I'm thinking I'll put mine farther down on the tang to get it close to my eye.
I've wrestled with that as well, and spent an inordinate amount of time with a 48" long 1x2 board, with a nail on the end and varying placement of a small diameter washer, deciding where I wanted this thing to go.
And I may still move it back some - haven't drilled yet.
Placing it where I plan is #1 an easy drill job, #2, provides the shortest stem length, and #3 - will be easy to fill if need be.
Of course, there is always something along the lines of this, which is easily adjustable to distance from eye, although I probably wouldn't put in the adjustments with the knobs.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_j7PMWDJke...jo/s1600/Billinghurst+action+closeup.bmp Your reasoning makes sense. I'm thinking of a cardboard mockup once the front sight is installed. I'm thinking in terms of a steel plinth brazed onto the tang with its top surface parallel to the top flat of the barrel, providing mainly more meat for the screw to bear in, as well as making for a shorter staff (for the same reasons you are, I guess).
I'm familiar with those sights as shown on the Billinghurst, and actually made an even simpler version and attached it to the .45 Vincent rifle I built 20 years ago. That first deer season I whacked it good while getting the rifle up into a tree stand, bending it. In all fairness I had made it out of cold rolled when spring steel or somesuch would have been better. I took it off anyway and went back to regular barrel sights which remain to this day. Even my 64 year old eyes can still hack them, with cheater eyewear- ok for deer hunting but not so ok for putting a .32 ball in a squirrel's eye at 40 yards.
(I lucked into a Rayl .32 barrel, then I got to thinking what to do with it, and then, and then....)
