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1858 Rem New Army "Pietta" always "High to the Left"

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Ian,

May take you up on the referral.. I will try your 2F thought first just to see what my results would be...interesting suggestion.
 
There is another fix for windage on front sights usually done on blades but I think it also can be made to happen on a Remington stud sight and that is and inlay right or left soldered on and re-profiled. It widens the sight to one side or the other for a bit of windage correction without sight stud removal or barrel canting.
Personally this is much more except-able to me than a canted front sight from over or under top dead center rotation. MD
 
I think before you do anything with the sights I would try a different load. I have several .44s and they shoot best with .454 rbs. Work for a tighter group first.
 
All my Pietta Remingtons, both .44 & .36, came with sufficiently tall front sights, that they all fired around 5" low - some quality time with a sharp file cured the problem.

Best load for accuracy I've found for ALL my .44's has been 23-25 grains of 3F Goex or Pyrodex P.

For better fit, I'd suggest a .454" minimum ball diameter. You'll find that the .451 ball may shave a little lead off during seating, but a larger ball shaves off a bigger ring of lead. When the larger diameter ball is seated into the smaller diameter chamber, a flat is formed on the ball. It is known as the Engaging Band. The larger the ball, the wider the flat band formed on the bullet. Ball size is limited by how much force you want to expend on seating - excess force leads to wear & possible damage to both shooter & loading lever.

Once the round is fired, the ball moves forward & thru the forcing cone, which reduces the bullet diameter a little more; the Engaging Band is widened a little more & gives more surface area for the ball to engage the rifling.

For this reason, shooters with bigger balls are more likely to have better accuracy ...
 
I was just out at the range today and this is just the second time my son and I have shot our '58 .44 pietta. We used 30gr of pyrodex 3f and .454 RB. We were consistently 6 inches or so low at 20-25 yds in to ~ 10 yds. I was good left/right but had to aim with the fat,base portion of the front sight to hit near my aim point. It would take grinding almost the whole blade down to be where i was sighting the gun. Is it possible to remove the front site and grind the base and reinsert it to lower the blade? How is the front site attached??
 
I have the target model Remington Pietta and the front sight is held on with one screw through the base. That would be easy to remove and file down the base.
Standard models use a stake front sight that is either spot welded or brazed in place and would be more problematic to correct. One could always cut it off and dove tail through where the old stake base was and install a new blade front sight and have windage adjustment to boot. I just made a new front sight for this gun that came with a staked front sight from the factory.

New front after milling out of bar stock but now yet sighted in.
Milled a skirt on to make it look better from a top view but not really necessary.

Sighted in for six o'clock at 25 yards, blued and installed on the 1862 that comes with a stake front sight. Mike D
 
Thanks that helps to know how it attaches and now I just have to decide how best for me to proceed.
 
Well today I heated up the front site on my '58 pietta .44 rem and gently grasped it with a small channel lock plier and it came right off. Using my dremel tool I took off most of the round base leaving the original blade intact and reset it in its base with some JB weld. I will go shoot it tomorrow or next week and report how it worked. I realize the OP was shooting high and mine was low But I thought others would read through this post as as i did seeking help and info.
 
Now I am shooting only 1-3 inches low but left at ~ 15-25 yds. Dropping the front site realy helped and it did not come loose with the JB weld after ~ 18 shots so far. I still feel I need to file down the front site some but it is comming in nicely.
 
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