new front dovetailed front sight

[rifle]

A Pard wants to send me his 1861 Musketoon by Euroarms to have a dovetailed front sight installed.
Question is.....is that a good idea considering the barrel is round and also a large caliber(58cal)?
If a person has a need to regulate with a gun like that aren't the rear sight notches the best place to start? The front sight brazed or soldered on at the factory due to the round barrel and large caliber?
Help me remember....concerning the lock/trigger.....the closer the trigger pin is to the sear end the less travel for the trigger but easier to pull the trigger and the further away the trigger pin is from the end of the sear(trigger bar hits the sear towards the rearward end of the trigger bar) the more travel but a harder trigger pull?
The Euroarms 1861 Musketoon being a copy of a military rifle then isn't it inherent to it to have a heavy trigger pull?
Anywhoooo...the Italian guns aren't always made right and I'd like to know what someone may have done to "tune the lock" as my Pard puts it and what's the best way to regulate the rifle to point of aim/point of impact(I imagine that's why the Pard wants the dovetailed front sight)?
Thanks ahead of time for the attention.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

On the Musketoon, the trigger may be hinged in the trigger plate.  If this is the case, the trigger pull will be terrible...hard and heavy.  Silver solder an extension to the top of the trigger's vertical plane, and drill a hole for the pin approximately where the sear screw is.  Then pin it through the wood.  This gives you a long lever, and a much better mechanical advantage.  I doubt that there is a fly in the tumbler, so you don't want a one pound trigger anyway, but four pounds will make shooting it much nicer.

There is lots of steel in the top of the muzzle for a dovetail, provided that it is only about .032" deep, but it would look bad.  The front sight should be soft soldered to the barrel, and adjustment made in the dovetailed rear sight.  If the barrel is straight, and the bore without runout, the sights should be dead centre.

[frogwalking]

I have a Euroarms two band Enfield replica.  The front site is a cube of iron soldered to the barrel with a very thin blade on top.  It is sighted point blank at 100 yds.  I normally am more likely to shoot at 50 yds as I am not much of a rifle shot.  I have thought of cutting a longitudinal slot into the block and pinning or soft soldering in a wider and higher blade.  some folks have told me this alteration would ruin the rifle for some sort of reenactment or other.  I really do not care about this, but thought it would be nice for the rifle to shoot to point of aim at 50 yds.

[bluenoser]

Help me remember....concerning the lock/trigger.....the closer the trigger pin is to the sear end the less travel for the trigger but easier to pull the trigger and the further away the trigger pin is from the end of the sear(trigger bar hits the sear towards the rearward end of the trigger bar) the more travel but a harder trigger pull?

I will defer to Taylor regarding how to best improve the situation.  I would like to directly address your question regarding pull weight and trigger travel.  Your understanding of the relationship between pin position and pull weight is correct.  Your understanding of the relation between pin position and trigger travel is reversed.  Assuming the pin position in the trigger plate remains relatively constant, the closer the pin is to the end of the sear bar, the longer the trigger travel will be.  The tradeoff is longer travel for a lighter trigger.

Laurie

[rifle]

Thanks for the refresher course in trigger geometry Pards. I've always gotten confused about that. Now it is back to making perfect sense.
I was afraid that the dovetail would have to be too shallow and have the front  sight too easily knocked loose or get loose if it was drifted much from sighting with different eyes and minnie bullets and all. A .032 inch deep dovetail on a round(no flat like an octagon barrel) barrel wouldn't give much metal to hold to. Granted a perfect fit and tight sight with a milled groove would be tight at first especially if the sight were turned upside down in the machine vise and the sides of the base milled some with the same dovetail cutter the groove in the barrel would be done with would be a good hold.
Maybe it would be better to work the rear sights instead. It has that folding up sight for range and a folded down for short shots. As far as I kow there's no windage adjustment to those rear sights.
On second thought...maybe altering the front sight with a pinned insert may be the ticket.
Anyway....thanks pards.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

A frontsight dovetailed into a round barrel has to be staked in the centre of the barrel, or it'll look like $#*!.  If it's off to one side of centre, ... yuk!!  Solder it on and call it done. Adjust the rear.