Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Express sights?

But the ol' rifle sure looks good in "full Africa" dress.

I prefer open V rear sights to ghost ring apertures, because I find that with wide ghost apertures, under pressure it is likely that the rear sight may not be used at all, and wild misses can result. I no longer trust them myself. Ghost ring sights are a good idea in theory. In my case open express sights, a wide shallow V, or a straight bar, beats them for a working sight every time, simply because of this. Peep sights are good target sights.

Chighway,

Correct, that is how YOU do it...

I will disagree with some of that. I have used a 6 o'clock hold all my life for both target shooting and hunting. Never have I tried to shoot "through" my front bead by mistake. I guess it depends upon what one has drilled into one's head by one's mentors when young. Luckily my mentors had the common sense to know the most precise means of employing a bead. It is doubly important when one uses a sourdough front sight (which in truth is more efficient than a bead)- how would one "shoot through" a flat topped post front sight. Someone such as me who uses both style sights on various guns would be severely handicapped by any method other than the 6 o'clock hold.

As for the OP's question re: sights on a rifle. Am I correct in assuming that said rifle would wear a scope as its primary sighting implement? If so, and the express sights would be of an auxiliary nature, I will agree that they look cool in that capacity and will also agree that the two leaf sight is most practical. But I submit that an even better system would be a Lyman receiver sight instead- longer sight radius for "better" accuracy, ease of use (attention to only two objects at once- front sight and target, versus three- rear, front, and target). When the scope is in place, remove the sight staff to get it out of the way (and carry it in a trap in either the butt plate or under the pistol grip cap), and replace it with a dummy slide so as to "keep up appearances".

If one is really anal about redundancy, one can also have a folding leaf rear sight up on the barrel- the old tried and true two leaf Lyman #6 comes to mind, with which both leaves fold flat out of the way when not in use. I use a couple as backup sights on rifles equipped with aperture rear sights and no scopes at all.

If iron sights are intended for primary use, no scope, (sorry OP, not clear on your intent) I would go straight to an aperture rear sight and be done with it. With a precision instrument such as a Lyman 48 it's a very simple and accurately repeatable trick to "spin its turrets" to compensate for different loads and/or distances to target- if such is felt to be absolutely necessary by the user. The infinite variability of said sight allows for much much greater flexibility than express sights do. There's a reason why receiver sights took the shooting world by storm a bazillion years ago.

Captdavid,

I have decided to use express rear sights on my rebuild, probably three leaf. I am totally ignorant in how to set-up and how to aim properly (ie, where to put the front bead in the shallow rear V)? Would you please help? Thanks captdavid