How to question re: peep sight

[Ty 357]

Here comes a dumb question....maybe. What is the "proper" or common use of a peep sight on a rifle?

I'm thinking about adding a Williams peep sight to a Remington Model 760. The rifle currently has the front ramp with post installed and a U-notch blade installed above the hand guard. The rifles is drilled and tapped for a scope which I removed. I "assume" I should mount the peep at the rear most scope mount? I also "assume" that I should leave the blade in place?

So, my question is....should I remove the blade or leave it and should the peep be as far back on the receiver as possible?

I've never paid that much attention to how a peep is set up on a rifle. In fact, I have not seen it that often. Common sense tells me the peep should be as close to my eye as possible. And I think the blade should be left as is. So, what's the common or preferred setup? Anything else to consider?

Why the peep you ask...well, I bought this rifle on the cheap and it had a really poor scope on it. I like to try to different things and i thought this rifle would be a great candidate to leave with open sights and even better candidate to try a peep sight on. I have scoped rifles. This would be a 100 yard or less hunting setup.

Thanks for any insight. See what I did there... My bad humor not withstanding I do appreciate any help.

 

[PonyKiller]

I would suggest pulling the existing sight off the rear, they tend to obscure the bottom and some of the sides of the target, kinda defeating the purpose of the peep. The only issue I've run across with mine, and seen with others is sometimes the front sight is either too tall or too short leaving you short on adjustment.

 

[Missionary]

Greetings
Yes remove the rear sight.
But before you remove the rear sight mount the peep on the receiver and get it aligned with the origonal rear sight and front sight. You should be able to look through the peep and see the front sight properly aligned in the notch of the origonal rear sight. You should also be able to see if the front sight is too short.
After peep is aligned with the two origonal sights remove the origonal rear sight.
By doing this you have the new peep reasonably sighted so final adjustment should not cost you much ammo. Happy shooting !
Most my rifles have peep or tang sights on them. I find those simple "hole" sights to be very fast to use and plenty accurate.
Mike in Peru

 

[BSA1]

You can get a blank to fill in the dovetail notch left in the barrel from Brownells.

 

[BCRider]

A peep with a smaller hole back at the rear of the receiver will act with your eye sort of like a pinhole camera to sharpen your vision a little and provide a wider depth of field. That is with your focus locked on the front sight the target will be a little less fuzzy when looking through a small aperture peed sight than it would be when using plain iron sights.

For this reason I'm a much bigger fan of running a rearward peep over a more forward position where it becomes more of a ghost ring setup.

 

[Ty 357]

Thanks for the information guys!

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I'm thinking about adding a Williams peep sight to a Remington Model 760. The rifle currently has the front ramp installed and a U-notch blade installed above the hand guard. The rifles is drilled and tapped for a scope which I removed. I "assume" I should mount the peep at the rear most scope mount? I also "assume" that I should leave the blade in place?

So, my question is....should I remove the blade or leave it and should the peep be as far back on the receiver as possible?

Set the peep back as far as possible, and unless the instruction with the peep sight tells you you need a different front sight, leave the old one alone.

Install the peep first and use it in conjunction with the existing open sight. When you see a proper open sight picture through the peep, you know the peep is pretty close to zeroed in. You can then drift out the open sight and fill the female dovetail with a blank. (Another trick is to break or file the sight off its existing male dovetail and use that as a filler.)

Of course, you always check your zero by actually firing the rifle.

 

[Reloadron]

I would follow the excellent advice given on alignment to save a headache later.

That or you could copy my peep sight design as seen on a Remington 7400:



That is a true peep sight using 3 peeps.

Ron

 

[PonyKiller]

the peep castle of death!

 

[peacemaker45]

People generally use an aperture sight because it is faster and more accurate than open sights. They are also lighter and more robust than telescopes. The reason you don't see them very often is that people essentially gave up on iron sights when telescopes started becoming a viable option.



Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

 

[chicharrones]

That or you could copy my peep sight design as seen on a Remington 7400:

That is a true peep sight using 3 peeps.

Ron

Is that click adjustable or do you have to nibble a peep for windage and elevation?

 

[P51D]

Is that click adjustable or do you have to nibble a peep for windage and elevation?

4 clucks = 1 inch at 100 yds.

But seriously, mounting the peep as far back as possible increases the sight radius, and the aperture really does create the pinhole effect, sharpening the sight picture.

P51D

 

[fmj50]

Hooded front post / rear aperture sight advantages

With open sights, your eye has 3 focus points ( rear sight, front sight, and target ). Your eye, try as you might, can’t do this; you can do 2, but not 3. With aperture sights, the eye automatically centers itself in the rear aperture, which is seen only as an out of focus blur ( or ghostly ring ) and you have two focus points left / front sight and target, this is something your brain / eye can do.

I find them much faster and they don’t demand a sight picture as you are used to with open sights. The purpose of the aperture is to hold your eye in relation to the front sight.

The result is you receive a very fast and good view of your intended target.

Instead of watching windage ( bisecting notch with post ) elevation ( aligning top of post with top of notch ) and holding target on top of all of this, trying to focus on the different objects at 3 different ranges, all at one time, with aperture, you look through the rear sight, find the target, place the front sight on the target and Fire !

The hood on a hooded front sight, protects the front sight from damage and also keep light from reflecting off the front sight post.



You think all that space in the circle allows for imprecision, but test it. Try to keep the front sight on target, but off center, and see what you hit. You will find that you cannot. You have to try to put the front sight off center, and even if you succeed (so long as the front sight is squarely on target), your bullet will still be on target, but if you don't try to put it off center, your eye will naturally center it, resulting in even greater precision.

Looking through a small aperture helps to correct minor irregularities in the vision.

Aperture sights allow a longer sight radius by placing the rear sight closer to the eye than is possible with open sights. This reduces the effect of small sighting errors.

The aperture increases the depth of focus of the eye which allows both the front sight and the target to be in relatively good focus at the same time.

The average aperture sight is more easily and more precisely adjustable than the average open sight.



The aperture's proximity to the eye helps in attaining a consistent position on the rifle.

The aperture sight does not require one to concentrate on aligning the front sight to the rear sight which reduces the sight alignment problem by 1/3 and generally makes the aperture sight faster to use than open sights.

A hooded front sight prevents light from shining on one side of the front sight blade or the other. That can cause the point of impact to change--in general, a gun will tend to shoot away from the light if the front sight is not hooded



Peep sights are open sights. They're superior to ‘V’ sights because you can't focus on three things at once. Post and ‘V’ require you to line up the front sight blade in a small ‘v’ while keeping the blade even with the top of the rear sight and on target.
With a peep sight, you look through the rear sight, not at it, and focus on the front sight. You put the target on top of the front sight's post and squeeze off the shot.

Also note that for the last 70 years, most US military firearms had open sights. There must have been good combat effective reasons for a change over to apertures for the military to leave opens and go to apertures exclusively.

 

[Ty 357]

Again, thanks for the information.

Thanks Vern and Mike in Peru for the setup techniques. I was not entirely clear in my original post but I think, despite that, you guys have answered my questions and helped me formulate a plan.

I enjoy archery and using an aperture (thanks fmj50 for expanding my vocabulary) feels very natural. I was looking at images of Model 760's online to get ideas for a sling setup and I came across an image of an older example with a peep sight. I had planned to forego a scope on this gun and the peep setup really peaked my interest. My confusion mostly related to whether or not to leave the U-notch blade in place. It would seem the best thing is to use the U-notch blade to set the aperture and then remove the u-notch altogether.

I'm hoping to set it up and shoot it this weekend. I will update how things shake out. Again, thanks for all of the input.

On a side not, anyone looking into sling setups for these 760's...there is an option available that does NOT require a barrel band mount which I was hoping to avoid. Uncle Mike's makes a product that replaces the screw in the end of the pump and allows a sling attachment at that point and not on the barrel.

 

[tahoe2]

peeps?

I hunt a lot of thick timber and find that a peep is faster than a scope,
with quicker target acquisition and better view than regular irons.
just works for me, you will have to decide what works for you. Good Luck
My Marlin 375 groups tighter with a scope (2" @ 100) and 3"-4" with the
peep sight, acceptable for me for my hunting conditions; I did however have
to change the front sight to a taller one as I ran out of adjustment sighting in.

 

[tahunua001]

peeps are best served towards the rear of the reciever. if you do not remove the leaf sight then all you are doing is creating a 3 point open sight system that has worse field of vision than any of the above because you lose the arch over the top of the peep and still lose the bottom and sides from the leaf.

remove the leaf. place the peep in the rear most scope mount, if you have more than 2 you can also get ghost rings and keep the scope and use the peeps for close range and scope for long range. my brother in law has that setup on a marlin 1895 and it's pretty useful, especially in rain or cold weather were glass fog is a problem.

 

[Pistol Ranch]

I would follow the excellent advice given on alignment to save a headache later.

That or you could copy my peep sight design as seen on a Remington 7400:



That is a true peep sight using 3 peeps.

Ron

The good news is that you can eat your sights in case of dire emergencies!