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Gus Chiggins

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I know barrel length and sight radius has been beaten into the ground here, but in all the past posts I've read I couldn't find one that used distance of target as a variable.. So I'm thinking of switching from a 39" Pedersoli frontier (in. 32c) to a scout or Kentucky, which is 28 3/4", and 36" respectively. My question is, at common squirrel/rabbit distances,(max being around 50 yds)will I be ok going with the 28" bbl? Does anyone have experience w/the shorter barrels concerning accuracy/precision?
 
Had a senaca with a 24” barrel and I took off the TC sights and dovetailed simple sights, it shot just as well as my longer.
Or maybe I shot just as poor(?).
Anyway I don’t think Rocky or Thumper will care.
 
How good are your eyes? A 28 inch barrel will have plenty of sight radius. Remember, in the rimfire and centerfire world a 28 inch barrel is rare and people seem to make do. Most likely, the limiting factor will be how well you see. For stuff as small as a squirrel or rabbit, I find that my poor vision limits me to 25 or 30 yards with open sights with a rifle. Absent vision issues, you will have no problems. BTW, a way to artificially gain sight radius without lugging a longer barrel is to use a tang mounted peep.
 
I have a CVA Grey Squirrel .32 caliber rifle. It has a 25" barrel. I found that i could not keep a decent group at 25 yards with the issued iron sights and my 65 year old eyes. I removed the rear sight and installed a williams peep sight just forward of the breech. Now I can keep 1" groups at 25 yards with no problems. As said in the earlier posts, "it depends on your eyesight". I have found that peep sights work well for me and allow me to keep shooting my muzzle loaders.
 
Thanks guy. My eyes arent great, I wear glasses. It's a rather big investment, and I'm not currently in love with any of the rifles mentioned, so price is becoming a factor. The Pedersoli Kentucky seems my ideal size, minus LOP, I'm about 14-14.5, but I just dont love the shiny brass patch box. I like the scout, but seems small(barrel & otherwise) and I liked the frontier before i heard talk of it being a bit clunky/heavy(its also the most expensive).
 
A few more things.. can the brass patch box be replace w/iron (ie, has anyone done this). Also, has anyone aged brass and if so what sort of color did you get? Lastly, do you think I could fit a buttstock extender on one of those curved buttstocks?
 
You can make a peep sight for the tang screw out of a piece of metal with a hole in it. You may have to experiment with the height but it will shoot well and is easy to use with glasses.
 
You can make a peep sight for the tang screw out of a piece of metal with a hole in it. You may have to experiment with the height but it will shoot well and is easy to use with glasses.
Hi EC 121. I have done a lot of experimenting with peep sites on my muzzleloaders, and a 3/16 washer braised to a number eight screw and screwed in at the breach was just as accurate as the high-priced lyman sight that I have. It was just a little harder to adjust, but once set seem to work good. I now went to a quarter inch USS washer braised to a regular rear sight that came off an old .22. I put it in the original rear site slot, that I can raise and lower with a slide and an open front sightThat is just a tad higher then the original was. Seems to be as good, and gives me the advantage of being able to see around the peep as well as through it, which is handy for deer hunting. My sighting radius remains about the same as was original. I have never achieved the accuracy with my muzzleloaders that I have with bottleneck cartridges. No problem when I only shoot at about 50 or 60 yards. I really doubt that many mountain men were still out shooting at 80. The ones that were still alive were few.
Squint
 
Thanks guy. My eyes arent great, I wear glasses. It's a rather big investment, and I'm not currently in love with any of the rifles mentioned, so price is becoming a factor. The Pedersoli Kentucky seems my ideal size, minus LOP, I'm about 14-14.5, but I just dont love the shiny brass patch box. I like the scout, but seems small(barrel & otherwise) and I liked the frontier before i heard talk of it being a bit clunky/heavy(its also the most expensive).
There are some brass darkeners compounds to rub on. Brass will dull and tarnish pretty quick. A black wet cleaning patch rubbed on the brass speeds the tarnishing.
Iron patch boxes were done but getting one to fit your hole may not be easy. A southern mountain Or Tennessee rifle often had an iron box
An extender would have to be custom made.
 
130D1D52-C02B-4B69-B82C-160247C535F1.jpeg
1B7DDE9B-B8A5-402B-BFB1-97AEB73794A6.jpeg
Here’s hawken brass that I aged in an hour or so. If this appeals to you I’ll walk you through it
 
That looks great will fish! I am interested but I need to get back to the original post.--- After looking further, I noticed something. Looking at pictures of the scout and frontier, I noticed that the rear sight on the scout is almost above the leading edge of the lock assembly, where as on the frontier, the rear sight is a good ways out in front(looks to be 10-12 in past the scout reference point). Could this indicate that: though the frontier has 10 more inches of barrel, the sight radius is similar between the 2 rifles?
 
Its probably more important to refer to the distance the front sight is from your eye. It is generally okay for the rear sight to be slightly out of focus with the front sight sharp against a slightly fuzzy target. Most of us old fellows with presbyopia (old eyes) have to learn how to sight our rifles as best we can.

Many old rifles that have been owned by one person as they aged will have evidence of the rear sight being moved toward the front sight. With old eyes that will improve the view of the out of focus rear sight. It is best to install a peep sight as the pinhole effect will sharpen the view of both the front sight and the target. The pin hole effect can be done using a piece of black electrical tape with a small hole punched in it and taped to your safety/shooting glasses. Getting the sights sharply in focus is a better strategy for improving target accuracy than moving sights along the barrel.
 
a 39" Pedersoli frontier (in. 32c) to a scout or Kentucky, which is 28 3/4

Your problem is the front sight post (imho), not the sight radius.
I'm very familiar with the Frontier models, and Pedersoli's product line in it's less expensive rifles. In fact the shorter rifle will probably make things a tad worse for you.

The Italians love to use thick, steel front sight posts. They are durable, and they ship world-wide and arrive in good shape. But, they don't (again imho) do the best for what the barrel can do. They also tend to do "one size fits all" so that thick, iron, front sight post on a shorter barrel is the same one as on your Frontier, only it is closer to your eyes, and thus appears wider to you when using them as a sight. ;)

Because they are so robust, in the Frontier, you get a sight picture like this:
PEDERSOLI Frontier Sight Picture.jpg

With the buckhorns this looks pretty good, but there is actually a lot of "slop" over top that front sight post. You could miss, or just wound that rabbit, and if you increased the distance to that critter just a bit, there would be even more of a chance to miss.

So you might want to keep the longer barrel with the longer sight radius, AND swap out the front and rear sights, with a thin front sight blade, or even a thin front sight blade with a rear peep. At a minimum what I did was to get a thin, silver front sight blade It's .050 thick. https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/874/6/FS-TC-CB-TH.
My reason was to have it reflect a bit in low light. If you get one in iron, then I'd suggest you use a fine sharpening stone for knife blade and some oil, and "stone" the sides of the sight blade just a tad to bring it down to .050. Your new sight picture should be more like this:
PEDERSOLI Corrected Sight Picture.jpg
A smaller opening in the rear sight that you installed, and a thinner front post that you installed, and you get a much more precise point of aim on that bunny.

That's a pretty simple thing to try, and it costs less than swapping out a rifle..., unless you actually want to swap out the rifles. IF you do there's nothing wrong with that but you should still swap out the sights for a finer set. As you get older if the eyes start having problems you go to the peep sight....with a thin front sight post. :thumb:

LD
 
I like to polish my brass to about 600 grit to get a satin sort of sheen to it. As others have said, concoctions with sulfur in it such as fouling residue or egg yolks will darken and age the brass, as will many weak acids. The finer you polish the brass though the more resistant it will be to letting the chemical compounds get a toe hold and get started, just like with cold browning.

If you just want it black there is a chemical sold by Brownell's called Brass Black. I use it to darken the recesses in engraving and then polish the top dark part away to reveal the engraving that needs touch up.
 
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