General discussion > Black Powder Shooting
Sight height
Gene Carrell:
I spent yesterday morning doing load development with a 50cal Fred Harrison rifle; eclectic and beautiful. I found that it absolutely wanted bore-size rb's and 0.018 pillow ticking patch greased with mink oil. Using 70gr of 3Fg (seemed better than 2Fg) bench groups of 5/8" @ 25yds and <1" @ 50 yds were common; however, the groups were 5" high at 50yds (3" at 25yds). Does anyone know how much higher the front sight needs to be to bring it in at 50yds?
Daryl:
There are rules of thumb and forulae to figure just what the heights need to be. Distance betweent he sigths is necessary. I merely use a file at the range while shooting and 'that looks about right' testing works every time.
Mike R:
Is your rear sight such that it can be filed down and renotched? Generally I dislike really high front sights on aesthetics grounds--and fortunately imost of my rifles required reducing the front blade with a file. I have filed down the rear on my .32 squirrel rifle, however [and then screwed up the notch job--be careful] and brought it down. Another compromise is to go to a 6 oclock hold [unless you already are].
Daryl:
My rifles are zeroed at 25 yards and that puts them generally about zero to 1/2" high at 50yards. My sights aren't very high, but height deos help with heat waves at a and when shooting in the winter time. The trouble with high sights, the factory rifles with adjustable sights for instance, is they give elevated flight to the ball, showing extremes as you are showing, GeneC, as in 2" difference between 25 and 50. 2" difference is a lot to compensate for on small targets. Note that most 'original' guns have low sights- there were a couple reasons - 1/. Less prone to damage when low to the barrel & 2/.- low trajectory making piont blank sighting possible on close targets, yet giving a longer range zero with the ball close to the line of sight.
Gene Carrell:
Distance between sights is 25 1/2" with front sight height 1/8" and rear 1/4". I can reduce rear 'some', but not much. I am already using a 6 o-clock hold. I was hoping someone had a formula to use as a guesstimation. I don't particularly care for too tall front sight either. Shooting 2Fg powder dropped the group at 25yds to the center of the target, but the best group was double the size of my best 3Fg group which shot higher. I need all the help I can get without handicaping with a larger benched group.
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