Home Forums Hunting & Shooting BPCR cleaning tang sighted rifles

I own 5 single shot tang sighted rifles. I don't clean them from the chamber as the sights get in the way of the cleaning rod. I was advised not to remove the sight as this may cause them to get loose over time. How do the rest of you guys clean your guns? I do use a bore guide at the muzzle.

I use a pull through a lot. The old boys used thongs and wiping sticks and most used tang sights. Try running the rod in through the muzzle and then screwing the brush or eye on at the breech end and pulling through if it makes you feel better.

From the breach like about everyone else with a delrin cleaning rod.XLR Soule sight folds to the rear no problem but the two different Pedersoli sights I have fold to the front which mandates the delrin rod or cleaning from the muzzle which I don't do(means pushing the goo to the breach). Magnum Man

Depends on the particular sight and the rifle. It can be a tight squeeze between the sight base and the cleaning rod, such that a coated rod like a Dewey can strip as it passes over the base. With my Browning high wall I need to use a smaller diameter cleaning rod to clear the base of my Hoke sight.

I use a bore guide of my own design and make. A vast improvement over the usual bored out cartridge case, if I may so modestly claim.

I would not want to have to remove the sight from the base to clean a rifle from the breech.

Paul

Fold the sight down flat, clean your rifle. Problem solved.

Yeah, but it goes back to the geometry of the particular rifle and sight combo. I can't recall the specific case offhand, but if the sight base is low or close to the nose of the comb, the sight staff can't be layed down flat. Like I said earlier, if it is too high it can interfere with the rod clearing the sight in line with the bore. My experience is that none have a whole lot of leeway.

On a related note, if the sight is too far back on the tang, it can cramp your hand position and in some cases give you a cut or scrape under heavy recoil. Being a lefty, I found that to be the case with the windage screw on the non-Soule MVAs mounted on my Sharps. That's one reason why I switched to Hoke sights. OTOH, if it is too high you may not be able to get the staff low enough for shorter ranges and it may block your view of the windage scale. The Hoke on my Brownings provides minimum rod clearance, hence my use of smaller diameter rods, but there is good hand clearance. My ideal would be for Hoke to put the shaft pivot just a titch lower on the tang.

I've ended up doing a fair amount of buying and swapping to get these things to work right for me.

Ranch: wife and I and dog landed in Phoenix on the first, with a U-Haul full of my shooting junk. Now I'm trying to make the contacts necessary for range access. Looks like Feb. will be a full schedule, but I'm chomping at the bit meantime. I'm not missing the cold and snow, although it gets down pretty low at night here.

Paul

Paul I think they said it was 60's back there today. Friends at Dubuque report no snow yet, and pretty warm for this time of the year.

Have fun shooting with the bunch at Ben Avery.

Well, I've been here a week now and haven't pulled a trigger. You have to jump through some hoops to get access the the silhouette ranges at BA, so it looks like it will be the end of the month before I can do so. That's because you have to shoot in a specified type of match to get a range card that will let you use the range on your own. Until then I can go there on Wednesdays, and hope somebody will sponsor me as a guest. Or, I can go to the public range, stand in line, and shoot only paper targets on their frames at specified distances, to 200 yards, I believe. A bit frustrating.

I do love the climate here so far, and I'm pretty sure I'd tolerate even the summer heat better than the cold. You make your choices. I'm glad it's been relatively nice back in the midwest lately. We'll take all of that we can get.

Paul