Thread: Iron sights

What do people make of the buckhorn style that come on many lever guns? Worth sticking with or replacing with a peep or something else?

I don' know much about irons; shot a few rabbits lately with the square notch and post on my .22. My 9.3X57 has a square notch and bead, and hope to get a deer with that this year and have set it up as Carlsen Highway suggests...bead in the middle of target.

Originally Posted by Dama dama

What do people make of the buckhorn style that come on many lever guns? Worth sticking with or replacing with a peep or something else?

I don' know much about irons; shot a few rabbits lately with the square notch and post on my .22. My 9.3X57 has a square notch and bead, and hope to get a deer with that this year and have set it up as Carlsen Highway suggests...bead in the middle of target.

I suspect that you mean semi-buckhorn. Buckhorn is basically a forward-mounted peep with a small arc removed at the top. It was a failure hence the semi-buckhorn. Peep backsights are better at distances above 30 metres, in my experience, although other people may do better in the field (I consider range-shooting achievements to be irrelevant to this conversation). The only real advantage that a semi-buckhorn backsight may have over a standard square-cut back sight with square notch is that the rounded outer edges are less likely to injure the shooter's hand when carrying a lever-action carbine through the bush and holding it just forward of the receiver.

In the end, though, any solution has to work for you!

Semi buckhorn are only slightly less useless than full buckhorn ideal for a herd of buffalo charging by but woeful compared to partridge style, inverted v or aperture for precision.
The shape of the forepost also has a big effect on the sight pictire and hence accuracy.
Sitting the target on top of the post, 6 oclock hold is best imo.

this thread got me thinking about the norinco .22 sitting in cabinet not being used. the open sights dont really do it for me even taking to notch with triangle file to make a v didnt really squeal my wheels.
sitting in my bits n pieces bag was a chunky scope mount with large square base,out came the drill and eyetrometer,3.5mm hole drilled pretty close to centre . screwed onto built in dovetail again and it comes up really niceand almost looks to be in right place (going by the open sights still on barrel) I have windage as the dovetail is solid on one side and screwed seperate piece on other,first adjustment would be to turn it 180 degrees,more subtle adjutment could be done with packer or alloy can under the screwed on side...a cleaverer fella could get it right first time and best of all its cheap cheap cheap. adds about 300mm to sight radius so SHOULD be good,when I get time will try it and see.

Before i spend good money on following this up i have removed the scope from my Sako and shoot it A La Natural.
The A1 is a really nice light carry without a scope as well!

I was recalling to someone yesterday how as a youngster I had borrowed the "family " BSA .177 A very old one probably from the 20's at a wild guess. Under barrel cocking lever etc... It had lost its rear sight leaf so I made one from a piece of card board and wedged it in place with plasticene, this in turn made the front sight too low so I built that up with plasticene too.
It could cut daisy stems at about 10 yards .... I couldnt see them past that range. Cool old gun and gave me a good grounding in sight picture, trigger control and breathing.
Damn I wonder what happened to it. ( and my shooting ability )

Look at express style of sight,I find it really effective as back up/wet weather option on my .44 magnum rifle.

This is an interesting thread.

@Carlsen Highway

I've decided to ditch the scope on my 98, and I've bought a Rigby peep sight and a partridge front sight.

Now I'm windering whether it would be better to go for a front bead and a shallow v rear sight, and then utilize the rear peep as a diopter.

@Frodo ah mate that's a sweet looking unit.
I wouldn't want to gark it up in the bush!
Big calibre for the big action and equally fat recoil pad?

Nah - I reckon ding it up real good, and then get the stock refinished every 10 years.

Yeah - no idea of the calibre, though. Stole it off Google images.

@Frodo haha cheeky bugger. That image is for the sights wanted.. I get it now. Doh

Originally Posted by csmiffy

@Frodo haha cheeky bugger. That image is for the sights wanted.. I get it now. Doh

A Rigby would sure be nice to own!

Not wrong there.