Attaching Leatherwood Hi-Lux William Malcolm Short Rifle Scope to a 1874 Sharps

[highwalljim]

Does anyone have any experience with a Leatherwood Hi-Lux William Malcolm Short Rifle Scope? I'm thinking about buying one for my 1874 Sharps Pedersoli. Any information would be greatly appreciated, good or bad.

[oldracer]

I have one on a Sharps but it is the long one. It uses the front and rear dove tails to mount a base and then the adjustment part is screwed to that. I used a laser bore sight to get things close and I only needed a few shots to get right on the bull at 100 yds. I did find the marks for windage and height were pretty much useless, at least for me. I filed small notches in the top of the adjusting knob and count how many times I turn the notches when going to 200 or 300 yds. It is very repeatable I found and it gathers a lot of attention at the range.

If it were a short one I imagine a new dove tail would need to be cut for the front mount but that can be done easily by a good gunsmith.

[highwalljim]

Thank you for the reply, the scope that I'm looking to buy is a 32 inch all brass four power sold by Navy Arms. It is labeled a muzzle loader scope. A friend of mine has bought it new and has never mounted it. He wants $200 for it, which I think is not bad. However I will have to buy the mount and hardware for it. I'm really not sure what it's going to take to get the mounting hardware, I've found the Unertl type mounts. However they are very expensive the standard leatherwood mounts are reasonable however I've heard both good and bad about them. I would like to know your opinion, and it would be much appreciated.

[bplvr]

Thank you for the reply, the scope that I'm looking to buy is a 32 inch all brass four power sold by Navy Arms. It is labeled a muzzle loader scope. A friend of mine has bought it new and has never mounted it. He wants $200 for it, which I think is not bad. However I will have to buy the mount and hardware for it. I'm really not sure what it's going to take to get the mounting hardware, I've found the Unertl type mounts. However they are very expensive the standard leatherwood mounts are reasonable however I've heard both good and bad about them. I would like to know your opinion, and it would be much appreciated.
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The Hi-Lux Malcolm scopes are about $400.00 and are easy to mount ,however you may need a bigger front dovetail wedge. They come with a 3/8 " wedge and my Pedersoli is 1/2". {The wedge is about $5.00}

The Navy arms will require drilling mount holes in the receiver and are a pain to get tuned in. I sold mine and got the Hi-Lux and added the fine adjusting option .

[Don McDowell]

Does anyone have any experience with a Leatherwood Hi-Lux William Malcolm Short Rifle Scope? I'm thinking about buying one for my 1874 Sharps Pedersoli. Any information would be greatly appreciated, good or bad.

Yes I have a Leatherwood short scope 6x, the mounts that come with it are junk. The Unertl rings available from DZ are impeccable quality.The scope itself has pretty decent optics.
However by the time you get all thru with that set up you can have a MVA Winchester B5 scope.

[highwalljim]

Thanks for all the info. The MVA would be great but its out of my price range, and I have heard nothing good about the leatherwood-Hi-Lux mounts so I think the iron sights will have to do for now.

[Don McDowell]

There's no difference between the MVA Winchester scope, and the short leatherwood in the Dz mounts from BACO in the price dept. Both are about 650$. Shiloh shows the Winchester scope on their web catalog.
All things considered those short scopes aren't all that much more$ than putting a good Leupold and talley mounts on a bolt gun....

[Jon K]

+1 ...what Don said, you can spend as much or more on that Leatherwood vs MVA B-5.

Although, pricey...I think the MVA long scopes will do more, with more options.

Jon

[bigted]

don...have been on the shiloh web cataloge several times drooling and figuring but never have i seen the MVA winchester scopes detailed there.

[kokomokid]

If I was putting a scope on I would talk to Dan Zimmerman at DZ arms. Some mount and scope length combos just dont work.

[Don McDowell]

Ted those MVA scopes are on page 18 of the paper catalog..

It's not the length of the scope that matters or the mounts, it's the spacing between the mounts that can cause problems or not. But there is a chart on DZ's webpage that details the different spacings with his mounts and 18 inch scopes and how much windage and elevation is attainable.