New sight on an old rifle

I posted about this rifle when I acquired it 4 or 5 years ago. I just installed a new front sight on it which has rekindled my interest in it and also a good excuse to post again. First the rifle. It was made by I. Hollis & Sons in Birmingham, England in the 1880's and was retailed in South Africa. It has been well used and equally well cared for. The bore is excellent and it is a great shooter.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...ps937021d8.jpg

It has a series of leaf sights and a tall volley sight. This was a common sight design in South Africa at the time. The leaf sights were good for hunting and the volley sight was useful when civilians were called upon for defense. Some have stated that this sight was a requirement at that time, but that may be just legend.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...ps8b13975d.jpg

It is chambered in 577/450. I load a 480 gr. lead bullet over 85 grs of Goex 2F. Makes a lot of smoke and noise. I form the brass out of a 24 gauge brass shotshell.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...50001jpg-1.jpg

This rifle has always been a good shooter, but the front sight left a bit to be desired. It is made of brass and looks home made. Very rough compared to the rest of the rifle. It is also tall and thin and slightly bent to one side. Despite that I have shot 2" - 3" groups at 100 yards, but as my eye sight continues to age it has gotten harder to see. I wanted a different front sight, but hesitated to alter this old beauty. However, I am primarily a shooter and not a collector. I decided that since the sight was not original I would change it out. I could always re-install the old one. I wanted something to period. I had a Beech sight that I took off a rolling block. Although it is unlikely that this front sight would have been seen in South Africa it is correct for the time period. The dovetail was too small for the base so I sat down with a small triangular file and slowly filed the base to fit. Took a while. There is no putting metal back if you go too far too fast. In the end I think this sight looks quite good on this rifle. I am not shooting it any better, but at least I can clearly see it. I suspect that a better shot with better eyes could really make this old gal hit.
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...psd23y6krj.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...ps8uhk1mjj.jpg

I like that Sight. Use the blade when walking around and the post for fine work at a distance.

I have an Ithaca single shot rifle from my childhood that looks like a Win 94 but has the martini action.

I need a martini rifle.....

Your new sight is in backwards. The flat rear of the post is supposed to be to the rear.

It looks like the globe would overhang the muzzle if it was installed the conventional way.

Robert

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mk42gunner

It looks like the globe would overhang the muzzle if it was installed the conventional way.

Robert

---

Exactly. The sight picture is the same either way. It works fine.

Lovely! I'm jealous!! Oh how I do like English stalking rifles. I have been wanting a 16 bore muzzle loading stalking rifle to hunt elk with but other things have kept me from getting it built. Enjoy your treasure.

Yes, that is a beautiful rifle. One thing I find interesting is that it is one of the early rifle actions which very much resemble the Greener GP shotgun, which quite a few people have rebuilt into rifles. It would be interesting to know if it has the standard Martini-Henry 1in. barrel threads and breechblock width, or the wider ones of the GP. Am I right in thinking it doesn't have the GP split-receiver ring takedown system? If you are lucky it might have a groove diameter suitable for currently common .458 bullets, and concentric or Metford form rifling. But most likely it is Martini-Henry style, a seven-sided polygon with ridges in each apex. It will catch fouling a little more, but you can't have everything.

It wouldn't take knowing the retailer to suggest that this was a rifle for the South African trade. The leaf plus ladder sight was common there, and there was a tendency to go for rifles much like a single-barrelled match rifle, rather than the doubles that found favour in East Africa and India. It is, typical for that market, plain but not cheap. For that long textured rib is the first thing they would have saved on.

The muzzle-loader style cleaning rod makes a lot of sense, for it permits clearing a barrel accidentally jammed with earth. It was difficult to keep horses healthy in the fly belts further north, but mmost South African hunting was done on horseback, and that was the best way to keep a cleaning-rod safe. It looks like that steel jag would unscrew, to be replaced with brushes. If there is a butt-trap you might even find some. Parker-Hale cleaning rods (though they may have changed during their various corporate vicissitudes) used to have the thread inherited from the muzzle-loading Enfield, before Mr. Whitworth invented standardization of screws. I have seen this quoted as a .283in by 26tpi male thread on the rod, but I believe 26⅔ is the truth. There are brass adapters on the market, but they may all go in the direction PH rod to brushes etc. made by boring old normals.

The Beech sight is very much in keeping. I have one on a derelict Ballard barrelled action, which has remained unrestored since I found it dated from the pre-Marlin Ballard malleable-cast days. Yours wouldn't be the best way round if it was of steel, with worn bluing. But in brass it should give nicely reflected sky-light against a dark target - and is this a rifle to shoot at nothing but black and white paper for evermore?

Some people have reported poor brass life with the Magtech cases and full power BP loads. You might do better if some sort of fibre, epoxy or silicon base cup could be placed inside. I don't know th at I would fancy that for a Snider or 24ga shotgun (I've got mine!), as they might come out and become a bore obstruction. These don't need it as much anyway. But if put in before necking to .450 it should be safe. The cartridge should be at least as effective on lqrge game as any of the civilian black powder express rounds, and probably more so. Slow rifling and extremely hollow bullets to get up to about 1900ft./sec. were a snare and a delusion.

As usual with guns like this, you wonder where they have been, what they have seen.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...ps44bbefc1.jpg

Ah yes, those are very useful pictures to have. I might be wrong, but it looked to me as if the rebated top of the pistol grip socket on your rifle was a shade lower, while the drawings look a little more like the MkIV military Martini. As I doubt if production of those, revised from the newly designed .402 to .577/.450, was rather superseded by the Lee-Metford, I imagine a lot of spare receiver forgings or unused tooling lying around. Still, if a change took place it is no more than a small-volume carmaker taking to a different engine or different gearbox for the same models.

The safety is probably Hollis or their contractor's own addition, which wouldn't be too difficult to do. It is a sear safety, acting on the tumbler, and much better than the trigger safety sometimes seen.

Front sights very much like yours, and the screw-adjustable one shown with the Hollis target rifle, are available (at a price) from Track of the Wolf. For a sporting rifle it would be very vulnerable, though, and I believe I would make my own, with better protected screws, from the one in the second URL below.



https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/875/1


https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categ...875/2/FS-SWISS

Nice rifle ,I like the Beech sight .The rear sights are commonly known as cape sights ,Ive seen them on sxs cape guns and paradox guns .They were common on the BSA sporting rifles ,wrongly named " Lee Speed " they are BSA sporting rifles with the LeeSpeed patents.
My BSA pattern 4 sporting rifle has them ,but with one standing and two folding
( 100 ,200 and 300 yds ) leaves ,and the ladder sight graduated to 1000 yds.
Kev

I know WW Greener wrote that there was no use in a dealer (he meant other dealers) trying to palm off inferior products on the South African market, which was too discerning for that, but Americans would buy anything. Still, he was probably talking mostly about shotguns, where his definition of quality was higher and more expensive than it took to get the job done for a generation or two.

Quote:

---

I had a Beech sight that I took off a rolling block.

---

Gentemen, the front sight is a BEACH Combination ... http://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Ya...90527313/16#16

Don't feel badly if you spelled it wrong because after over 125 years ... even the vendors can't spell correctly!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by John Boy

Gentemen, the front sight is a BEACH Combination ... http://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Ya...90527313/16#16

Don't feel badly if you spelled it wrong because after over 125 years ... even the vendors can't spell correctly!

---

I realized I spelt it wrong after I posted , should have edited it , but I'm a son of a beach and don't give a rats a***.

Very cool rifle like the new sights.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BigEyeBob

I realized I spelt it wrong after I posted , should have edited it , but I'm a son of a beach and don't give a rats a***.

---

And I just do not know any better. Thank you for the info. I have seen it spelt both ways and never knew.