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Sight adjustment question

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My rifle has both front and rear dovetailed.

Based on my results and calculations, I’ll be needing to drift the rear by about .08” inches.

This will be quite a bit, and will look kind of “wonky”.

Can I “split the difference” and drift the front sight .04” to the right and the rear .04” to the left to make up for it?

-Smokey
 
You could. But I still think you should shoot the gun more 1st. Maybe just move the rear the half distance and shoot the gun a bunch, and try some other load combos.
Can you get to a range where you can sit properly at a shooting bench and shoot some good groups with sandbags supporting the rifle? Instead of "standing, supported," off the trunk of your car?
 
You could. But I still think you should shoot the gun more 1st. Maybe just move the rear the half distance and shoot the gun a bunch, and try some other load combos.
Can you get to a range where you can sit properly at a shooting bench and shoot some good groups with sandbags supporting the rifle? Instead of "standing, supported," off the trunk of your car?

Yes, thankfully there’s a very nice outdoors rifle range not far from my house.

Only issue with that is it is absolutely impossible to concentrate! It’s usually fairly busy, with people doing mag dumps and fooling around, and there’s always a steady stream of the peanut gallery who will literally walk up behind you and try to start a conversation right as you’re about to pull the trigger etc.

I have ZERO issues showing people my muzzleloaders and even let many people shoot them, but sometimes privacy and quietness are ideal. It can be problematic and even very dangerous to get distracted when muzzleloading, as you know. I used to work weekends so had a couple days off during the week and in the morning that range could be very quiet with few shooters, most pretty “serious” and who won’t bother you. But now I’m back on weekdays so can only shoot on Sat or Sun and the range is always chock full.

Even at the “dump site” (for lack of a better term) I go shooting at outside city limits, you have to get there very early or people start filling in and there’s all kinds of ridiculous antics that can go on out there (tannerite, etc,).

I’m on military orders to live here but hate the city. I’m a country boy who likes peace and quiet.

I deal with the hand I was dealt!

I’ll try a bunch more stuff on the range and go from there. I just drifted the rear just a bit and will check next time I’m at the range.

-Smokey
 
My rifle has both front and rear dovetailed.

Based on my results and calculations, I’ll be needing to drift the rear by about .08” inches.

This will be quite a bit, and will look kind of “wonky”.

Can I “split the difference” and drift the front sight .04” to the right and the rear .04” to the left to make up for it?

-Smokey
That’s a lot of adjustment for a rifle. Don’t know your barrel length, but for example if you have 30” between the front and rear sights, .080” sight adjustment will move your point of impact just over 9.5” at 100 yards.
 
That’s a lot of adjustment for a rifle. Don’t know your barrel length, but for example if you have 30” between the front and rear sights, .080” sight adjustment will move your point of impact just over 9.5” at 100 yards.

This was the group at approx. 25 yards:
8-B7-A8613-B6-A1-4376-9-EA2-873-FC78-AFAC6.jpg

It’s easily 3” right at that distance. The sights were dead centered on the barrel flat when I shot this group. Needless to say, the concern of barrel runout crossed my mind since this is a Douglas barrel and they have a reputation for that issue. My rifle has a fairly short 32” barrel and the sight radius is 21.5”.
 
Im not saying you should, but back in the day they may have found two trees real close together, stuck that barrel between them and tweaked it a bit.
 
This was the group at approx. 25 yards:
8-B7-A8613-B6-A1-4376-9-EA2-873-FC78-AFAC6.jpg

It’s easily 3” right at that distance. The sights were dead centered on the barrel flat when I shot this group. Needless to say, the concern of barrel runout crossed my mind since this is a Douglas barrel and they have a reputation for that issue. My rifle has a fairly short 32” barrel and the sight radius is 21.5”.
A lot of movement required at 25 yards. By my calculations, just under .072” sight adjustment to move point of aim 3” at 25 yards.
 
So you guys think it has a runout issue then?
Likely, but that was the nature of the beast back in the day. You would always tried to have the runout so it would cause the gun to shoot high or low and adjust it out with sight elevation. It’s my understanding that most current barrel makers put the flats on with the blank held between centers after the bore has been drilled. Kind of like drawing the target around the arrow after you shoot it.
 
You can also offset the rear notch some. I would adjust for windage and shoot it at 50yds. That will give you the amount of windage adjustment for a new back sight or widening the existing notch the way you want the POI to move. Then you can file the front sight down. Another way is to solder a piece of metal on the rear sight for elevation. That could also allow you to cut a new notch with the sight centered. Properly done it is almost invisible.
If you don't like that, get a C clamp and two blocks of wood. Lay the barrel on a stiff table with the blocks on each end and bend it in the middle with the barrel and table between the C clamp jaws. I've seen barrels adjusted that way on $4000 rifles. Doesn't take much movement.
Most new barrels don't have much runout. They are usually machined on center.
 
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Sounds good. The rear V-notch is already fairly large. I don’t think I’d want to mess with it really much at all.

You guys think I can get the sights adjusted to fix it? Like I said I might split the difference between the front and rear so neither one looks as “wonky”. Not sure if I’m comfortable bending the barrel like that...
 
Moving each sight .035” or so in opposite directions should get you close to center and really won’t be that noticeable. I like to use a Sharpie to draw a line on the barrel and sight to keep track of where it started and to show how far I have move it. Make the adjustment and shoot. Target will tell the results.
 
I would first check POA. Put bore sight in it and see how the bore POA compares to tje sights POA. If they look good then it's your load or you.
What are you shooting, twist, load and projectile?
 
As SD said, you can always cheat each sight a little and no one but you will ever know.
Another thought since you are already at the range shoot some off hand just to see where that hits.

As an aside, I have a friend who swears that a lot of the originals were bent to sight them in. You almost always see the originals with the sights centered front and back. We all know that none of those old barrels were made that straight. The factory or smith must have bent them during the build or when sighting in. Also I've seen pictures of the old and new( a Pedersoli video) barrel makers using a press to true the barrels, but that just straightening not sighting them in. Not important. Just one more thing to ponder around the fire.
 
View attachment 20332
Don’t see it being the shooter or the load, three shots, basically touching each other. View attachment 20332

That's actually 5 shots. I used Hornady .395s, 35gr of Graf's 3Fg powder, and 0.16 pillow ticking cut at muzzle, mink's oil lube.

Want to go to the range today but it's 26MPH winds and the range on the mountain has bad winds so it's probably like an F5 tornado up there lol and the R.O.s call ceasefire and pull targets whenever the wind gets like this.
 
I think the .072" the sights need to be moved should be done by splitting up the movements with the front sight moving .036 right and the rear moving .036 left.
When I think about it, that's only about 1/32" movement for each sight so the new positions shouldn't look bad. In fact, many people wouldn't even notice it.
 
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