Rem p14 sighting question

[c1skout]

My boy and I went to the gun club this afternoon. We brought along his p14 to shoot some (he wants to use it for deer this season) and couldn't hit the paper at 100 yds. We stood the ladder sight up for the 200 marking and can hit at 200yds (5" high and 6" left), but with the ladder down you need to aim about 2 ft low to hit at 100yds. Does that seem normal for these rifles? It looks like I could drift the front sight some for windage, but I can see no way to make it go lower. We are using a 6-o'clock hold and centering the top of the front sight in the peep. Any insight or help is appreciated.

[Mk42gunner]

Sounds to me like he needs a taller front sight, positioned slightly to the left of where the present one is, at least when the ladder is up.

I haven't had a P14 in .303, so I have no idea what range the battle sight is supposed to be set for. A wild guess says the battle sight should be on at about 250-300 yards, with 1914 era ball ammo. I have had a couple of M1917's in .30-06, and they weren't so far off that I missed the paper at one or two hundred yards.

The one bad thing about those rear sights is there is no windage adjustment. There are some high dollar Parker-Hale sights for them, if you can find them.

Robert

[Scharfschuetze]

Does that seem normal for these rifles?

Yes, it's normal for them. With the ladder down and protected by the protective ears on the receiver's bridge, you get the battlefield zero aperture which gives an elevation high enough to get the maximum grazing fire range of a rifle and its round. Your P14, the US 1917, the 1903 Springfield, the Austrian M95 and Germany's WWI Gewehr 98 all had battlefield sights zeroed close on 400 yards to take advantage of their flat trajectory. The intention here was to allow a soldier to aim center mass on a standing enemy soldier and not have his bullet rise above the the target or fall below him. As WWI developed and the pre-war doctrine of long range shooting died with the advent of trench warfare, armies found themselves shooting over their targets at closer ranges routinely with battlefield sights. Field Martial Erwin Rommel complained of the G 98's sight's short range problem in his book "Infantry Attacks" following WW I. All the rifles listed above with the exception of the WW I G 98 that Rommel used can be sighted for closer ranges (usually about 200 yards or meters) by raising their rear sight and adjusting it down to its minimum range. Germany corrected the issue prior to WWII with the Kar 98's rear sight which can be lowered to a closer range. The British SMLE's sight didn't have a separate battlefield sight, so it never really had this issue.

With your P14 you should be able to get a useful zero with the ladder up and the aperture all the way down. You can drift your front sight left or right to zero the rifle's deflection. Remember that when you are zeroing with the front sight, the movement of the sight is opposite of the direction that you want your zero to go.

With cast boolits at about 1,900 fps, I often find the battlefield sight to be about right for closer ranges with my military rifles of the early 20th century.

[Mr Peabody]

I use a P14 too. You can measure the front sight well enough with it in place to find out how tall it is from the bottom of the base to the top of the blade. The sight I'm using now is .255 overall and my rifle prints about 5 inches high at 100 yards. That's using 174gr Sierra MK's at 2450 fps and the battle peep. Numrich sells front sights cheap.

[Multigunner]

"We stood the ladder sight up for the 200 marking and can hit at 200yds (5" high and 6" left), "
If you are using Mk8z machinegun ammunition or the equivalent Kynoch/Kynamco long range target ammo these usually have muzzle velocity more than 100 FPS higher than the standard Mk7 Ball ammunition. This could add several inches to the difference between POA and POI.
Most military sights are intended for a 6 o'clock hold so I always find how high the print above POA and draw my own bullseyes with that figure as the radius. Then a 6 0'clock hold puts the bullet dead center.

I'd try the rifle with ammo known to have the same velocity and trajectory as the Mk7 Ball first, if it prints properly with that load rather than alter the front sight I'd just hold under with higher velocity ammo.

[303Guy]

c1skoutt didn't mention what ammo he was using. I have no experience with the P14, let alone with different loads. I've seen an SMLE shoot to the same POI with different ammo, including my own hand loads. That amazed me. My own LE changed POI with different loads.

[c1skout]

Thanks for all the input. Sorry I didn't mention we were using new prvi soft point ammo to get some brass. I'll try numrich for a taller front sight, hopefully we can get the battle sight close enough that he won't have to raise the ladder for hunting. My boy wants to get a mold so we can cast for it so I'll try that first, might be that's all it needs!