun hobbiest around. thank you for sharing.

Beautiful! And the best part is the left-handed stock.
Thanks for sharing.

Nicely done, all around!
(And I'm happy to see we share books, Espingarda Perfeyta is one of my all-time favorites.)

Outstanding Stu...all aspects, especially the left handed stock...superior workmanship.....enjoy.....

Best Regards,