Got an XS ghost ring sight today for my Model 700 to replace a WGRS. Overall I give it an A for sturdyness, lightness and being a good looking but unobtrusive little device, but a C for execution as noted below.
The good:
It looks to be about the the same height as the Williams so I shouldn't have to replace the front sight.
It looks pretty sturdy. Not as strong as the Skinner I posted about recently but it would take a pretty good whack to hurt it.
You adjust elevation by moving the aperture stem up and down, same as the Skinner, so knowing the tpi count you can calculate exactly how much each half turn will change POI at 100 yards. And even better IMO than the Skinner, windage is adjusted by two opposing set screws, you loosen one and tighten the other to move the sliding piece the stem threads into. Again, knowing they are 40 tpi lets you calculate exactly how much a quarter or half turn moves the POI.
Nit picks: They give you slotted screws of dubious strength to fasten it to the receiver and the windage screws are also tiny little slotted head affairs. They come set pretty hard with some kind of grease so you have to give it some oomph to get them loose the first time. The slots are wide and shallow so they are really easy to bugger up, you have to be very careful with them. This is where Murphy has a lot of fun - no matter how many screwdrivers and bits I have, they've come up with a screw slot that doesn't exactly fit any of them. As they are you can't apply too much torque to them. I don't hear folks complaining about them coming loose a lot so hopefully you can apply "enough", it's just a design that could be improved.
You get two aperture stems, a .230" and .191" inside diameter with another .150" ID available for $13. Neither are threaded inside so you can't insert standard Williams type apertures. I get that this is a ghost ring sight but they don't give a lot of meat around the apertures. If you want to sight in with a fine aperture you have to disturb the sight setting to replace it by loosening one windage screw and completely unscrewing the smaller aperture stem. If you're careful this won't mess up the sight in but it would be completely unnecessary if they gave you one internally threaded stem that could use industry standard screw in apertures.
Overall it looks like it will be a good, sturdy set and forget sight- certainly better than the Williams WGRS which has been much cheapened over the years - but I would recommend two big improvements:
1. Everybody and their brother has gone to something other than old slot head screws. Replace those easily buggered screws with standard sized hex head or torx heads that will take several inch pounds of torque with no danger of messing up the slot - this is where the Skinner is definitely superior.
2. Give us one .210" internally threaded aperture stem so we can switch from a fine target aperture for sighting in to a wider one or remove it completely without disturbing the sight setting.
