Where to place rear sight?

[Rusnapperhead]

Greeting I’m getting closer on finishing my Lancaster muzzle loader. Carvings and silver inlay mostly complete. Question; how far up the barrel do I cut in the rear sight?
making front sight today, cheers! Chris

 

[Rusnapperhead]

Where to install rear sight?

 

[Phil Coffins]

Hold the gun in one hand to find the balance point and mark that point with tape. That’s where you don’t want sights. Then make a small mock up sight out of anything like paper or such and place it on the barrel and see where it works for you. That’s the spot.

 

[tenngun]

Older guns I’ve seen seem to place them about over the entry pipe. This is a photo of one of my guns over plans for a Hines rifle. You can enlarge and see it at that point

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

Phil has the right idea. You don't want it at the balance point, or it will hit your hand while carrying. Mock up a sight and place it where you see best through it...older shooters sometimes moved their sights forward a bit to compensate for old eyes.

ADK Bigfoot

 

[Rifleman1776]

There is an old saying that you can tell the age of the rifle's owner by where the rear sight is placed. As we age our eyes have difficulty focusing on close-up objects. When that happens the sight is frequently moved further up the barrel and a dovetail put in the previous location. To answer this question, here is what I suggest. (p.s. I learned this from others, not original to me) Have a shooting bench with front rest. Have a friend with you. Get in shooting position and have friend place new uninstalled sight somewhere on the barrel near the rear. If it is not in focus have him move it up until the sight looks good to you. Mark the location, take into shop, file the dovetail and install sight. Give friend a beer. In five or ten years repeat process. Good luck.

 

[griffiga]

Solution for old eyes? Simple, tap the barrel and throw on a red dot or a good scope. Imagine the looks you'll get showing up to the shoot with a scoped flintlock. LOL

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

Greeting I’m getting closer on finishing my Lancaster muzzle loader. Carvings and silver inlay mostly complete. Question; how far up the barrel do I cut in the rear sight?
making front sight today, cheers! Chris

You have received good suggestions so far, but this is my take: Using double sticky sided Scotch tape place the sight you are going to install where it works best for your eyes. Contrary to others, my preference is where my eyes like it best! I could care less about the balance point! You can have the most accurate rifle in the state, but will not do it justice if the sights are not as perfect as possible.
Good Luck!
Beautiful carving by the way!!

 

[Phil Coffins]

The balance point will remain there under most conditions and at least my eye sight not only changes from bright to cloudy it has become different over the years. Dis allowing a few inches for handling let’s me enjoy us the gun more.

 

[old ugly]

im old. i like the sights way up the barrel cause i cant see them when they are back to far.

ou
tom

 

[Belleville]

Greeting I’m getting closer on finishing my Lancaster muzzle loader. Carvings and silver inlay mostly complete. Question; how far up the barrel do I cut in the rear sight?
making front sight today, cheers! Chris

My gun builder had the front site mounted and laid the rear site on the top of barrel and moved back and forth until I had a good site picture to determine location. But since I was only in mid life I had him move it 1 inch toward the muzzle direction, and later was glad that I did.
Doc Shaffer

 

[Col. Batguano]

If you want to be super precise about things, you can tape a round ball and a half (or their equivalent weight) at the breech and a penny to your front sight location to know your "loaded balance point". But wait until the finish is on your stock, (as well as all the other metal) because that too will add weight and affect the balance point. If you plan on keeping things in the PB, put them in there too. Hold the gun (balanced) in your 1-handed hand, and mark where your hand engages the barrel front and rear. That zone is off limits if you don't want it digging in to your hand (or risk inadvertently moving it) while you carry it 1-handed. Try taping the sights in place just outside of those 2 locations and see if those work for you. If you have a swamped barrel, the further up the barrel you go the higher the rear sight will have to be (or lower the front). That's pretty easy to figure out because you just have to caliper / measure the differential in barrel thickness at those 2 locations.

I built 1 Lehigh (swamped B-weight) with just the standard HC/PC low rear sights installed just behind the rear of my bare balance hand engagement point, and that only let me install a front sight .080" tall, which is WAY too hard for me to find efficiently and quickly. For the second one (swamped A-weight) I raised the rear sight by .100", which let me have a front sight about .18" tall, which is much easier to find. What I actually did to do this was figure out what sort of a minimum front sight height I needed (or MOA to be more precise) in order to find them comfortably visible. From there I determined what rear sight I needed. It's not HC/PC for this particular gun, but one of the deviations I made to make it work for me, and I'm the only customer I had to please anyway. I like front sights that are about 5 1/2 MOA in width, (a standard round bull at standard distance is 8 MOA) and a rear notch around 12 MOA so the further away from your eye you are, the wider / thicker those have to be. We can go in to the math on how to calculate that later if you want.

 

[Rusnapperhead]

So did everything col. batguano said and rear sight ended up right where picture from tenngun suggested.

now new problem; I cut my dovetail too long; stupid mistake now how to fix this? Stretch sight; solder in dovetail; make completely new sight from scratch.

 

[griffiga]

Could you order another sight a bit longer and file to fit? The sight is small, but you possibly could add some metal (weld,tig,solder etc), then file it down.

 

[ZUG]

Gosh -- just make a new sight to fit and move on ---- You should have enough skill to do that if you have undertaken this build. You must have realized that there will be some metal work involved. You did a nice job on cutting the dovetail now make a sight to fit it

 

[Col. Batguano]

It looks like you have a lot of wood yet to take off, and the barrel needs to be smoothed too. That will affect the precise balance point, but probably not enough to put the sight under your hand.

I'm with the other posters; If you can't add metal to lengthen the sight, make a new one.

 

[pooch156]

So did everything col. batguano said and rear sight ended up right where picture from tenngun suggested.

now new problem; I cut my dovetail too long; stupid mistake now how to fix this? Stretch sight; solder in dovetail; make completely new sight from scratch.View attachment 63557View attachment 63558

 

[pooch156]

You can add on some material with a mig or tig welder if you have one. Or have someone do it that has a mig/tig welder. Probably the best thing to do is to buy a sight with a longer base and cut it down. Problem solved. You did a nice job on cutting the dovetail by the way!

 

[bldtrailer]

why rush order a new longer base sight(keep old for next rifle) your work looks great don't short cut now

 

[Tom A Hawk]

I just used this one on my Isaac Haines. The base is .755 in length.