I've been missing my T/C Hawken .45. The stock needs work and the barrel needs to see Dr. Hoyt one of these days for a re-bore. I missed it mostly because it as a tang that was drilled and tapped at the factory for tang peep sights and has a Williams FP-Hawken on it. With my old eyes, this sight is pretty nice to have.
In any case, I also have a newer version of the Hawken in .50 caliber, but without the tapped tang. I don't have the capability to do the drilling and tapping here at home... well... maybe I do, but I'm not that confident in my abilities these days. Hmmmm..... what to do? Wondered if the tangs from different years would interchange. Took them off and found that they almost worked as they were. Ended up having to drill out one of the screw holes as the newer gun used a machine screw instead of the smaller wood screw.
It was a bit disconcerting to find a strip of hot glue plastic under the tang to correct for the channel being cut too deep, but I guess it worked OK, so I trimmed it a bit to allow clearance for the sight mounting screw and installed it.
Having made the swap, I took the gun outside on a fairly warm day to shoot some 25 yard test targets. Bullseyed a milk carton, but found that the impact point was a bit to the left. Took the gun inside to unlock and adjust the sight. Seven clicks to the right enabled me to hit soda cans right at point of aim at 25 yards. 200 grain Hornady XTPs in a wooden shoe hit to the same range as a PRB with the same charge weight of 70 grains Pyrodex P. This was a bit surprising as previously I had not been able to shoot PRB with this gun to save my life! Aperture sights are really pretty groovy.
After hitting the can a couple of times, I decided I needed to move it further away. Not wanting to walk through the mud the melting snow was causing, I just aimed under the base of the can and launched it into the air a few times, eventually moving my target out to 40-ish yards... where I was still able to bullseye it.
Life is good!
I'll probably drill and tap the newer tang and install the FP-Hawken sight on that as well. How hard could it be? I just need the correct drill and tap...
Dale the Shootist (in my own mind anyway)