Deer hunting with iron sights.

[dusty3030]

I think for me it depends on the background I'm shooting against. And for my current purposes (hunting) the background will be variable, but on the darker side most of the time. For years I've had iron sights on my turkey shotgun (Rem 870) and bright orange paint on front and rear has been the best, but that is a very different thing from aiming a rifle. I suspect it is going to take a good bit of trial and error before I get it right. What looks good against a white paper target is probably going to be different from what looks best against trees and brush.

True, true. Fun project regardless. On my bow I like the fiber optics, but on a rifle I guess it is just getting out there so far I can't see it so well.

A pile of brass and air full of burnt powder makes us all better regardless!! Good luck and please post pictures of the finished product.

Here is a Remington 700 22/250 I just screwed together but havent' had a chance to shoot yet. I had a spare action from a heavy varmit 700 barrel was destroyed by rust from bad stowage by the previous owner and I got it really cheap because of that.
I had accumlated parts to build a "walking" varmit / coyote gun.
I had a Remington standard weight stainless barrel I had picked up since it was cheap some years ago.
I was cleaning up my shop and realized, heck, I've got all the parts, got a new take off synthetic stock collecting dust up on a shelf - hey there is a spare older USA made Burris 3x9, here plenty of mounts and rings in the spare mount / ring box. I've got a "big boy" Lego set ready to go!

 

[N80]

Nice! That's what I need for my coyotes.

 

[dmccarty]

I have a pellet rifle with a pretty good peep sight on it so I've shot peep sights before with good accuracy....but it has been 3-4 years since I've played with it. Eyes have gotten much worse in that time, both near and far vision with near vision being the worst. My concern is that even with the target in focus (which the small aperture of the peep sight will accomplish) that the top of the front sight is going to be to indistinct for proper target placement. Paint, a bright bead or even one of those 'fiber optic' fronts will probably help.

My young eyes did not have problems with black on black sights. My wiser eyes had a hard time with black on black, so on my RWS pellet rifle I taped a cut piece of posted note to the front sight to help aim it. Eventually I bought a danged expensive scope for a danged pellet rifle. The rifle I used in high power matches has a peep sight which I zeroed in so that bulls eye aim point was with the top of the front sight blade just touching the black bulls eye. The front sight blade and the black bulls eye looks like lollypop. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

The reason I zeroed the rifle that way was so that the front sight was not hidden by the black bulls eye.

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

That's the way I was taught to line things up too.

 

[Egon]

My young eyes did not have problems with black on black sights. My wiser eyes had a hard time with black on black, so on my RWS pellet rifle I taped a cut piece of posted note to the front sight to help aim it. Eventually I bought a danged expensive scope for a danged pellet rifle. The rifle I used in high power matches has a peep sight which I zeroed in so that bulls eye aim point was with the top of the front sight blade just touching the black bulls eye. The front sight blade and the black bulls eye looks like lollypop. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

The reason I zeroed the rifle that way was so that the front sight was not hidden by the black bulls eye.

Later,
Dan

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
The way all iron sights should be set up?

 

[N80]

Got the Lyman 57 sight on Thursday. Pulled the action out of the stock to mount the sight. Found that the holes in the sight did not line up perfectly with the ones in the receiver but was finally able to get it on tight.

Yesterday went down to my cabin to sight it in along with several other guns. There was misty rain off and on all day so I had to start out shooting from under my tractor shed. Here is a pic of the sight on the gun:



Here is another under the shed:



I bore sighted it then started shooting at 25 yards. Below is a picture of the first 5 shots. Made an adjustment after the 1st shot. Made 2nd and 3rd shots and wanted it to shoot a little higher and made a final adjustment to get shots 4 and 5.



At 50 yards a 3 shot group was under 2 inches, hitting about an inch high, pretty well centered. I tried two offhand shots, standing, at 50 yards. They hit about 1.5 inches high and about 1.5 inches to the right.....the two holes were touching. Not sure why they were a little to the right when the bench shots were centered but I did not mess with it again. From the first shot to the last all of them would have killed a deer at 50 yards, probably all but the first one at 100 yards.

I felt confident enough to carry it hunting and went out twice with it but did not see anything at all. It is a lot easier to use the sight outdoors in diffuse light. Inside with a lot of directional light it was hard to see the front sight. Anyway, I feel perfectly comfortable taking a shot at 50 yards and would try a good clear shot at 75 yards. I would not try a 100 yard shot at this point.

It is a lot harder to see deer around here this time of year but I'll continue to carry it. I can't wait to try it at the beginning of the season next year.

 

[texasjohn]

Great looks. Great shooting. Good luck!!

 

[dusty3030]

Awesome!

 

[N80]

I found some various 30-06 rounds of unknown specs and shot them with my peep-sight rifle. It shot them all very well and I'm finding that I can shoot really well with these peep sights. At fifty yards I shoot it as well as my scoped guns. Very surprising to me. And its fun to shoot too. Of course, the more I shoot this rifle the more I'm beginning to realize that it might be one of my most accurate rifles. (And makes me wonder what it would do with a nice scope on it.)

I've hunted with it a few more times but haven't seen anything to shoot at. It is not ideal in dim light but in most other conditions it is fine. I'm now really psyched about getting a deer with it....but the season is almost over.

I'd like to experiment with some different front sights. The current front sight is a basic blade with a flat face that is painted white...I touched it up a bit....that fits into a dovetail that sits on top of a ramp. The current sight looks like it has a dimple in it where it was 'peened' to secure it into the dovetail. So my question is how do I get the current front sight out? Do I tap it out the same way you would if it wasn't dimpled? I've got brass punches and a plastic faced hammer. And once it is out, how do I dimple the new sight to set it in place? I do have a number of hard punches too. Any advice much appreciated.

 

[texasjohn]

sounds wonderful...great progress....am betting that just the right deer will show up