1851 Shooting High

[DCP]

I have a buddy that his 5 1/2 .36 cal 1851 shooting high.
He shooting 16gr BP with a round ball and it shooting 15 inch high at 20 yards

If shoots a conical that will help.

Any help will be appreciated.

[docone31]

Lower the rear sight.
Do it slow at the range.

[Cactus Farmer]

Being as the rear sight is in the hammer.......the only other choice is raise the front sight. I build a ramp front and fitted it over the original sight and JB Welded it to the barrel. Then it can be removed with no marks on the barrel by applying a heat gun to soften the JB Weld.I make mine a partdridge type and am quite pleased. Make it too tall and file it to the right height.
BTW, all these seem to shoot high but my 1862 pocket navy is spot on at 25 yds. Go figure.......

[Fly]

Everyone I have seen does the same.Like Docne31 said file the front sight shorter.
But like he said, little goes a long way.It is easyer to take off, but much harder to put back.

I know, I'm making a new sight as we talk.Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Fly:grin:

[DCP]

Everyone I have seen does the same.Like Docne31 said file the front sight shorter.
But like he said, little goes a long way.It is easyer to take off, but much harder to put back.

I know, I'm making a new sight as we talk.Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Fly:grin:

Docne31 said lower the rear sight. Maybe you don't need a new front sight

[fouronesix]

If your buddy's revolver is shooting too high, either raise the front sight or lower the rear sight to lower the POI. How much can the rear notch be lowered?? Even worse if you use a "level across the top" hold! The most practical is probably as Cactus Farmer suggested. If the gun is a beater repro it may not hurt a thing to cut off, file off or de-sweat the front sight (depending on how it's attached). Build a taller front sight and re-attach.

[bob208]

try incressing the powder charge. it will hit lower that way. conicals will hit higher. if it is still high you will have to raise the frnt sight.

[Shooter]

These guns were sighted for 50 yards.

[KCSO]

Dovetail in a silver blade front sight trimmed at the front and rear and this will bring it right up where it needs to be. In addition the dovetailed sight is then adjustable for windage. Use the shallow base silver blade from either Upper Missouri or Track.

[Hellgate]

I've had a plethoria of Navies. Here's what I have done on different guns:
--Ground the rear notch a little wider and deeper with a Dremel cutting disc. Makes a better sight picture.
--Ground the tip of the hammer off in order to "lower" the rear sight and then Dremeled the notch deeper & wider. Be careful that you don't grind off too much or the barrel will block the front sight as mentioned before. You can sight down the barrel and see what kind of clearance you have to start with. Some guns don't have any. A longer or shorter trigger may raise or lower the arc of the hammer and thus change the heigth of the hammer but I have not intentionally done that but noticed more hammer above the barrel line after swapping out a trigger for a shorter one once.
--Filed off the bead very flat and epoxied a taller shotgun bead onto it. You could also pull out the original bead and file the shank of the shotgun bead til it fits into the hole in the barrel and then use a speck of epoxy or hard Locktite to seat it permanently.
--Removed the front sight (lifted it out of the hole) and epoxied a cut off #4X3/4" brass flat head phillips wood screw (upside down). This fix made a nice tall bead/post that a little cold bluing "ages" nicely and it looks good if you don't goop too much epoxy onto the barrel. Cut, size, & shape the "bead" before you glue it on. The simplest fix I've found so far for Navies. See attached photo.
--Have a gunsmith dovetail a front sight but only if the gun shoots way off to one side (too far off to merely cut the rear notch over a little). If the front sight needs to be drifted way over to the side, you're gonna get the creeps looking at the sight picture. I carefully (as in gorilla) bent the barrel to the left on one gun to make it shoot to POA. Looks alot better than having a drifted sight hanging off the side of the barrel. A dovetail front sight is a likely sign that the gun doesn't shoot straight and is common on originals I've seen at gun shows.
You need to calculate the amount of correction needed before deciding whether a shotgun bead is enough or whether you need the shank of a brass bolt or inverted screw to gain heigth. With the #4 screw I got about .25" of bead and what I consider a pretty solid mount. The formula for sight correction that I use is this:
Correction (C) is to sight radius (S) as error (E) on the target is to the distance (D) to the target. All units in inches. i.e.
C/S=E/D solve for C C=SE/D
Fo example if the gun shoots 1 foot high at 25 yards you first measure the distance from the front sight to the rear sight. Let's say 10 inches (really around 10.5).
25 yards=12 (inches) X3 (per foot) X25 yards=900 inches. So, the total correction of either or both sight is:
C=10X12/900=.13 inch That means .13 inches of correction to what you already have on the gun.
So, you can take a little off the back or ad a little to the front or do a whole lot to one end to "adjust" the sights on that Navy.

[repawn]

I was too lazy with my 1851 to modify the sights so I moved back until it was hitting where I was aiming. Incidentally that was 55 yards.