94 Trapper- Range Report Part 2

[oldmax]

Range report::

Ref: Http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... highlight=

(J Miller, Please forgive me, I forgot to invite you.....)

OK, I got the aperture sight installed , Williams FP-94SE.

Handloads: 240Grain JHP, W296-22.5Gr, Fed Mag Primer Heavy Crimp..

First: I Love this gun,,, But it Kicks a little....

Group at 50 yrds , not to bad ( for me ), slightly left (ran out of adjusting range), could be better.
At 100 yrds , Low and left, Group is nothing to brag about.
I had to add " kentucky Windage to keep it on the paper.
Still not bad for me...

The next problem to work on,
Still shooting left with the Sight full right, The Elevation is ok, within adjustable range.

I did not remove the rear sight, it is visable in the bottom of
the aperture. I think it is affecting my sight picture. I Need to remove it..
Maybe my groups will get a little better.... Wishfull thinking ?

Questions:
The front sight looks bent to the right, If I straighten it , it should move
the POI to the right, How do I straighten it, Will it Bend...?

Also, The are 5 screws on the sight, 2 for adjusting, & 2 for locking the
adjusting screws. Whats the 5th screw for, the one one the left side
of the mount block..Is it the assembly screw ???
Are you supposed to do anything with it when adjusting elevation???



Interesting day at the range, besides shooting, It was Lever day...
Trapper in 44mag,, WITH A HUGE SCOPE,
An old style Lever , Looked like crome finish, and a Rem Replica Pump
that looked like a Lever gun,,,

OK: Surprise, PICTURES : I finially figured out 'photobucket'

[O.S.O.K.]

Thanks for the report and pics!

Just remember to tap the rear sight out to the right (as you hold the rifle) - and re-install the blank in the reverse order (right to left).

The front sight should also be in a dovetail IIRC. You should be able to drift it to the left a bit to adjust for the windage, and yes, this will move your point of impact right. I'd put your rear sight in the middle and try and adjust the front to move your point of impact dead center - if there's enough room in the dovetail to do that.

You say it's bent? If you can't bend it or it breaks, a Marbles sight blade with brass bead works great - you need to specify the sight height from bottom of dovetail to the top of the bead when ordering.

The groups will improve a lot when you have the sight picture cleaned up and can hold dead "on".

[Ysabel Kid]

Pictures always complete a range report! Thanks for sharing!!!

[86er]

Looks like you're getting there and a little tapping of the front sight with some readjustment of the rear will complete the task.

[Chuck 100 yd]

The fifth adjusting screw (the one with the silver ring around it) is the Gib screw that locks the elevation slide in place. Go easy on that one, some guys have stripped the threads on them!
Loosen it before any elevation adjustments are made and snug it up to lock it in place.

[J Miller]

Range report::

Ref: Http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... highlight=

(J Miller, Please forgive me, I forgot to invite you.....)
Alright you're forgiven. And I even had a full tank of gas.

OK, I got the aperture sight installed , Williams FP-94SE.

Handloads: 240Grain JHP, W296-22.5Gr, Fed Mag Primer Heavy Crimp..

First: I Love this gun,,, But it Kicks a little....
Naw, that's just a love tap. A 458 Win Mag kicks a little.

Group at 50 yrds , not to bad ( for me ), slightly left (ran out of adjusting range), could be better.
At 100 yrds , Low and left, Group is nothing to brag about.
I had to add " kentucky Windage to keep it on the paper.
Still not bad for me...

The next problem to work on,
Still shooting left with the Sight full right, The Elevation is ok, within adjustable range.

I did not remove the rear sight, it is visable in the bottom of
the aperture. I think it is affecting my sight picture. I Need to remove it..
Maybe my groups will get a little better.... Wishfull thinking ?
I have found that once I get the peep sight close I have to remove the barrel sight. It does get in my way.

Questions:
The front sight looks bent to the right, If I straighten it , it should move
the POI to the right, How do I straighten it, Will it Bend...?
If your trapper has the skinny barrel and you can see a solder line around the front sight, DONT TAP IT, it will snap right off. Don't ask me how I know that. If the front sight is tilted to the right, the barrel needs to be reindexed. A job for a gunsmith. Mine is tilted to the left. I still have plenty of sight adjustment though.

Also, The are 5 screws on the sight, 2 for adjusting, & 2 for locking the
adjusting screws. Whats the 5th screw for, the one one the left side
of the mount block..Is it the assembly screw ???
Are you supposed to do anything with it when adjusting elevation???
The big screw on the left side is to lock the vertical elevation in place. Loosen it to adjust the sight, then snug it down to lock the elevation in place.



Interesting day at the range, besides shooting, It was Lever day...
Trapper in 44mag,, WITH A HUGE SCOPE,
An old style Lever , Looked like crome finish, and a Rem Replica Pump
that looked like a Lever gun,,,

OK: Surprise, PICTURES : I finially figured out 'photobucket'

Take a good clear pic of the front sight and I can tell you weather or not it's soldered on. Probably is.

Joe

[Jaguarundi]

Nice range report with pictures !Yup the rear sight has to go.

[oldmax]

Thanks to all responders,

The front sight is soldered on ( as best I can tell )
The sight seems to be ' curved to the right ; not vertical to the right..

I wonder if the sight got banged, ( i'm not original owner )

Any chance the sight can be bent straight ? Is the sight metal
brittle or soft steel?

If I was able to get the front sight to move an 1/8 inch left
how much would that move the bullet at 50 yards.
Would 1/8 inch on the front sight equate to 1/8 inch movement at the rear
sight???
( J.miller, I reliaze turning the barrel would probably be the best approach
but that scares me a little...gotta think it through )

Note: As an old codger, I've had many OOOPP'S in my life....
Trying to prevent another.

.... Oldmax.

[J Miller]

Thanks to all responders,

The front sight is soldered on ( as best I can tell )
The sight seems to be ' curved to the right ; not vertical to the right..
Most likly a casting flaw. Since they are cast they don't generally bend. They break off.

I wonder if the sight got banged, ( i'm not original owner )
Possibe.

Any chance the sight can be bent straight ? Is the sight metal
brittle or soft steel?
About the same chance as a snow ball in hell has. As I've said in the post above and again two lines up, they are a cast part and won't bend, they break. Think MIM.

If I was able to get the front sight to move an 1/8 inch left
how much would that move the bullet at 50 yards.
Would 1/8 inch on the front sight equate to 1/8 inch movement at the rear
sight???
( J.miller, I reliaze turning the barrel would probably be the best approach
but that scares me a little...gotta think it through )
oldmax, Let me tell you about my Trapper. When I first bought it I shot it quite a bit and one day it got leaned up against my work bench in line for cleaning. Somehow it got bumped and the front sight took the hit. Snapped right off. The sight was a coarse casting that was so porous it looked like pot metal. I took it to several gunsmiths and not one would try to fix it. They wouldn't cut a dovetail for a regular sight because the barrel was so thin. They wouldn't weld or solder the part because of the poor quality of the casting. So I tried to solder it. Wouldn't hold. I ended up sending the thing back to Winchester for a new front sight. They replaced then entire barrel. Now my rear sight is straight with the receiver, but the front sight tilts to the left. If the front sight and the rear sight was on the same plain the proper fix is to reindex the barrel. However as with mine it looks like your front sight is the bad part. Considering that they are poor castings, it will take a custom made sight to fix the problem. I'm pretty sure how I want to fix mine, but I don't know how to go about it yet.

Note: As an old codger, I've had many OOOPP'S in my life....
Trying to prevent another.
AMEN to that. Been there and done that WAY to many times myself.

.... Oldmax.

Joe

[oldmax]

J Miller, Thanks for your Patience with me !!!!
I'm Getting the point......Don't Hammer to fit !!!

Danm'n it ticks me off though, I was hoping to get a GOOD shooting
Good handlling, light rifle....

?? Let me try this on ya.
The sight is a little thin for my eyes; So, build up with the 2 part metal stuff,
and shape it to the left. Maybe a gold bead on top....

[oldmax]

J Miller, I found out what the problem is ( I Think )

With the original sites the gun shot to the Left, With the reciever sight
the gun shoots WAY to the Left,,,

The Problem:'The barrel is Rotated to the right about 3-5 Degrees.'

I set the reciever up with a level , than checked the rear dove tail..
3-5 degrees off level, Rotation to the right...
I think this is what causes the 'Way Left' with the Reciever sight.

With the barrel mounted sites, the slight bend in the front sight is
causing the 'Left' POI..
I think I can adjust out the Rear sight with a Drift, I Hope.
I will try it next week...

Reciever site can only be fixed by Rotating barrel
So, It looks like Reciever site is a NO-GO..

Ain't nothing Easy......


THANKS for your help, Your experience has been well used. ( No OOOPS)

[Grizz]

To my eye the three sights on that gun are WAY OUT OF ALIGNMENT. There is not a straight line between all three, so at least one is in the wrong place.

So my first question is, how does the gun shoot with the front sight plus barrel sight, which appear to be aligned close enough for close work.

Then I would align the peep with the rear sight and remove the rear sight. I've mounted all my reciver sights this way.

The bent front sight might be an issue, should be able to straighten it, but it will influence the sight picture too, hopefully in a beneficial way.

Try sighting backwards, front sight first, line it up with the barrel sight, and see if they appear to be in the same plane with regard to the axis of the barrel. Sometimes barrels and/or sights aren't indexed correctly, another problem.

If the barrel is straight and the front sight is indexed correctly, the peep sight should wind up just about dead center over the axis line of the bore.

Anything else is damage control. The last photo is incomprehensible, unless the barrel is actually bent, have you checked that?

Grizz

[oldmax]

Grizz:

The gun shot to the left with factory sights ( rear barrel sight )
I thought that , since the aperture sight on my mini-14 was quite clear
without glasses, That I would install an aperture sight and adjust for
windage as well as elevation.
This is when I discovered it shot WAY to the left and the aperture sight did not have enough adjustment .
Note picture,with aperture far to right.
Examining the gun ( leveling the receiver and checking the rear sight platform for level) I discovered that the receiver
and barrel are not on the same plane
( receiver level, barrel rotated to the right).

With the factory sights, the rotated barrel does not effect the sighting
as much, as both sights are on the barrel,
But the front sight also being bent, causes it to shoot to the left, which I should be able to correct by drifting the rear sight...

I may, someday, have the barrel aliened, but for now, I will see if I
can get it shooting straight by drifting the rear sight in...
Shoulda just done that in the first place....arrg!

I guess I can see why USRA's went belly up, QUALITY..

[Grizz]

Old Max,

I suspected something like that, I believe it's called barrel indexing. There is a fix for it, but someone needs to determine if the barrel can be rotated into alignment, or if some metal needs to be removed from the end of the barrel threads.

The other question it raises is whether this is the original barrel. I've seen rebarreled guns on gun racks that have the same problem. "Oh yeah, that one was rebarreled". So I'd check that out. Either way you need the tools or a smith who has them.

The silver lining is that it's fixable and you will get the gun you want eventually...

sorry for the troubles over it

Grizz

PS: This is the reason I always backsight the guns I'm looking at. Try it and I think the misalignment will be obvious. I've seen this on brand new italian marque guns, and on project guns, and have heard of Marlins shipping with that defect, it's not uncommon even though it's rare.

[J Miller]

Grizz,
It's the original barrel. I got one just like it. Nobody in their right mind except Winchester would use a barrel so thin that they had to solder the front sight on.

oldmax,
When using the rifle with out a receiver sight, you'll find you are canting the rifle to bring the sights up straight. I do it with my Trapper and ignor the fact the receiver and it's sight are tilted then. But I'm thinking mine may not be as bad as yours is.

I'd suggest taking it to a gunsmith and getting an estimate on reindexing the barrel. It shouldn't cost too much.


Joe

[oldmax]

Thanks grizz, J.Miller.

Rilfe looks 'Really' Original, No evidence of any screws being removed.

If it had a box , I would have thought it to be 'NIB. excepting some
VERY minor wood dings.
I ordered. a Marbles 'Buckhorn' rear sight. Thats as far I plan on going
with the gun ( for now )
As for the 'cant' of the barrel, Never noticed it; Only noticed the slight
bend in the front blade after sightning it in...


Here's a picture of the rifle..,

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