The Awaited Rigby-Style Mosin Rear-Sight Range Report!

[Josh Smith]

Hi Folks,

I've been asked by folks here and elsewhere for a range report for this sight.

Conditions were about 34F, light wind, and overcast with snow flurries turning into snow showers.

Distance was 75 or 80 yards. Though I lasered it at 75 yards, my shooting position changed enough to extend the range a bit. It may not be 80 yards, but it's close. I've not done the math as I don't believe there's enough difference to matter.

I used for the first time a new handload. My accuracy load is 51.2 grains H4350 pushing a 174 grain Hornady Match. I need to ladder test the SMK/Varget load before declaring it as good as the Hornady Match/H4350 load, but went ahead and shot it for these groups as I was out of the Hornady loads.

I'm starting with the second group first.

Around playing card size, 10 shots, 2 fliers.

I shot this group in a snow shower. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm still getting over a cold. I was laying on a wet blanket with snow covering me and breath discipline had gone from difficult to near-impossible.

Now that the above embarrassment is out of the way, here is the first group:

Well inside the size of a playing card.

Well inside the size of a playing card, I really didn't need to work at this group. I just started flinging lead downrange. Natural respiratory pause was more like natural respiratory *cough*, so I did have a few problems. All-in-all though, for a fast-acquisition ghost ring style sight, this was acceptable.

Will this rifle shoot better? Yes, it will. It was not the fault of the hardware, but rather an inability to control my breathing as well as I usually can.

Even with the fliers, both these groups are on par with many Mosin groups I've seen posted around, and better than many.

I hope to get back out again soon, cold-free on a sunny day, to see what I can really do with this new rear sight.

I hope this has satiated some curiosity. Questions are more than welcome as I'm sure I've left some things out; I'm just not in that "writer's zone" I usually find myself in when I write reports of this nature.

Thanks,

Josh

 

[ronny]

It's hard to say whether the quality (good or bad) of your groups can be attributed to your rear sight. Those are pretty big groups for 75 yds, but that was probably you and the conditions.

You're gonna have to (in my opinion) conduct a good bench rest shoot; first with regular sights and then with your new sight. I don't think you'll have any validity if you don't do a comparison. Since it's your rifle, I'm betting you already have a good idea what it would do with the original sights.

Having said that, at moderate range, it is clear your new sight would be good enough to bring down a deer. I'm still curious. Keep up posted.

 

[Josh Smith]

Ronny,

I'll do that as soon as I can. I've done sub-MOA with this rifle, but unknowns include the ammo as well as (as you mentioned) the shooter being sick, and inclement weather conditions.

On the other hand, I didn't have to work for these groups. With standard tangent sights, this group would be about medium on the hard-to-shoot scale. With the rear peep, it was more like a non-magnified 'scope.

It's been so long since I was behind a peep of any kind that I forgot how easy they are to shoot. Still, most combat-style rifles I've owned, if I fit them with peeps, I drill the peep's hole to 3/32" if it's not there already. Best case-in-point was an SKS I had outfitted with Tech-Sights.

There will be smaller holes coming before long, but I'll probably still prefer this size out to about 200 yards.

Josh

 

[ronny]

The first big caliber rifle I ever shot had a peep sight; an M1 Garand. I was enamored of it back then and, now that my eyesight has deteriorated, I wouldn't mind finding a good peep sight arrangement for a Mosin. Keep up the work. Now you've gotten me to thinking. Scary.