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George

Cannon
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I took a day to do a little fishing and shooting, yesterday. It was good to be out.

In the 1980s and 1990s my main hunting gun was a .54 caliber plains rifle, and I had it sighted in at 100 yards, About 20 years ago I did some work on the rear sight. My sighting method is a little different, I use a V-notch rear and blade or bead front which looks like this when properly lined up:



Back then the gun was properly sighted in, but the rear notch was too shallow, gave me problems in some lighting conditions, so I decided to deepen it. I filed it a bit deeper, but then got distracted by a smoothbore and never got back to finish adjusting the front sight.

Last week I decided to get the old vet out and use it some after more than 15 years, so I fired a few to see where it was shooting. By pure luck, it happened to be sighted in very well at 25 yards.



Yesterday I shot it at 25, 50 and 100 yards with the same charge just to see what needed to be adjusted, and wound up with an interesting target.

I fired two shots at each distance, but used 3 different types of balls. One was a Hornady swaged .530”, one was a .530” ball cast in my Dixie Gun Works brass bag mold but then shaken to dimple it and even out the sprue, the other four were the same bag mold .530” but as they came from the mold. All the undimpled brass mold balls had a large sprue.



This target is a very good example what happens when you shoot a gun at long distance which is sighted in at a close distance. Other than the different balls, all else was the same for every shot, same lube, patch, powder charge, point of aim, shooter and rest, shot in the same session.

At each distance both balls showed the same drop.

The change was in elevation only, essentially falling further down as distance increased.

Swaged, bag mold and dimpled bag mold balls, all within a few grains the same weight, shot into the same groups.

Balls with big sprues shot the same as swaged and dimpled balls with no sprues.

I was just figuring out what needs to be done, yesterday, didn’t intend to do any filing. Deer season is a long time away, I can go at it slow and easy.

Spence
 
Interesting Spence. You may be dubbed the "Myth Buster" if ya keep it up. :hmm:

To all, I'm announcing here and now, I've got dibs on Spence for the next member's "partner shoot" here!!! :blah:

Thanks partner, good post, Skychief :thumbsup:
 
The results with the different types of balls is especially informative. Thanks for that.

Trajectory at range looks pretty close to what I've experienced with similar sight in, but only 90 grains of 3f (32" barrel). My conclusion was to sight in at 75 yards, putting it +/- and inch high at 50 yards, with surprisingly little change at 25 yards.

Good shooting and great food for thought! Thanks.
 
with a 110 grains of 3f you are certainly using plenty of powder.

Fleener
 
There are times when plenty of powder is indicated. I worked up that load for the first western mule deer hunt I did, and thought I would be taking some very long shots, for me. It takes more than average loads for 150 yard shooting.

It seems most people think only about penetration/killing power when choosing a load, but sometimes trajectory is equally important. You have to hit them before you can penetrate them.

My gun weighs almost 10 pounds, so recoil is not very punishing, and the barrel has almost 1/4 inch of steel outside the bore, so there is no reason not to shoot heavy charges when they are indicated.

But, all that aside, it's significant that the balls still fall a great deal when muzzle velocities are quite high. With lower charges, slower velocities, they fall even more.

Spence
 
Hi, Spence.

It's interesting that you use that sighting method. I was taught to shoot open sights by my father the same way. I don't believe I have ever known anyone else to use that technique. I remember a cousin always complaining because he would have to change his sight picture when shooting any of my guns. Do you (or anyone else for that matter) have any history as to why that method is used?
 
I grew up doing it that way, so I assume it was something done by my father and the other hunting men in the family. I remember being instructed in aiming on one occasion when I was seven years old, but not the details, or whether that was what I was told to do. It has worked very well for me for a lot of years.

There was a similar conversation on this forum about 5 years ago and 3-4 guys said they used it. All were from Kentucky, as am I, so maybe it's a regional thing. Probably passed down directly from Ol' Dan'l, hisself. :haha:

Spence
 
You may be right, I know a lot of shooters do something similar and it works for them.

Spence
 
seg05 said:
Hi, Spence.

It's interesting that you use that sighting method. I was taught to shoot open sights by my father the same way. I don't believe I have ever known anyone else to use that technique. I remember a cousin always complaining because he would have to change his sight picture when shooting any of my guns. Do you (or anyone else for that matter) have any history as to why that method is used?
I grew up shooting the vee notch and a bead for the front sight. I still prefer it to this day for a rifle. I tend to let shots move left and right with a square notch for some reason... :idunno: It just seems logical to let the bead settle into the vee vs trying to position the front sight in the center of a square notch. :thumbsup:
 
George said:
I grew up doing it that way, so I assume it was something done by my father and the other hunting men in the family. I remember being instructed in aiming on one occasion when I was seven years old, but not the details, or whether that was what I was told to do. It has worked very well for me for a lot of years.

There was a similar conversation on this forum about 5 years ago and 3-4 guys said they used it. All were from Kentucky, as am I, so maybe it's a regional thing. Probably passed down directly from Ol' Dan'l, hisself. :haha:

Spence
. Ol' Dan'l must have ventured down South into Alabama. As a kid in the 60's the only rifles I remember shooting with the exception of a BB gun had vee rear sights. So did the BB gun after a short while .Thanks to my Dads three cornered file. We owned three .22 and my Dads hunting partner owned a couple , all rear sights were filed into a vee . As best as my memory serves me. :hatsoff:
 
Flint62Smoothie said:
I would guess Spence, that for 100-yd shooting that you could place the front bead at the top of the V. Try it!
Placing the bead at the top of the notch will definitely make a difference especially at 100 yards. If the rifle was sighted in with a fine bead .
 
I was taught the same fine bead sight picture in South America (aka South Arkansas). My dad and grandfather both used the fine bead. I may dig through my sight stash and give it a try again.
TC
 
40 Flint said:
I was taught the same fine bead sight picture in South America (aka South Arkansas). My dad and grandfather both used the fine bead. I may dig through my sight stash and give it a try again.
TC
Ya' better have good eyes .. :thumbsup:
 
Flint62Smoothie said:
I would guess Spence, that for 100-yd shooting that you could place the front bead at the top of the V. Try it!

In theory, the black bulls eyes are sized to appear the same size at 25, 50 and 100 yards. Of course you must use the proper target for each range. For some shooters a 6 o'clock hold will put your ball in the 'X' at each range. Others prefer center hold. I use 6 o'clock with open sights and all go into the 'X' for me every time. :wink: :rotf: With peepers I use the same front aperture for each range with the same results. :rotf: In fact, no :bull: , to get near 'X' results I find it necessary to sight for 100 yards. Doing that puts me center at 25 yards, a couple inches high at 50 and center at 100. Know yer gun.
 
My .54 shoots to point of aim at 25 yards with 55 grains of 3f. It shoots to point of aim at 50 or more yards with 75 grains of 3f. I have a two sided antler powder measure that throws either 55 or 75 grains of powder. That way if I'm shooting at 25 yards there is no reason to waste the extra 20 grains of powder per shot.
 
Many bull's eye pistol shooters have gone to a sub-6:00 hold, preferring to manage the white space between the top of the post, and the bottom of the bull. The reasoning is that managing the bull to be perfectly tangent with the top of the post, and with no white showing is very difficult, and often causes eye strain. It is much easier to manage the amount of contrast between two contrasting shapes than it is the size and shape of a single homogenous color. Hunting and combat weapons are a different story than formal bull's eye. Most of those are sighted in to hit center mass.
 
Spence,

I HIGHLY applaud you for shooting at the same target at different ranges with a hunting load. There is nothing that tells us so much about the drop of the ball at each range and thus how much we need to hold off, when necessary. :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

With the pointed bead you showed in your drawing, I was wondering if you ever shot at further ranges with the top of the point even with the top of the two sides of the rear sight, as a way of compensating for less drop at further ranges? If so, how much did that change the point of impact at further ranges?

Gus
 
I was checking to see what the ball was doing at different distances, alright, but not for the purpose of determining hold-off. I'll be adjusting the sights to put the ball on POI at 75 yards and was trying to find my starting point

I have never used the method of putting the bead at different places in the rear notch, so I can't speak to that. I always use the same sight picture, and if an adjustment is needed, I just aim at a different spot. That requires me to know the trajectory if the target is at a distance greater than 'point blank range'. That's the only situation in which I use what you would call hold-off. If I judge the distance to be less than 'point blank range' I just aim at the spot I want to hit and fire away without having to be concerned that the ball may hit a little high or low.

Spence
 
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