Bill and I spent a lot of time like others here on the phone picking each others brain
on different subjects and the conversation using the barrel sights came up very often with Bill and me because we both hunted with the barrel sights since we were Kids and just recently since I had eye damage loosing my center vision I'm forced to switching to a scope and even this is not working. I hunted Bison with a scope mounted .44-77 Sharps once and I just about tore it off fumbling around trying to load for a second follow up shot fumbling around the hammer and scope loading.
Here is an old post
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?123634-buckhorn-sights look down on post #11 is a good illustration using the buckhorns and it is basically how I use them and also what Bill said also. It takes a lot of time behind the buttplate working out the hold at different ranges with your rifle but very long shots are workable using the barrel sights. Also the spread of the horns can be used for a range finder on known animal sizes.
With my sharps hunting rifle the balance point is right at the rear sight and I don't like it digging into my hand, heck it even cuts a hole through the glove in time
so I switched to the long Lawrence rear sight that has a reliable three fixed sight settings with the ladder down, ladder up below the slide and also the top of the slide you can set at a known setting also hold overs with the three known ranges holding over.
I had the opportunity to see if I could hit a full sized iron buffalo at 1585 yards using the Lawrence sight. yes it took a follow up shot ranging the rind but I settled my curiosity that the old hide hunters made those long shots I read in books as the heard moved on.
But like I said, you have to use them to learn how to use them.
Kurt
