1895SBL .45-70 Sights?

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45Frank

45Frank

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Made the plunge and bought a Marlin 1895SBL 45-70, came with ghost ring mounted on the scope mount. I want to change to something smaller say maybe a Skinner Peep sight because I can change to a smaller aperture. Would I mount the peep sight where the stock one is or do I remove the stock scope mount? If I do will the front sight be in line height wise or do I have to change that also?
 
The XS ghost ring uses the holes D&T'd for scope mounting. Here's what I did. Works very well.
MarlinSlingButtCuff.jpg

It's sort of hard to see, but the ghost ring rear sight was mounted backwards. I found it gave me a better sight picture.
 
I went with the Wild West Guns Ghost Ring sight which attaches via the pre-drilled holes in the receiver. Mine has the Ghost Ring threaded to accept standard apertures including the ones available from Williams Gun Sights. I specified that it be threaded, but looking at the picture on the WWG website, it appears that they are all tapped now.

Here's a link to download the Williams Gun Sight catalog. The apertures are on page 14.

http://www.williamsgunsight.com/gunsights/pdf/2014_Williamsweba.pdf

Midway also carries a bunch of apertures. The Merit sights will also fit the WWG sight.

http://www.midwayusa.com/find?sortby=1&itemsperpage=20&newcategorydimensionid=16961
 
Skinner sights would likely use the drilled and tapped receiver holes. As for the front sight, I went through this myself for a 22 lever action rifle where I installed a skinner rear. I shot a group with the stock factory rear. I measured how far high or low it was at 25 yards and crunched some numbers to figure out how tall of a front sight I needed and ordered the brass one near that from skinner. It's not that hard to do. There is no real way around installing the skinner rear and shooting it to determine if you will need a new front sight. Just takes a bit of time. The skinners are very nice sights. The XS sights work very good as well.
 
Removed the rail etc on mine. XS sight bolts into the rear holes. Not much into optics on that type of rifle, so no need for the rail for me.

I have the big ghost ring and the rifle is nice and quick on target. Front sight stands out well and I am able to zero with slow heavy cast bullets and quick jacketed ones. Plenty accurate too. Groups are under 3 inches at 100 with my cast bullets from sand bags, and a bit better with jacketed.

The sights seem to be nice and durable as well. Very happy with them over the ones that came on it.
 
redbullitt said:
Removed the rail etc on mine. XS sight bolts into the rear holes. Not much into optics on that type of rifle, so no need for the rail for me.

I have the big ghost ring and the rifle is nice and quick on target. Front sight stands out well and I am able to zero with slow heavy cast bullets and quick jacketed ones. Plenty accurate too. Groups are under 3 inches at 100 with my cast bullets from sand bags, and a bit better with jacketed.

The sights seem to be nice and durable as well. Very happy with them over the ones that came on it.
Click to expand...
OK so you removed the rail, Was the front sight to high then or did it work out? I will rarely shoot more then 75 yards so I doubt I will be putting a scope on this one.
Been reading a lot and seeing most like the Skinner so I will be trying them out.
Just debating between the Express or the XA.
 
Crowcifier666 said:
+1 for Skinner.
Click to expand...
Ordered the skinner rear sight with a few other things this morning. As far as the front sight I don't have a front rail on mine but a sight that was screwed to the barrel. So I e-mailed them (Andy) and he replied saying they have the rail just waiting for an e-mail back to see how to order it. I didn't see a phone number on their sight or the rail on their sight.
 
OK now have my Skinner sight on my gun and left the stock front sight. I have never sighted in a rifle after changing sights any recommendations on where to start. For my scopes I always used a borsighter that got me on an 8.5"x11" piece of paper at 100 yards.
I received my order from MBC yesterday so will be reloading and hopefully shooting this week. Just like to say I ordered my bullets on Thursday and it said we typically ship within a week or some garbage like that. Well I went out my side door this morning and yup they were here already. AWESOME!!!:)
 
I have done sight changes on several of my lever actions. I shoot at least one round at 25 yards to see it is on paper.
 
OK other then a sore shoulder did pretty good. Got back to about 60 yards and hit red pretty well. Even with glasses beyond that then entire target looked like a black spot.:mad:
The other thing that has me wondering is the windage had to be slid over to where it hangs over about 3/16" of an inch. Thinking it may get hung up on things?
 
The entire experiment has been a disaster. Just depressed with the entire thing with bear season opening yesterday!
The open sight thing failed badly. I can only see thru the open sights at about 60 yards which is fine where I hunt all for but one area. BUT at night, 1/2 hour BEFORE sunset I can't see NOTHING thru the sights.
Looks like scope will be mounted soon, now to scuddle around to see what I have and back to the 30-30 for a while. :banghead: I'm not even old yet.
 
i found out in the service in vn that a peep sight requires light. at dawn and dusk they are just about useless. for me its a 2.5x scope. eastbank.
 
A low powered scope is your ticket. I prefer something in a 1-4X20. A 2-7X32 is distant 2nd place finisher. A fixed 2X or so wouldn't be bad either.

I like the traditional looks of irons on a lever as much as anyone, but decent optics win in every category.
 
You could put a Leupold 2.5X scout scope on it. No chance of scope bite on the eye. It's what I use on my 30-30. I wouldn't be confident on hunting beyond 100 yards with iron sights myself so don't feel too bad.
 
On my 1895G I have a 4x shotgun scope. Works well. Its usually pretty dark in the forest lands when we start out in the morning. It works well.
 
The thing is I practiced until my shoulder hurt. During the day of course. Never thought about the light thing, it is useful. Idiot I am for sure. Well a lesson well learned that I can always pass on anyway.
I found a set of Leopold Silver rings here and have a scope laying around from an old 336 in 30-30.
I have always used one piece rails, are the two piece any better or worse? Only because I have a set laying around a was just wondering is all.
 
I don't know which aperture you had in the Skinner sight but the bigger the aperture, the more forgiving it is for lower light. You can use the Skinners with no aperture screwed in at all for the ghost ring effect. There are limits though, and as mentioned, irons need light to work.
 
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