Would it be sacrilege to mount this original BSA peep sight lower in the stock?

[jirushi]

... as the pellets are hitting about an inch too high, with the aperture sight on its lowest setting.
I was thinking about deepening the recess in the stock, to solve this issue, but it feels wrong to do this.
Finding a taller front sight will probably be very difficult though.
Cheers, Louis

Ps. The rear mounting screw is off-centre. I was also thinking about improving this.
It doesn't look like this peep sight was mounted at the factory, but I still like it very much.

[Abasmajor]

[QUOTE=jirushi;8332878]... as the pellets are hitting about an inch too high, with the aperture sight on its lowest setting.
I was thinking about deepening the recess in the stock, to solve this issue, but it feels wrong to do this.
Finding a taller front sight will probably be very difficult though.
Cheers,

I can’t see anything wrong with modifying an original sight fitting on a contemporary air rifle to make it shoot a bit better. Much better in my opinion to keep these vintage air rifles doing what they were designed for with many probably being modified in some small way by their original owners to improve performance or accuracy.
Brian

[silva]

Its possible that the wood under the sight just needs levelling a little, if its fitted by by the owner at the time ? An internet search might reveal how yours sits in the wood compared to a known factory fitted one. Hopefully its an easy fix.

[45flint]

It’s sitting much higher than factory nothing wrong in taking some wood off and lowering it. Its wasn’t factory to begin with just correcting an error?

[KWK1]

Are you sure it has the correct foresight? Is the doll's head snapped off? Show your front sight, please.
Protek has the sight in plastic for cheap.

[rapidresponse1]

good luck with sorting it

[Binners]

Most others that I have seen are lower in the wood.

[ptdunk]

I have the same rearsight and set it quite low to get the pellets in range, I don't see a problem if you want to do this as it wasn't factory fitted.

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I used some Birchwood Casey walnut stain to colour it and a bit of Tru oil to varnish. In the end I removed the rearsight as in interfered with the sight picture with the peepsight. Just knocked up a little blanking plate. Works great.

Cheers,
Matt

Cheers,
Matt

[Lakey]

You could use this as an excuse to get out the needle files and drill and make a ring foresight for the gun.
Uber rare, it would be ideal for use with the aperture rear sight, and as you already know the height of your existing foresight, it should be fairly straightforward to calculate the required height of the replacement foresight.

Also that would be the least invasive way to correct the sighting issue, as it is completely reversible.

Lakey

[deejayuu]

Also that would be the least invasive way to correct the sighting issue, as it is completely reversible.

Lakey

Along with, for me, tweaking the barrel
Interesting to know range at which strike is high.

[KWK1]

I'd still like to see what front sight you have. I might know a thing or two about BSA prewar. I had 32 of them until this year. Only have about 25 now. Even made a replacement screw and little knurled knob for a BSA 22 sight just like yours. Have made replacement front sights for a few. Made 2 new rare barleycorn sights for a 1906 BSA Air Rifle second batch. Machining to fit the dovetails on the early rifles up to about 1908 IMD is tricky. I've made countless screws and sight elevation screw. Have photos of a lot of my work but I wish it wasn't so difficult posting pictures on your fine forum.

If you bend the barrel it won't line up to the cocking lever right and will look strange. Don't do that.
My money is on the front sight. Show it, please

[MDriskill]

Very interesting discussion!

I have the same issue on a 1920-vintage No. 1 Standard. It has the rare model 21 peep with swinging aperture attachment - but with a non-factory "pocket knife"- quality mount. Compared to the factory mount, it's much too high, too far aft, and crooked! I can't see the open rear sight even with the peep in the stowed position.

[jirushi]

Thank you very much gentlemen for all the interesting replies.

Abasmajor, I agree, although I have done some stupid things in the past, altering old guns too much; I have become a bit more careful, luckily.

silva, 45flint, Binners: thank you for pointing out that the sight should sit much lower in the stock.
I will remove some wood.

Matt, thank you for the info and great photos. That looks like a very neat job. The blanking plate looks nice too.
I think I have the same foresight.

Lakey, I am using a BSA ring foresight. It is very nice to use on target cards, but not for plinking; I find that the ring makes it very difficult to see anything else than something that fits inside it, so to speak.

dejaayuu, I am shooting at 25 meters. The groups are tight, but just an inch high.
As with my other Light Patterns, the 7.0 grain RWS Meisterkugeln seem to be particularly sensitive to wind.
They all shoot at about 620 ft/s.

KWK1, I have added some photos of the front sight. It has a sight selector on the right. The other "option" is quite a low "post". The ring is much nicer to use with the aperture sight. The gun actually came with a very low "normal" foresight (.40" height).

MDriskill, that is a lovely peep sight. If I'm not mistaken, it's the 21B?
We might both have to start doing some wood work on our beezers?

Cheers, Louis








I have some work to do



Also on the bottom of the peep sight base:

[Shed tuner]

I too agree with the "mount it deeper" option.. but another approach out of interest it to tune the gun to shoot lower. Lower start pressure pellets (e.g. JSB RS) might help. Also consider adding a small weight to the piston, or trying a differnt mainspring. But remounting the sight is really the right answer

[Binners]

PS Dont worry about the rear screw being off centre