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

Where ever you want to put it, you just need to do it the same EVERY time.

I'd go fixed or one folding leaf at the most.

One standing, one folding is the most you'd ever get any use out of..

what caliber out of curiosity..

Ingwe, As are most of your suggestions that is a great idea!

Rwe, it's a 30-06 and a for Corbett and his spiritual son, Ingwe a 7x57.

You guys have given me a great idea; I'll set one sight for heavy for caliber is 220gn in 30-06 and 175 in 7x57. The other will be for 165s and 150s respectively. Captdavid

Ingwe, As are most of your suggestions that is a great idea!

Rwe, it's a 30-06 and a for Corbett and his spiritual son, Ingwe a 7x57.

You guys have given me a great idea; I'll set one sight for heavy for caliber is 220gn in 30-06 and 175 in 7x57. The other will be for 165s and 150s respectively. Captdavid

Please don't feed the ingwe.

captdavid,

Personally I prefer one standing leaf, sighted-in at 200 yards on a rifle like that. That will work fine at 100 as well, and any range out to 250, which is far as most people are going to shoot with open sights.

In fact I have one rifle with a 3-leaf sight, my CZ 550 .416 Rigby, and I epoxied the folding leaves down so they'd NEVER accidentally flip up and cause a misplaced shot.

Of course I won't know a bout the 30-06 until I get it. My 7x57 is my main gun, but it won't shoot 175s and 150s close. My 7x57 shoots 150gn Partitions 1.25" groups. It shoots 175s a tad better. The problem is they are 4" below and 2",or better to the left. I'll need two sights for that. Captdavid

Pick one of these and rest the bull on top of ones bead or post. If one covers the bull with his bead, he can't see his objective.



Like said, consistency is the name of the game.

Ordinarily the sights are both set for the same load...at different ranges....


Your approach is, shall we say, 'unique'?

LUCK!

Ingwe, thanks for the compliment. Most friends just call me odd! Captdavid

Captdavid,

I shoot with open express sights often, and can tell you that with a shallow v, (or any kind of V rear sight) the bead should be held right at the bottom of the V.

In fact, this is how the bead should be for any rear sight, that is a V or a notch or a U. The full bead should be seen, held at the bottom.



This is because it makes your elevation consistant, holding the full bead at the bottom. Your horizontal will take care of itself.

To make this point more fully, I now shoot an express sight with no V - it is just a flat straight bar, and the bead is held over the centre of this. This is the one on the far right of my illustration above. I got this from Elmer Keith, who got it from Theodore Van Dyke, who got it from English gunmakers.

This is just as accurate as anything else, and means you dont have to 'fit'the bead into anything when you aim. You just put it across the middle of the flat read sight. Your mind will position it in the centre thoughtlessly.

Express sights with a shallow V, or with no V at all, are perfectly accurate at normal hunting ranges, they are not just for 'dangerous game'.(I consider 200 metres and less as 'normal'. People who say they are inaccurate or only for short ranges, have never used open sights much. This is to be expected, there are many people my fathers age (retired) who have never shot a deer with anything but a telescopic sight.

This photo is three groups shot with a Brno and express sights at 100 metres, regulating the sights. (Its a .243)




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.

Next - the bead and point of impact. The bullet point of impact should be covered by the centre of the bead. Many people will tell you otherwise. Do not listen to them. Take a leaf from WDM Bell's book, who's writing explained why I was hitting high on deer, and caused me to experiment.

The sight should be regulated so the point of impact falls at the centre of the bead at the range you want to be sighted in for. Say 100 yards.
When you are sighting the rifle in, you use a six oclock hold, and perch the bulleye on top of your front bead - this is gun regulation work and nothing to do with how you sight when hunting - Measure the area your bead covers at this range, and file the rear sight until the group falls where you judge the centre is (or three inches high from that, whatever you wish)

Then, when you shoot on game, you put that front bead on what you want to hit, like a red dot sight, and shoot through it. You will do this anyway, under pressure, so do it on purpose. I used to shoot a six oclock hold and perch my aiming point at the tip of the bead, but you dont remember when it counts the most, or when something is running, or when you dont have time to think. Shoot through the bead.
People will tell you the bead obscures the target. They will tell you the rear sight obscures the target. But you should shoot with both eyes open. I always did that, I think my grandfather told me to, and so I just did, but its how you do it.
If you want to shoot at targets - like when you were sighting in, sure, close one eye if you want. But on animals shoot with both eyes open, then it doesnt matter how big your sights are. Even the much maligned buck horn sights wont bother you.

Many will disagree with me I am sure. I am disagreeable.

This isn't my thread, but thanks for the great write up. I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks, Captdavid

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:

Two of my 7x57s have express sights. One, a Boddington Leopard No. 1, has a single standing sight with a shallow V on the quarter-rib. The other, a legendary M70 XTR, has one standing and one folding on an island. Oddly enough, neither have been filed since resting the bead on the very top of the standing sight will put 175 NPTs right on the money at 100 yards. At least that's what I've been told. My eyes are so bad that even when the shooting range is reduced from yards to feet, I still use my scope on its lowest setting (1.5x). But the ol' rifle sure looks good in "full Africa" dress.

Just my $.02

RM

Damn! Thats a good looking rifle!

Ain't it??!!

Gnoahhh,
As much for aesthetics as anything, I have Leopold quick-release mounts.Captdavid

Yes she does!

Very informative post. Put me in this camp as well. I read JOC and Whelen and forced myself to use aperture sights 'cause they were better. Then I finally quit rebuking my own personnel results which indicated I shot better with slight notch or express sights. I might have to try the flat express rear.

I know. I wrote it.

I still use for receiver aperture sights on some rifles, I have a .257 roberts and a .30/06 I shoot with them.
But I dont like ghost rings, which is all the rage all over the bloody internet when it comes to peep sights, or certainly there is a point of diminishing returns with a wide aperture. The rim of a Williams receiver sight or a Lyman 66 with the screw in peep taken out, for example, is too thin for my use.

Perhaps it might not have been when my eyesight was in my twenties, but I wasn't shooting without a scope then.


Aperture sights took the shooting world by storm in America. They were much more of an American thing, and driven by military range target shooting, something that people like Townsend Whelen was deeply into.

But at ranges out to 200 metres it is perfectyl possible to shoot as well with express type v sights and a bead as with an aperture receiver sight. At distances greater than that this it entirely changes in favour of the peep sight.

The sight picture on the left is the most accurate for me with a bead. Sighted like this, with bullet impact hitting at the top of the bead, or just 1" above the bead in what is left of the open air of the back sight groove. I'm not blocking out the bullet impact, but the bead is buried and in a repeatable position.

Works for me with older Remington .22's and Marlin lever actions.


I'll admit that with a hold like "B" with a post sight, or "E" with a bead, I get a wandering zero due to how I am seeing the sights on a given day. Not off by much, but not as precise for my eyes/ability.

In my view, captdavid, one fixed shallow-V notch is all you'll need. Folding leaves have a habit of folding when you don't want them to. A big concave or flat-faced front bead (white or gold) works for my failing eyes. I zero so bullets strike at the top of the bead at 100 yards, near center of the bead at 200, which is as far as I'll use open sights. Bullet weights do change point of impact, but unless bullet weights/velocities/ballistic coefficients run to the extremes, a big bead will cover such discrepancies at normal hunting ranges and give you quick aim. That bead and a fixed rear sight (once adjusted) afford precision enough -- maybe more than you expect. Good shooting!... WvZ

I use Lyman 48 or similar old Redfield steel sights on several of my lever and pump rifles. I'm building a 375 Whelen Mouse(r) AI that will have a Lyman Aperture sight and post front sight. I'm also building a 35 Whelen on a 700 action - same set up as the 375. The 375 is AI so I can quickly determine that cartridges are not the 35 version.
My 416 Rigby is open V and I like that a lot also.
I think buckhorn sights are a damnable concoction, I detest them. The only reason I ever keep them (in a drawer) is if I might sell the rifle and the new owner may want the POS's.

As far as the V sight, one is enough, though my Rigby has three. I'll do as Mule Deer suggested and glue the other two down.

All my Lyman and Redfield sights are steel. I had an aluminum one on my 1885 45-70 for a while. I threw it away, replaced it with steel. They are weak and easily damaged IMHO.

I use Lyman 48 or similar old Redfield steel sights on several of my lever and pump rifles. I'm building a 375 Whelen Mouse(r) AI that will have a Lyman Aperture sight and post front sight. I'm also building a 35 Whelen on a 700 action - same set up as the 375. The 375 is AI so I can quickly determine that cartridges are not the 35 version.
My 416 Rigby is open V and I like that a lot also.
I think buckhorn sights are a damnable concoction, I detest them. The only reason I ever keep them (in a drawer) is if I might sell the rifle and the new owner may want the POS's.

As far as the V sight, one is enough, though my Rigby has three. I'll do as Mule Deer suggested and glue the other two down.

All my Lyman and Redfield sights are steel. I had an aluminum one on my 1885 45-70 for a while. I threw it away, replaced it with steel. They are weak and easily damaged IMHO.

Some of my bolt action rifles still wear open sights (factory) and they are for back up. They have scopes as primary. If you do this be sure to have those irons sighted in.