Author Topic: Tiny sights on original rifles  (Read 3579 times)

Offline Dennis Glazener

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Tiny sights on original rifles
« on: June 03, 2018, 09:44:59 PM »
Someone had a post regarding small sights on early rifles. Reminded me of one that I own. Its an iron mounted VA flint rifle.
The sights on it are the smallest I have ever seen on an original rifle.
Dennis












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Offline Joe S.

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2018, 10:07:41 PM »
Small for sure,those sights+old eyes=really hard to see :(

Offline David R. Pennington

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2018, 12:50:20 AM »
In the dark woods that little glimpse of silver in the tiny rear sight was all you needed. As I heard one old timer say, that keeps you from taking too much sight. In other words only one sight picture is possible.
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Offline Mauser06

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2018, 07:33:42 AM »
Makes sense David....you seen that little sucker and your sight alignment is spot on.

Offline Don Steele

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2018, 12:16:42 PM »
In the dark woods that little glimpse of silver in the tiny rear sight was all you needed. As I heard one old timer say, that keeps you from taking too much sight. In other words only one sight picture is possible.
Thanks David. I've wondered about the prevalence of teeny-tiny sights on so many original rifles. We see them far too often to think it was a "quirk", or somehow due to handling wear. Your post is the best explanation I've seen.
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Offline WKevinD

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2018, 01:33:15 PM »
Great sights and definitely for hunting and not five shot strings at the range.
Heat waves off the barrel and you'd loose the sights.

Kevin
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n stephenson

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2018, 04:19:11 PM »
I have some old barrels with tiny sights.  I`ll try to post later. We marvel at these small sights now , and every time they are mentioned , the comments come about , them not being good for a shooting match. This should be very evident. They probably would have never dreamed of wasting 5 lead balls to prove they could out shoot their neighbor. I read of an old shooting match where they shot at the bottom of a V , closest to the bottom won the match. Some one may come up with documents to prove different, but, I will never be convinced  that as frugal as these people were , ie : reusing barrels and locks and mounts till there was nothing left to reuse. I can`t believe that they would  waste that much lead for a shooting match. I recall reading something about a rifleman putting on a shooting demo or such and hitting a barrel head 99 times out of a hundred . As I said I can`t recall the whole story. He might have done that , but he was getting his lead from the army.  There were probably frontier Indian fights where less than 5 shots were shot before a retreat was made. These modern sights in my personal opinion , look worse than just about anything you can do to a longrifle, and yes, I`ve used tons of them and HATED every set!
« Last Edit: June 04, 2018, 09:03:56 PM by n stephenson »

Offline Dan Fruth

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2018, 11:56:49 PM »
They call them a barly corn, but I call em a barely can...barely can see em!...But they show up good in the woods or in shade and don't cause you to shoot too low from over sighting the front blade.

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Offline smokinbuck

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2018, 02:18:11 AM »
Waste not want not. If you recall in the "olden" days, the last place winner in the chunk matches got to dig the lead out of the stump.
Mark
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Offline Shreckmeister

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2018, 04:31:42 AM »
 I thought tiny size were the norm. That's what I'm used to seeing
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Offline JTR

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2018, 05:23:38 AM »
Tiny size are the norm for old ones.

Plus a stock shape, that for some schools, just don't fit my body at all.  But they must have worked, both the sights and stock shape, because from what I've read target shooting was very popular in the early years!

John Robbins

Offline Roger B

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2018, 01:48:23 PM »
Also improves "cheek weld" to the stock.  Your head has to be down to see the sights.
Roger B.
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Offline Darrin McDonal

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #12 on: June 10, 2018, 05:53:33 PM »
I have some old barrels with tiny sights.  I`ll try to post later. We marvel at these small sights now , and every time they are mentioned , the comments come about , them not being good for a shooting match. This should be very evident. They probably would have never dreamed of wasting 5 lead balls to prove they could out shoot their neighbor. I read of an old shooting match where they shot at the bottom of a V , closest to the bottom won the match. Some one may come up with documents to prove different, but, I will never be convinced  that as frugal as these people were , ie : reusing barrels and locks and mounts till there was nothing left to reuse. I can`t believe that they would  waste that much lead for a shooting match. I recall reading something about a rifleman putting on a shooting demo or such and hitting a barrel head 99 times out of a hundred . As I said I can`t recall the whole story. He might have done that , but he was getting his lead from the army.  There were probably frontier Indian fights where less than 5 shots were shot before a retreat was made. These modern sights in my personal opinion , look worse than just about anything you can do to a longrifle, and yes, I`ve used tons of them and HATED every set!
[/quote
Hi Nathan. There's numerous documentation stating that they would shoot at what was call a "mark". The beef shoot was the primary source for a social gathering in the 18th and 19th century in the backcountry. Let's face it people worked hard everyday on their Farms. Somebody would decide to raffle off one of their beef cows and sell chances at it, then they would post a "mark" that they would shoot at up against a stump. They would take turns taking one shot at a time at the mark. Hence the term "Marksman". The beef would be divided up into five places depending on your score. 5th place was horns, hooves, hide and tallow and the 6th Place was the stump. It held all the lead.
Following the shoot would be the barbecue and dance. And you can understand why it was so popular when people rarely got out from under all the hard daily work.
I hope that helps. If anyone's interested watch the movie Sergeant York with Gary Cooper. Alvin York was the technical advisor on his own story and he made sure that they got a lot of the details totally correct. One is that they called their rifles a "rifle gun" which was the term used throughout the 18th century for a rifle. There was no such thing as a Kentucky rifle or Pennsylvania rifle or Virginia Rifle it was nothing more than a - rifle gun. So what that shows is that that term was still being used in the backcountry well into the 20th century.
Darrin
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n stephenson

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #13 on: June 10, 2018, 08:34:49 PM »
Darrin, I believe what you say about the matches  . I didn't mean that they didn't have shooting matches, just that they didn't waste a bunch of lead getting it done.  Collecting the lead from the stump proves this.  Most of the shoots I attend have at least 20 shots , some more. I just don`t think that match shooting took priority over sights on the American rifles that most folks used during the time that most of these  rifles were being made \used. Even the SMRs that were being built very late , had the tiny sights, long after "over the log " type match rifles were being made with different sights. Whatever the reason that they used tiny sights , I prefer the looks and "feel" of the old tiny ones over the new and "improved" gaudy messes in use now , for the most part. Until I actually saw a "real" old rear sight on a rifle , I always just felt like something wasn't right with the rear sight on my first rifle , it felt like it would rip your palm open in the wrong circumstance. It was a modern casting, way tall!! .  Maybe they used tiny sights because they actually planned on handling their rifles  ::) I don`t know.  Nate

Offline Hungry Horse

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #14 on: June 11, 2018, 12:56:29 AM »
The small notch, and barley corn front sight are nearly foolproof if you learn how to use them. A bone, or ivory, barley corn is even better. If the front and rear sights are properly set up for the distance between the sights, there will be little or no dazzle, because the barley corn sight completely fills the little sight notch. Some old shooters regulate the sights for a six o’clock hold, so any dazzle doesn’t obscure the target.
 If heat waves are causing problems, keep your gun out of the sun, and shoot slower.
 Patridge/ Garand style sights are great for twenty five year old eyes in combat, but for the majority of the people here they are not that good.

  Hungry Horse

Offline Darrin McDonal

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2018, 02:43:08 AM »
Thanks Nate,
I understand what your saying. I don't disagree at all. I truly believe that those guys all wanted the tiny sites for some very good reason. Or else why were they used by the vast majority if not all the rifle users for centuries. I mean the rifle barreled gun has been in use since at least 1476. That's more that 500 years of rifle use. Us modern longrifle users might very well be missing out on a vital piece of the puzzle here.
I think this might call for experimenting.
Darrin
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Colonial Williamsburg
Owner of Frontier Flintlocks

Offline Cory Joe Stewart

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2018, 04:41:01 AM »
Dennis,

Here are a front and rear sight that I acquired along with this original buttplate.  Very tiny.  The rear sight and the base of the front appear to be brass. The front has a silver blade.






















Cory

Offline David R. Pennington

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2018, 02:14:22 PM »
No real mystery. They shot different style matches. One shot from each shooter. Best shot wins. Our club shoots typically have 20-25 shots for best score. If you shoot them in one session heat waves will be an issue. It might take a couple days to shoot our match if you used original style sights and waited for the barrel to cool between shots. Hunting is a different thing altogether. No worries about heat waves there in the dark woods. If you don’t shoot modern competitive matches your low sights will be just as effective as they were 250 years ago. You will soon discard the low sights if you try shooting competively in todays multiple shot matches.
VITA BREVIS- ARS LONGA

Offline Dennis Glazener

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2018, 03:43:03 PM »
That a neat set of hardware, hope you use them on a rifle.
Dennis

Dennis,

Here are a front and rear sight that I acquired along with this original buttplate.  Very tiny.  The rear sight and the base of the front appear to be brass. The front has a silver blade.






















Cory
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Offline Cory Joe Stewart

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2018, 04:33:12 PM »
Yeah Dennis that is the plan.  I'm waiting to find an original trigger guard to match.  Do you have one??

Cory

That a neat set of hardware, hope you use them on a rifle.
Dennis

Dennis,

Here are a front and rear sight that I acquired along with this original buttplate.  Very tiny.  The rear sight and the base of the front appear to be brass. The front has a silver blade.






















Cory

Offline Dennis Glazener

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2018, 09:49:10 PM »
No I sure don't, but if I run across one will let you know.
Dennis
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend" - Thomas Jefferson

Offline Cory Joe Stewart

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #21 on: June 13, 2018, 12:44:45 AM »
No I sure don't, but if I run across one will let you know.
Dennis

Thanks

Offline will payne

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #22 on: June 23, 2018, 03:29:57 PM »
Who ever owned that rifle had some young eyes.
🕯
Will


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Offline Hungry Horse

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #23 on: June 23, 2018, 04:23:48 PM »
NO! Young eyes can easily run the modern sights seen so often on modern muzzleloaders ( the tall square post, with the big square notched rear sight) because, young eyes can do the delicate balancing act required to equalize the sight height, and center the post in the square notch. This is way too many tasks for old eyes. Fine sights that don’t require the light measuring of modern sights are exactly what old eyes need.

  Hungry Horse

Offline Nate McKenzie

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Re: Tiny sights on original rifles
« Reply #24 on: June 23, 2018, 04:52:02 PM »
Like HH says.  My old 70 yr. old eyes can't focus on modern sights, but a tiny spark of a silver front sight in a tiny notch of a rear sight just like the old originals gives me very usable sight picture.  The old timers knew what they were doing.