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I am seriously thinking about putting irons on a SC Featherweight. Any experience? Any issues?

No problems using sights from Williams, and NECG in my experience. Depending on your face shape, the stock may be less than ideal for using them. But most won't have any issue.

I've found that today's stocks are too straight for use with iron sights unless they are very tall. I wanted to put a receiver sight with a banded ramp front on a M70 Featherweight but, found the front sight was going to be exceptionally tall so, I scrapped that idea. I didn't want to modify the stock.

That's what I'm wondering about.

Will you be running irons a backup to a scope or mostly irons?

Strictly back up. I want to be able to take the scope off if I have to chase something into thick stuff.

I will not have a serious hunting rifle without irons. Out west and up north you must "walk them up" in most cases. Tripping, and falling is a multi times a day cost of this type of hunting. At least a dozen times in the middle of a hunt the scope got damaged or knocked out of align. If tree stand hunting is your main type of hunting then irons are nice but not as necessary.

I would look at it from a different direction. I would mount a good aperture sight as the primary sighting system with a scope available in a QD mount of some sort for backup or "special occasion" use, with the stock designed/altered for primary sight use. The scope is easier to adjust to with a low comb than sights are from a high comb, IMO.

A good option would be a decent red dot combined with a Weaver base and QR rings like Leupold QRW. The red dot would be about the same height as a scope and is very fast, maybe faster than irons. A Vortex Sparc II has a 2-minute dot, auto shutoff and is very light and rugged. Burris Fast Fires are also tiny and good. Both can be had for about $200, probably less than having good irons installed.

If you insist on real irons, NECG makes a peep that fits a Weaver base. That will put it pretty high, so the stock may be okay, depending on how fat your face is!
A high front sight would be required.

Look at some of the post-64s with irons and Monte Carlo combs. The barrel- mounted open sights were really up there in the stratosphere.

The 1948 FN I picked up last year has Buehler mounts and I found the auxilliary peep that fits the base on Ebay. Very tiny and light, but the hole in the peep is pretty small for an old man to aim through. I might have to drill it out

I put a pop-up peep sight and a NECG front sight on a FN featherweight. The front sight is tall, and it took awhile to find one tall enough to work with the peep. It works well, and the tall front sight does not interfere with scope use. I like it.

Put them on, the featherweight stock has a low enough comb that you could still get a cheekweld, you may need to put a little more downward 'cheek' pressure to align the sights, but I think its doable.

Go for it! Let us know how it works out for you!

I have two rifles in McMillan featherweight pattern stocks with Talley mounts and open sights. The '06 wears a Leupold FX II 6x and the 9.3x62 a VX II 2-7x. I have no problems with stock fit using either the irons or low mounted scope. Where I live I consider good irons a must due to the potential for damage to the scope and very rainy conditions. It's also nice to remove the scope for travel so it doesn't get knocked about, or for easy carrying at the balance point when hiking.

If you're going to use a fixed power scope, get one of Jim Brockman's custom Talley bases. The peep is integral and pops up when you take the scope off. It's also adjustable for windage and elevation. The adjustment ring on an adjustable scope gets in the way of the peep.

Talley makes a decent peep sight if you're going to use an adjustable scope. The Talley's disadvantages are it can some off after 8-10 shots due to the single screw backing out from recoil (I just put some muzzle tape on it) and it's adjustable for windage only. You have to change out front sights to get elevation corrections.

Either way I heartily recommend giving yourself the option. I've killed game with the peep sights I wouldn't have otherwise only having the scope.

Thanks all; I think I know the direction I'm headed in. I appreciate everyone's input.

You gonna quit hunting when your eyesight deteriorates to the point of making iron sights worthless?

(serious question - just askin')

Mike,

Most of today's factory stocks supposedly designed for scope use actually work OK with irons, because the combs on most aren't really all that high, though it obviously depends on both the particular stock and the shooter.

If the factory stock's comb is too high, one relatively easy solution (especially since we're talking attaching iron sights) is higher sights, closer to the line of a scope. That's why I had D'Arcy Echols attach a set of fairly high NECG express sights to the barrel of my Mark X .375 H&H, which has two stocks, one synthetic and one walnut, both designed for scope use.

One reason many hunters THINK they want their scopes as low as possible is that's how scopes were often mounted in the days when iron sights were standard, so the lower-combed stocks most rifles had back then would work reasonably well with the scopes.

But on most of today's rifles there's no reason to mount scopes as low as possible. There's also no reason to put really low irons on a rifle with a stock designed for scopes.

Thanks, John. That confirms what I'm hearing and what I've been thinking: instead of monkeying with the comb, just raise the sight plane a bit.