Long Range Muzzle Loader - volunteer sights

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volunteer sights (Read 245 times)

Robyn

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volunteer sights
Nov 23^rd, 2010 at 5:54am

Hi all.
I have my volunteer rifle in hand and as advised here I am going to upgrade the sights. Have any of you ever fitted creedmore style sights to a volunteer, if so could you give me some ideas on how to do it.....picks would be great if anyone has them. I have a pedersoli sight but it would have to be inlet extremely deep into the wrist... far to deep.....
once agin I thank you in advance for you help
regards Robyn

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paulbehe

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Re: volunteer sights
Reply #1 - Nov 23^rd, 2010 at 2:01pm

Robyn....You are kind of between a rock and a hard place. You have the choice of inletting the sight base deeply into the wrist or moving the mounting place down the wrist where it would probably interfere with your grip. The only thing I could think of would be to mount the rear sight as low on the wrist as would be comfortable and then adapt [or fabricate] a taller front sight to compensate for the higher than normal position of the rear sight. That's all I can think of. Hope this helps. g'day! Paul

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gcrank1

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Re: volunteer sights
Reply #2 - Nov 23^rd, 2010 at 10:36pm

It is not unusal for target shooters to place the thumb of the hand at the rifle wrist along the side rather than draped over. With the sight base mounted further down this is what you would have to do. Of course, with heavier loads some like to have ahold in the more normal fashion if their sight will allow.
The mounting problem on most muzzle loaders is that with most tang sights the actual height at base with the eyecup aperture at the lowest setting is still far too high, and as you crank up more elevation for longer ranges it just gets higher, to the point you are way past 'cheeking' the buttstock. The tallest Lyman 17A globe sight can help some.
It is most important that you get the sight staff truely verticle in relationship to the bore, otherwise, as you crank it up you also get an unwanted windage adjustment. Another consideration is that as the eyecup goes up it changes the way you look through it at the front globe and you may detect some distortion in the sight picture since you are no longer looking through an aperture on a 90 degree angle staff, but one pitched visibly rearward.
Some eyecups are 'overbored' on the front side to help avoid this distortion.
So, you may need to take your sight and use some electricians tape, or such, and tape it on with a couple of wraps in several places on the wrist to get an idea where you can really mount it to still get your short range adjustment. Use your rear open barrel sight at its short range setting to look through from the tang sight to the front sight, All three help you line it up and it will really crispen up that rear sight notch, too.
After that, give thoughtful consideration to the staff being 90 degees to the bore in both lengthwise and side to side. You may have to use a scraper to flatten the wood on the top curvature of the wrist to get the base to sit squarely on it. You cant have the edges of the base sides not contacting wood or it will tip side to side on you.

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Pat in Virginia

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Woodville, VA

Re: volunteer sights
Reply #3 - Nov 25^th, 2010 at 7:38pm

Robyn,

I have a PH volunteer rifle.� If none of the approaches already mentioned suit your fancy then you might consider mounting a Dr. Goodwin sight on the wrist of the rifle.� That is what I did and I can easily get a normal (thumb-wrap) hold on the wrist of the stock if I wish.� There are several makers of Dr. Goodwin rear sights now, but the one I am referring to is made by Rex Holbrook in the UK.� �I have several bases mounted on several ML target rifles and both vernier and non-vernier versions of the sight.� I am pleased with them.� �I think Gcrank1 also uses a Dr. Goodwin as well.� (Let me know if I'm not remembering that correctly Gcrank1.)

This style of sight allows the rear sight apperture to come down much lower than most other sights I've seen.� It even has a minus 20 minute of angle registration mark.� �There are two variations of the sight: one with a venier and one without.� The one without can be run down lower on the staff than the one with.�

I believe you may have to go to the maker of the sight, Rex Holbrook, to get one if you are interested.� I'm not aware of anyone selling them currently in the US since Joe Hepsworth passed on.� Maybe someone stocks them where you are, but I don't know if that is the case.

If you are interested I'll send a picture of the front and back sight I use.� �The front is one that Gcrank1 helped me to assemble.� It's the low Lyman 17A sitting in a windage adapter that goes into the barrel dovetail.� No calibrations or markings on the adapter but I can always use the depth gage capability of my caliper to set and repeat a windage setting once I have established one that works for a given powder load & bullet.� After figuring that out with the rear sight set at 0 windage on a wind-less day, I use the rear sight to adjust for windage thereafter.� The front sight turns out to look very appropriate & fitting for a ML target rifle and I have the same setup on my PH Whitworth.

Pat in Virginia

« Last Edit: Nov 26^th, 2010 at 12:37am by Pat in Virginia »

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gcrank1 Full Member Offline Posts: 122	Re: volunteer sights Reply #4 - Nov 26^th, 2010 at 7:22pm Pat, Im afraid I dont have the fine Goodwin sight on mine, in fact Im still using the factory sights as Ive only done short range work with it so far. Ive used the typical tang sights on cartridge and muzzleloading match rifles in the past. Im sure your recommendations are spot on.
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