Thanks to all for your thoughts and suggestions. Also, thanks to the guys who have kindly offered me the clamp-on mounts. I will probably get the Weaver octagon barrel (flat) mounts and have the barrel drilled/tapped. I will probably get the Leatherwood 2-7x scout scope. SWFA has it for about $115, less than half the cost of the Burris 2.75x scout scope that I currently have on my grandfather’s Japanese Arisaka. I don’t work for Burris, and I am not being paid to say this, but I will tell you that those Burris scopes are sweet. They are really better quality than the company realizes, and they should charge twice as much for their scopes. I have Burris scopes on almost all of my rifles. The Leatherwood scope will be less expensive, and I will not worry as much about it getting messed up as I would with a Burris scope, but I can always switch at another time to get a Burris if I stick with this.
Anyway, after looking into this and using rulers and yardsticks and holding the Lyman GPR up to my shoulder over and over again I have concluded that a scout scope and mount is the only way to go. It will look odd, that’s for sure, but it should work for me. You guys are probably right about the variable scope getting gunked up with powder debris, but I will probably sight it in at either 5x or 6x (at 100 yards) and just leave it like that. Then I can shoot at the 50 or 100 yard rifle ranges at my club.
I kind of went back and forth in my mind about replying specifically to the points raised by Jethro224. I definitely appreciate the time he took to type out his reply, and I don’t doubt or dispute his wisdom, but the name and details of my vision problem are my business and no one else’s. It probably IS fine to just sum it up the way I did by saying I have a lifelong visual problem. However, I am sure he was being genuine and I will take his post at face value and just go ahead and tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know about My Vision. Here goes:
Well, I am about 45 and have been shooting rifles since I was 8. I have something called congenital nystagmus and you can Google search that for more info, if you want it. I have low vision at all distances. This is NOT near-sighted and it is NOT far-sighted. I have low vision at all distances, near, intermediate, and far. I need a magnifier glass to read a map, a telephone book or a newspaper. I can read regualr books without a magnifier glass, but I often use one anyway because it is easier and more comfortable. For distance, I get by mostly by recognizing the shape and familiar pattern of things I see. So, for example, I can not read a store sign from farther back than about 25 feet, but I can tell you we are coming up on a McDonalds from about 400 yards away. I recognize their signs. If there is an 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of paper on a tree 50 feet away, I can tell you if it is a riflery target or a sign, but I could not tell you if the sign said “No trespassing” or “Beware of Dog” or whatever until I was about 25 feet from it. So, just to pause and talk about shooting for a second, if that WAS a target, I could not see the center circle cross-hatch detail without a scope unless I was about 15-25 feet away. With a 4x scope, I can shoot a rifle comfortably at 50 feet, 25 yards, or 50 yards. I can shoot to kill at 100 yards, but will not win any awards. With an Aimpoint CompM4 red dot sight and a 2.5x magnifier, I can accurately (enough) shoot my AR-15 way beyond the distance that I could determine if the target was friend or foe.
I don’t hunt, but that’s mostly because I can’t stay still and shut up long enough to allow any animal worth shooting to get within a half mile of me. But for the hunters out there, let me illustrate My Vision with hunting and animal details: If there was a deer 100 yards away from me, I could tell you it was a deer and not a cow or a dog. I could not tell you if it was a doe or a buck. If that same deer was 25 yards away, I could possibly tell if it was a doe or a buck, but I’d be more confident of that at 50 feet. Even at that close a range, I could not count the points to determine if it was legal to shoot. Gee, maybe that’s why I don’t hunt? No, even if I could see to the moon, I would not have the patience that you hunter have. I give you guys a lot of credit for determination and skill.
My house is at an intersection of two roads. I can look out my bedroom window and see the street signs on the telephone pole. I know they are the street signs, and of course I know what they say. However, just looking at them from about 20-25 yards, (if I did not already know what they are) I would not be able to say with certainty that they were street signs. I’d probably be able to guess they were, based on recognizing the pattern of their size, location, and configuration. I can see that they are green, and have some white stuff on them, but I could not identify that white stuff as letters, let alone make out the individual letters themselves. With a 4x scope, I can see that they are street signs, read every letter, and aim in and hold aim at any one of the individual letters. Across the intersection, about 100 yards away, is a neighbor’s house. I can see the house and make out most of the windows, albeit without being able to discern much detail. I can not pick out the front door when looking at that house from my bedroom window. My buddy looked out the window and said “the front door is green and has a large window with a lace curtain.” With a 4x scope, I can just barely confirm the details he could see unaided with his eyes. With the 4x scope, I can make out that lace curtain only to the extent of being able to say that there appears to be an opaque covering over the window of the front door.
When you look through a variable rifle scope, as you increase the mag, the objects appear to be larger and closer. The data from the specific details in the image fills your eye more fully as the mag increases. As you zoom back out, the objects get smaller and appear to be further away. At 1x, you are seeing what you see without a scope. OK, for my vision, image zooming out even further, to say 0.5x, or 0.1x. That’s me: objects, no matter the actual distance away, appear smaller and further away to my unaided vision than they do to you. Our eye is sort of like a digital camera that sends a data stream to the central processor unit (the brain) which converts the data into an image. Actually, in our eyes, there are millions of retinal fibers that each act as their own individual digital camera sending data back to the brain. In my eyes, something happens and there is static on the line and the brain has to do the best it can to assemble an image based on an imperfect data stream. Obviously, the more data, the better chance for error-correction and the more likely it is that a useful image is generated in my brain. Depending on what I’m trying to see, I can get by with either very little data (for example, to recognize a McDonald’s sign down the road) or I might need lots of data, like to read and make use of a map. The more magnified the image, the more of my retinal cameras are on the job sending data about that particular point of interest back to my brain. With enough data, I can “see” anything pretty much. The trick is to get a satisfactory amount of data to the brain to make useful images in everyday life situations without putting everything under a microscope.
So, now to shooting and iron sights: I began shooting .22’s at 50 feet when I was 8. Using the iron sights, I could barely get the rifle pointed at the target, and got about 2 of 5 shots on the target paper (standard NRA 50 foot rifle targets, I think they were about 8 x 10 inches in size). I did the best I could, but peep sights and pinhole apertures really mess with my visual acuity. My brain is used to having to take all of the data streams and try to come up with some type of image. Narrowing the visual field down to just a few retinal fibers (looking through the peep sight) leaves LOTS of fibers seeing nothing useful or important to the task at hand, and yet my brain tries to integrate all that data anyway. I never gave up, and eventually switched to shooting .38 and .357 revolvers at “contact distance”. Eventually, I went back to rifles when I was able to outfit them with scopes. At this point in life, I am fortunate to be able to afford whatever optical aids I need or want. I use lasers with all of my handguns, and red dot sights for my AR. For my lever rifles, I use Burris 4x scopes. I have some older Winchester model 94’s that I do not alter from their original condition to mount scopes, but I do wonder why I bother to keep them since I am adamant that I am not running a firearms museum and I want to shoot what I own or move on from it. Oh never mind, I just LOVE those Winchester model 94’s from the pre-war and immediate post-war years. I tried shooting my Arisaka with the original factory iron sights but it was just so frustrating. But I did not want to alter the rifle because it is one of only a few things that I have that were left to me by my grandfather, and he got that rifle himself while serving in the Pacific. So, eventually I found a scope mount that fits into the well for the factory sights but does not require drilling or any modification of the original rifle. I can put the iron sights back on anytime.
When I look through the iron sights of my GPR (buckhorn rear sight, and fiber optic front sight) I have a lot of trouble discerning what is rear and what is front and what is target. It all just mish-mashes together. It might be better if I paint the backside of the buckhorn rear sight all white or orange or something like that. I might actually try that. When i said that I can't use iron sights, I meant exactly that: I can't use iron sights. I've heard Jethro224's excellent description of how you folks use iron sights a thousand times over the years, but it means nothing when I am looking down the rifle I can't make out what is rear sight, what is front sight, and what is target. Focus? You must be kidding. If I could selectively focus on any of those three (rear sight, front sight, or target) I would not have even needed to bring up any of this scope stuff here. Focus on the front sight? Yeah, I wish.
Someone asked why bother with a flintlock if I can’t shoot it in the natural, early-American way of using the iron sights. That’s a silly question! If any of us did not instinctively know the answer to that, we would not even be here reading this forum. I’m sure I do not have to tell you that there is something special and uniquely historically appealing about a rifle mechanism that was used for over 400 years of relatively recent history. And, if you think the Colonials would NOT have mounted scopes on their flintlocks if they’d had that optical technology available, you are just nuts. Sir, respectfully, I submit that putting a scope on a flintlock rifle is a PURE TRIUMPH of the pioneer spirit. Using available technology to solve problems was the pioneer way even if selected parts of the technology were light years ahead of other parts of the solution to the problem at hand. Anyway, I do believe it will work for me.
I’ll keep you guys posted.
Thanks, much.
Larry
