clear plastic inserts for hooded front sights

[tangsight]

I will be 71 tomorrow. Happy Birthday to me.

Unfortunately, my eyes will be about 100 tomorrow. You know, floaters blocking my view, ten diopters of correction, yadda yadda...So I need every edge I can find.

Lyman sells plastic inserts (usually yellow, but I have an orange one as well) in their insert set for their Type 17 hooded front sight, and I wondered if anyone has ever worked with clear plastic inserts.

I have tried to contact Lyman online to see if they would sell a handful of inserts that they haven't died yellow yet, but so far they have not responded. Could be the holidays. My idea is to wallow out the hole so's I could see the silhouettes inside it, and give the hole a rim with a Sharpie (I would have a BIG diameter hole.). No supporting wires, just a black circle floating inside the globe, like the airgunners use. I'd pay retail. Can anyone direct me? Time, as you might suppose, is of the essence.

[country gent]

I have used them in NRA High power. On the clears use a countersink to open the hole up. This gives a wider band around the hole. I cut them out round and drilled the centered hole then sized with countersink. These worked good in the Tomkins and Redfield globes that used a screw in retention, also with these thickness wasn't an issue.

With the right size hole punch or gasket punch you could make your own from clear soda bottles. Punch out the blanks and drill the hole in center. bevel edge and if desired color it. Or another though might be a black dot in the center that firs inside the body

[Geezer in NH]

For my Olympic front sights I made my inserts from thin plexiglass. Sized for the tube drilled in the center with different sizes to fit the various black ring size of the NMLRA targets.

[Alstep]

Happy Birthday! I'm 78, so I know firsthand what you're experiencing.

I've never heard of anyone making plastic inserts for the Lyman. You might want to consider a Gehmann or Anschutz. They're pricey, but have a large assortment of inserts. Also the housing is bigger in diameter, so you see more around the target. They come in 18 & 22 mm diameter. The plastic aperture hole is countersunk, which shows up black when you look through it.

I have a Tiger front sight that I really like. Made in Canada. Comes with a nice assortment of plastic apertures. Very reasonably priced, but I got mine years ago at Perry. It would be my first choice.

I'm using a Gehmann rear sight that has a variable aperture, color filter, polarization filter, and variable diopter adjustments. Couldn't believe the difference in being able to see your sights & target. Really clears up your sight picture, everything in focus.

Contact Champion's Choice www.champchoice.com Good people to deal with and very knowledgeable, all competition shooters.

My problem now is arthritis preventing my being able to keep my head back far enough to look through the sights in the prone position. So my days of shooting highpower are over.

Good luck & Merry Christmas!


Just realized that I responded to a black powder cartridge rifle situation that is a very different situation regarding sighting equipment limitations from conventional smallbore & highpower. My apologies. A senior mental lapse.

[tangsight]

So you-all fabricated your own clear discs rather than use a disc that was ready made? And it sounds like it was pretty easy to do it that way.

Thickness is not an issue for me, so the thin plexiglass sounds good. What, about a millimeter?

I had intended to bevel/countersink the hole even if I had found discs that were pre-drilled. I was and remain pretty sure I will need as big a clear center as I can fashion. Thanks for the guidance. Any other suggestions?

[samari46]

Glad to hear that someone else besides me used the Tiger Eye globe front sight. Tried my hand at high power with a pre '64 model 70 match rifle and really enjoyed it. But had to work rotating shifts 24/7 so couldn't really meet most of the local match schedules. The mouse gun was starting to take off back then and couldn't swing the cost of the H-Bar and stuff to go along with it. Now too darn old and if I ever got in the prone position they'd need a fork lift to get me up. Frank

[Geezer in NH]

I made mine out of 1/8" plexi, cut out size larger in a hole saw with the smallest drill bit it would hold. I then turned them in my lathe to fit the front sight tube. It took a few attempts to get the right size hole for the target size, then countersunk a bit. The countersink gave a black ring to hold around the bull's black. I installed it into the sight countersink to the front or target.

Making my own was super cheap and I got the sizes I wanted, besides the sight company only offered yellow. I never saw a commercial insert that was clear and the right size hole or I would have bought them.