Trouble seeing sights in the woods

I missed two deer this year with my flintlock. I am certain I didn't have the front sight down in my rear notch like it should be and shot over their backs. Had it at the range before hunting and it was dead on.

I am thinking I need to deepen and open up my rear notch.

As far as the front sight goes it is brass but the part that shines the brightest is a little down from the top. Could I shape it differently?

Any other tricks to see the sights in the woods.

Thanks

Need pics to advise. For open, I like standard patridge with black post. For me (not everyone agrees) the black gives good contrast even in low light. I say when it is too dark to see the sights, that is the time to go home.

Sounds to me like you are using the shiny part of the sight as your locator..... if it is as you say "further down" then you are raising the front sight to see the shiny part and that would make you shoot high if you fill the rear sight with your front sight..... (Whew.... that was a lot)

I would think a simple fix would be to put a dot of flo green or pink on the highest point of the front sight visible to you. That way you would fill your back sight grove top level full with the color and should be good to go.

This all said without knowing what your sight picture or sights really look like and how you hold for target... dead on, 6 o'clock ???????

I widened the notch in the rear sight to let more light through, I could see it fine in good light while sighting it in etc but in the dim light of the woods I just couldn’t focus on it until I widened it.

dave61965 said:

I widened the notch in the rear sight to let more light through, I could see it fine in good light while sighting it in etc but in the dim light of the woods I just couldn’t focus on it until I widened it.

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Same here, but I go one further. Get a little bottle of typists White Out from the office supply store. Put a little dab on the face of your front sight in low light. Once the light opens up, just flick it off with your thumbnail. Priceless. Ever find a bag in the woods with no name on it, but a bottle of White Out inside, it's likely mine.

2X on the white out. I posted a story on the hunting pages last year with the same problem. Old eyes and front sights. Up here, you can hunt until 30 minutes after sunset. Dark as hell. I had to move the front of the gun in slow circles to see the sight. As long as it was moving, I could see it. Stop, and it was like I had no front sight at all.
But it worked. I'm still eating the venison.

8:15 and 11:00 were the times so low light was not the issue.

I will open up the rear sight and use some white out.

Thanks

I also have to open up the rear sight so I can see a little daylight on both sides of the front. White has never worked well for me on the front sight (or on the back of arrows). I don't have normal color vision, so could just be the way my eyes see things. I like yellow. Same concept though. I just leave the yellow on all the time as it works in bright or low light.

My rifle front sight is silver. I blacken it with a candle. That way, if I do need to see it I can wipe off the carbon and have a nice, shiny sight in the woods.

The rear is a square notch I opened up by taping two hacksaw blades together and working slowly by hand (I masked the barrel with three layers of masking tap to avoid "oopses"). I then smoothed it up with a ting square-section needle file followed by a flat one that was safe on three of the four sides. A little less precise but much easier to see.

rja72 said:

I missed two deer this year with my flintlock. I am certain I didn't have the front sight down in my rear notch like it should be and shot over their backs. Had it at the range before hunting and it was dead on.

I am thinking I need to deepen and open up my rear notch.

As far as the front sight goes it is brass but the part that shines the brightest is a little down from the top. Could I shape it differently?

Any other tricks to see the sights in the woods.

Thanks

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rj:

You want to be able to very quickly pick up the front sight and see the top of the blade clearly so your elevation holds. Sometimes a thicker front sight is in order so I would first figure out if the blade itself needs to be wider. Wider blade means easier to see clearly but too wide a blade will give problems with consistency in sight alignment and picture. I think a front blade that is about 10 minutes wide is a pretty good width that is easily picked up by the eye and is not so huge that it causes sight picture problems. I think most traditional blades on muzzle loaders are in the five minute width area? I find them to bother me because they are thinner than what I am used to. Squaring off the blade is also a good idea so the eye can see the top of the blade clearly.

Once a guy figures out how wide the blade needs to be based on how comfortable he is seeing the blade, the rear notch needs to be cut so the shooter can quickly and consistently center the blade into the notch. Wider notch means it is easier for the shooter to get the blade there but too much means the shooter has a harder time trying to keep it centered. In limited visibility, a wider rear notch is probably better than not wide enough. I file out the rear notch but do so pretty carefully and check my sight alignment constantly until I get the right amount of light on either side of my front sight for me.

I prefer to have as black a front sight post as is possible because I can pick up a square and very black front sight easy and it is something I am confident in seeing consistently. If I were to be shooting at night or in very low light, maybe I would white out the blade and put a line of the white out around the notch in the rear sight. However, if it got that dark I probably wouldn't be able to see a damn thing anyway so painting the sights would probably be just as useless as trying to see something when it is pitch black out.

Scipio

rja72 said:

8:15 and 11:00 were the times so low light was not the issue.

I will open up the rear sight and use some white out.

Thanks

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That's exactly what I do. The rear sight notch is opened up to at LEAST 3 blade widths wider than the front sight as viewed sighting down the rifle, maybe a little more.

White out is a MUST. I have used the 1922 penny with high copper content, I've tried German Silver, Warthog tusk, illuminous paint, you name it, nothing works better than whiteout for hunting in my opinion.

HH

rja72 said:

I missed two deer this year with my flintlock. I am certain I didn't have the front sight down in my rear notch like it should be and shot over their backs. Had it at the range before hunting and it was dead on.

I am thinking I need to deepen and open up my rear notch.

As far as the front sight goes it is brass but the part that shines the brightest is a little down from the top. Could I shape it differently?

Any other tricks to see the sights in the woods.

Thanks

Click to expand...

That is not the correct sight placement if I am understanding you properly.

Keith.

I painted all my front sights with a flat white paint. They show up very well in the dark woods and can easily be flicked off or painted over. White Out works just as well, at least for me.

I've just used a piece of chalk too to lighten sights. I just scrape it on the front sight. I have also used a black magic marker on a brass front sight to darken it if shooting in bright sunshine so it shows up better. White out, chalk, magic marker are all nice because they aren't permanent. They wipe off easily.

I finally had to do away with open sights altogether. Now my hunting rifles have a simple peep mounted on the tang. I make my front sights from steel with a brass base. The front sight is painted with the most flourescent, blaze looking orange I could find by looking at a lot of fingernail polish. In most light conditions the front sight shows a a blaze orange post against the target. When it doesn't show orange it's a clear black post.
I tried a lot of stuff to get my accuracy back after the vision started to deteriorate. Old age and undiagnosed diabete's really made accurate shooting impossible.
I'm a hunter and making ethical shots outweighs any concerns about PC or what others might think. This is the best thing I've done to get my sights sharp again and I'm very satisfied with the results.

Darkhorse said:

I finally had to do away with open sights altogether. Now my hunting rifles have a simple peep mounted on the tang. I make my front sights from steel with a brass base. The front sight is painted with the most flourescent, blaze looking orange I could find by looking at a lot of fingernail polish. In most light conditions the front sight shows a a blaze orange post against the target. When it doesn't show orange it's a clear black post.
I tried a lot of stuff to get my accuracy back after the vision started to deteriorate. Old age and undiagnosed diabete's really made accurate shooting impossible.
I'm a hunter and making ethical shots outweighs any concerns about PC or what others might think. This is the best thing I've done to get my sights sharp again and I'm very satisfied with the results.

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Hang in there Dark Horse. When you hit 80 you find out that a lot of things don't work like they did. The peep is the only way to go. I wouldn't be surprised that some of them old guys 200 years ago didn't figure that out also. If it's not period, so what. Neither is my rifle, my flints, my case hardening compound, my bullet mold. This new newfandangled Flintlock that I shoot is just as hard to hold as theirs was, just as heavy and I'll bet you not many of them were even around at this time in life if they were still alive. I think you did a good thing and by golly if my eyes get to that point, I'll bet you I can shoot a scope on a Flintlock too.

This photo is of a gun said to be ca. 1670 from the collection of W. Keith Neal.

Spence

A few years ago I made a no-drill prototype to mount a scope on a swamped barrel. The fella who was wanting it really liked the prototype so I built him one out of steel and worked with him to get it all mounted and sighted in. I had quoted him a fair price and he added another $20. because he was so tickled. I didn't care for it myself. It just wasn't right somehow.
I might still have the prototype out in the shop somewhere. But if it comes to the point where I need a scope to carry on then I still remember how I made it.

Howard Pippin said:

Hang in there Dark Horse. When you hit 80 you find out that a lot of things don't work like they did. The peep is the only way to go. I wouldn't be surprised that some of them old guys 200 years ago didn't figure that out also. If it's not period, so what. Neither is my rifle, my flints, my case hardening compound, my bullet mold. This new newfandangled Flintlock that I shoot is just as hard to hold as theirs was, just as heavy and I'll bet you not many of them were even around at this time in life if they were still alive. I think you did a good thing and by golly if my eyes get to that point, I'll bet you I can shoot a scope on a Flintlock too.

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He is washingrad where the sun is on vacation during hunting season we tend to use raised sliver front sights. A lot of the rondy guys change over too.

I use a candle and soot to darken sights, when I was competing in police matches the partridge sight was deadly on the smith& wessons, Used a carbide smoker. As to the long rifles in low light a wider rear notch and as stated white out or chalk on the front seems to help, a few years back I passed a shot in low light could not find the front sight and it was a silver blade, LESSON LEARNED.