Took my 20/26 out to the range on Saturday to see what it could do.

I loaded 16g of SR4759 and 311041 cast bullets. These had to extend well below the neck of the 300 savage. Didn't shoot so good (bottom left).

I also loaded 35g of 4064 and a Speer 150g spitzer. These shot good at 50 yards and well enough at 100 considering my poor aim. Ignore where I wrote 303 savage on one of the targets, it's a habit for me.

Now the problem, I know my rear sights have to be original (its a Lyman 54), but I'm wondering about my front sight. I spent more bullets and time trying to find the target, I had to keep raising the sights to get it on the paper even at 50 yards. At 100 yards the trajectory is flat so I didn't need to change much. I don't have much rear sight adjustment left.

My guess is the front sight is not original and that it should be a lot shorter sight (see picture below). From the top edge of the ramp to the top of the brass bead is 0.265". Anyone have a 20/26 front sight that they could measure for me?

have you tried loosening it and pushing it down a little? Most of these are slotted and not just drilled with a hole. Otherwise, if you can get it set-up, I would not worry about it personally.

I have not tried that, didn't even cross my mind that it may be slotted.

Thanks,

Got the front screw loose. Not really slotted, was able to level it out some, if you notice in the picture above it slightly slanted up on the brass bead side. It only lowered it about 0.005", not sure if that's enough but it does look level now.

I can live with it but the rear sight is up off the fine adjustment screw so when I loosen the locking thumb screw on the side it can't be adjusted with any precision.

If the front blade is too tall you could raise the screw hole till the blade sets deeper in the slot. You might have to take a little off the bottom of the blade, as well.

You can run the calculations that were posted earlier to determine how much change you need given where you are hitting the target.

Here is the formula: Take the distance to the target in inches and divide by the distance between the front and rear sight in inches. Divide the distance out of center that the bullet hit and divide by the calculated number from above. This will give you the minimum amount up or down that the blade must be moved.

you may have more success if you take screw out compleatly ,slide sight out backwards as some have grouves in them ,and see if it will slide back in lower ,or failing that if hole is elongated enough file a little bit off the bottom.
norm

That's a tad unusual. The couple of 1920s that I put Lyman 54s on over the years both needed the front sights to be higher not lower. Never say never I guess. I would take Norm's approach and remove metal from the bottom and elongate the hole as necessary. after first taking Rick's advise regarding computations.

With an example of one, that was my experience too.

I have a sight coming that is lower. I know it's a Lyman and is 0.064" thick and 0.281" overall high. Not sure how long it is. It should allow me to experiment.

i made one out of a canadian nickle,with good silver content