Maybe you should never get a borescope...

[MOC031]

A warning...

So for the first time in 60 years of shooting and about 55 of reloading, and about 50 years of competitive shooting I suddenly spent a LOT of time peering down a bore scope, doing QC/QA of freshly drilled, reamed, and button rifled barrel blanks. Hundreds of barrels. But hundreds of never fired barrels.

Eventually, a bore scope went home with me. I looked down the barrels of my regularly fired hunting rifles of the jacketed bullet persuasion from 1960's Husqvarnas to early 1970's Sakos and smiled with satisfaction. Beautiful bores, even after 4+ decades of being dragged around hunting bighorn sheep, elk, deer, etc. in all kinds of weather.

Then I turned to my two prized cast bullet/sometimes jacketed rifles: my grandfather's 1895 Winchester in 30 US, manufactured in August 1898. And my 1950 95L series Long Branch Lee Enfield - a rifle hand picked out of 20 rifles in a shipment after all were put through a ten round grouping test at 300 yards with a no-gunsmithing scope mount with a 24x scope. After the group test, the bore was cleaned and then given a primo hand lapping job. I haven't fired another jacketed round in the rifle since then; just cast bullets out of a custom mould Ken Mollohan helped me design. I couldn't ask for better accuracy out of that surplus military rifle with cast bullet loads.

The 1895 gave mediocre accuracy at best with jacketed bullets. After a cerrosafe cast showed me the bore was now more .303" rather than .300" as one would expect a 30 caliber to be, an Accurate mould ordered for the .303 British Lee Enfield proved to be the ticket. The WFN design produced groups that left me with a grin on my face and the rifle went back in the rotation for nostalgia hunts in the thickets where my grandfather used to take me hunting elk when I was a kid.

Then the bore scope was deployed to examine my prizes...

Looking down the bore of the 1895 Winchester, it LOOKS like there is SOME semblance of lands and grooves down there.

I think.

Maybe in spots.

I spent hours furiously cleaning the bore again, thinking I must have badly fouled the bore with my cast lead bullets. Or maybe there is possibly some other kind of fouling in the barrel from the early jacketed ammunition circa the early 1900's that doesn't allow me to clearly see the lands and grooves. Hours later, back to the bore scope. No change.

There must be little pixies hiding in the bore that come out to spin the bullet as it goes past, each time I pull the trigger.

Then a look down that carefully selected and then carefully lapped Lee Enfield barrel - and there it is...

...copper fouling gleaming back at the borescope from the bottom of those carefully hand lapped grooves.

A full day of hand lapping, casting lap after lap, to the point where the lap felt identical moving from one end to the other of the barrel... and it didn't remove the copper fouling from those original ten rounds to test grouping. No lead fouling mind you - but there's copper in there staring back at me.

Now I can't get those two bores and what I saw in them out of my mind... Can't just be happy with how well they shoot, nosireee, can't have that!

Boys, stay away from bore scopes. They will put a fever in your mind!

...I wonder if the Lee Enfield will group even better if I can just get that last bit of copper fouling out... maybe a liner for the ol' 30/40...

[GregLaROCHE]

That’s like an old engine that runs fine. You don’t want to take a look inside, unless you are ready to do a complete overhaul. Given that the rifle shoots well, you don’t want to get involved with a lot of chemical and physical work on it, that may also remove metal you don’t want to. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

[ATCDoktor]

What your saying is absolutely true.

A borescope will break a shooters heart quicker than any other piece of kit they can buy.

I have a boatload of older rifles that run back more than 120 years in age that all shoot fairly well (some of them quite excellent) and imagine my horror when I ran a borescope down their bores (for the first time) and saw what could be collectively called “100 miles of bad road” between them all.

That’s when I learned that a barrel with pits, corrosion and minimal rifling can and will shoot quite well with a proper fitting bullet.

Nowadays I don’t really concern myself with the condition of a bore reference the use of a borescope.

I only use the borescope to check for barrel cleanliness and gross damage resulting in an unsafe barrel.

Based on what I’ve seen with my borescope, a person could drive themselves crazy with worry reference bore condition with one of these things.

My Browning repro Model 1895 chambered in 30/06 with pristine bore shooting 1950’s era surplus ammo. It is an extremely accurate rifle.

5 shots at 100 yards
https://i.postimg.cc/wT90h0Kr/95-D26-C17-E2-CA-4-CD6-BCC0-7391-A57-D013-F.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Here’s my 100 year old 1920 vintage Winchester Model 1895 SRC chambered in 30/40 Krag. The bore is corroded and pitted throughout its length and it too is an extremely accurate rifle at 100 yards with factory 180grain ammo.

5 shots at 100 yards
https://i.postimg.cc/fWc8t1PX/6AB6721C-AAFF-42CB-A8C7-DD5AA50DDB34.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

This Winchester Model 94 that dates to 1898.

It has no discernible rifling in its barrel; there is a visible “spiral” when viewed from the muzzle but my borescope shows no lands and grooves. Just a moonscape of craters and pits with high spots in it where the bullet “rubs” on its journey towards the muzzle.

5 shots at 100 yards
https://i.postimg.cc/C5xnKZtc/A1508257-1CB4-4863-B03B-42B2B497A49B.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

It too is quite an accurate rifle.

[ukrifleman]

No doubt about it, bore scopes will invariably show you things you don't want to see!

ukrifleman

[RKJ]

I found the same thing with a Chronograph. Not a rifle but a bow. A local shop had a Chrono set up and I had a very nice bow that while I knew it wasn't super fast it shot good and accurate and was everything I'd want. I took that bow up to the shop and shot it over the Chrono and it was about 75 FPS slower than I thought it was, that ruined that bow for me. I don't think I've shot it since. I want to get one but I'm leery of what I might find. I sure don't want to run a bore-scope down any of my guns, I'd probably never shoot again.

[sharps4590]

Heck, just looking through some of my rifle barrels at a reasonably bright is disconcerting. I darn sure don't want no stinkin' bore scope makin' it worse than I already know it is!!!

[redneck1]

I have a .41 swiss vetterli with a bore that would probably give you nightmares if you put a bore scope down the pipe .

I won't say it shoots great , but itll keep em all inside a pie plate @ 100 yards easy enough.

On the other hand , I have a rolling block with what looks like a pretty decent shiny bore that won't keep minute of barn side @ 25 yards .
It would be kinda nice to take a look and see what's up with it a bit better

[barrabruce]

I’m too scared to think what even a shiny new rifle blank would look like.
I have contemplated buying one to look down the bores of guns I might buy.
I could save heaps of money after a peak..

I would not clean the copper out unless you think it will shoot better.

I just cleaned up one of my rifles crown and shot some copper through it as it seamed to loose form and I was blaming a burr.
Cleaned that out with some smelly stuff and it took fifteen bullets to start shooting again.
Better that is.
I would hate to see what it is really like.
I don’t think it would be pretty.
One day I’m gunna buy me a brand new spanking gun.

[MOC031]

Yeah... I called my gunsmith buddy/fishing buddy/hunting buddy/shooting buddy Bill for a morning chat. He laughed and said "just get used to it". He's had a borescope for years; I never thought to ask to borrow it to have a squint down my barrels.

I wasn't even this disappointed back when I got my first chronograph. But that became a pretty useful tool after I got over the difference between what I thought I was getting versus what the chronograph told me I was getting. For one thing, I stopped trying to chase that last few feet of velocity until the groups started to fall apart.

AND, after my brother the bow guru who always told me there was no point at having my Oneida set at 84 lbs (just because back then I was pretty skookum and could draw that weight sitting on my butt on the ground) unless I wanted more vibration and noise, I started shooting arrows over the chronograph as I turned the bow weight down. It wasn't until I got down to 71 lbs that I saw a meaningful decrease in arrow velocity. Never turned the bow up again (of course, I doubt I could draw 85 lbs a few decades later, now that I'm one of them there senior citizens).

If nothing else - now that I've looked at everything I own half a dozen times - I guess the borescope can tell me when the bores are clean enough during a cleaning session and I can quit doing that.

Maybe I'll just spread the angst, worry, and despair around a little among my friends!

Just drop around to have a beer with them and say "Hey, I have my borescope in the Dodge - want to have a look inside your gun barrels?"

Better hit them all within a few days however... they're bound to start talking to each other after what they see.

[waksupi]

I've examined a lot of barrels with borescopes. There is a big variation between different companies products.

Something comforting for cast bullet shooters, if you see a barrel with the throat washed out, they generally shoot cast very well.

[MOC031]

I’m too scared to think what even a shiny new rifle blank would look like.

I learned pretty fast that you can see pretty quickly if the reamer run through the barrel after the bore was drilled was at the end of it's life. Or alternately, the barrel/reamer weren't set up properly before the reaming operation was began. The tool marks become really evident. Which then leads to more lapping at the end of the barrel making process to remove reamer marks - without having to lap so much that you then end up with a barrel that over pins. Scrap. Or put aside to be re-drilled/reamed/rifled at a larger caliber.

Here's a dirty little secret that floored me: many barrel manufacturers final lap with... a tuft of medium steel wool, wound around a brass bore brush. And here we are, cleaning our bores for decades with brass wool, brass chore boys, brass Lewis Lead Remover screens... worried about damaging the bores of our rifles.

One thing that intrigued me about the Long Branch Lee Enfield's bore. There are very fine series of five or six perpendicular tool marks that regularly appear across the bottom of the grooves. I'd expect tool marks to be parallel with the groove they're found in. I've learned that with the magnification involved, you really don't have much of a sense of depth perception i.e. how deep those striations are. They don't collect lead and they don't collect copper from my examination of the bore, they're just there. And this rifle delivers exceptional accuracy for a milsurp with either the Sierra or Hornady 174 grainers or my cast bullets. They're just there.

I've wondered since seeing that how Long Branch rifled their barrels that would lead to those marks - are they very fine chatter marks from a cut rifling process? I think I'll head over to the Milsurps website/forum and ask the Long Branch gurus over there what they know about how the rifling was cut.

Too bad I don't have the camera attachment that works with this borescope to take a picture of the marks... What am I thinking! Don't go there!

[MOC031]

I've examined a lot of barrels with borescopes. There is a big variation between different companies products.

All of the barrel eyeballing I described was at the barrel shop for Montana Rifle Company after they pooped the bed back in early March, through to the end of September. You and I don't live too far apart. When I first walked in there about ten days after they disconnected the phones and locked the doors, it looked like everybody went home for the weekend Friday afternoon and just forgot to come back to work the next Monday.

Going through the hot mess that they left behind was almost like "Here's how you take a gold mine and turn it into a garbage dump". There's a big difference between "You don't necessarily want to see how the sausage is made" and "Do you want sausage that was made like this"?

The gun drills and reamers, the CNC machines, etc., the employees were told "Run 'er till she breaks"... about zero maintenance. The reamers COULDN'T do proper reaming because the tables and ways were so abused and worn that you could watch them jump around as the guys reamed barrels. Which lead to an inordinate amount of time being spent to first continually doing adjustments and setups while working through a shipment of barrels to get the best reaming possible. Followed by a lot of time being spent lapping reamer marks out of the barrels (without getting to the point of over pinning) before they were up to standard for shipping.

Receiver castings received, supposedly ready to be loaded into the fixtures on the CNC tombstones, were bent like bananas due to core slump. Instead of sending them back to their contractor who did the casting, they bought a 40 ton hydraulic press, told their employees to bend them back to being straight so they could be used. They did have a fixture mounted with about a half dozen dial indicators to help them bend the receivers into being straight. Not sure if Dave Kiff made it for them, or if it was made in house by the head machinist. There was no milling machine in their shop when I got there. THEN had to ship the bent into shape receivers back east for re-heat treating and annealing. Then the supposedly straight receivers were loaded into the CNC machines for finishing as receivers.

The now finished receivers didn't always blue uniformly after being re-heat treated and re-annealed.

You could write a book about how they ran, at least the last year or two. It was ugly. MRC ran through about a 1000 employees over the last ten years. At the maximum, during the short period of Remington ownership, they had about 190 max distributed over all the shifts. Most of the time it was much less than that. When you go through an average of a 100 employees a year in a company that size, you're doing something wrong.

Their barrels apparently had a reputation for fine accuracy, however... Never owned one of their rifles; and I'll certainly never buy one now.

[Petander]

Got a used Lyman Borecam off Ebay last week.

All my barrels, chambers and cylinders are ruined now.

EDIT:

Here is a -95 S&W m66 cylinder throat, I thought it would have been smooth by now.

https://i.postimg.cc/sD2RFfg3/IMG110101-000344-F.jpg

[ioon44]

Me too, I need to rebarrel everything I own.

[Hickok]

Exactly right. I always knew if I got a borescope, I would fret myself crazy.:veryconfu

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I have a Lyman borescope. I am constantly amazed at how well some barrels shoot after I have looked at them inside. All kinds of roughness, toolmarks, tears in the grooves, pits in many, almost all bought used... now I just check how well I have cleaned, ignore the barrel pictures and look at the targets produced. For the really rough ones, I can check on fire polishing progress along with pushing a tight patch or lead slug through.

[Petander]

I have a Lyman borescope. I am constantly amazed at how well some barrels shoot after I have looked at them inside. All kinds of roughness, toolmarks, tears in the grooves, pits in many, almost all bought used... now I just check how well I have cleaned, ignore the barrel pictures and look at the targets produced. For the really rough ones, I can check on fire polishing progress along with pushing a tight patch or lead slug through.

This is how it should be.

A cleaning aid,especially useful if you're fiddling with coatings. Takes some guesswork out... I just baked a barrel with badly cured bullets last week...

[Gtek]

Victim here of a purchase, they do alter ones mind. Lines going this way and lines going that way, gouges in the lands, the dried lake bottom look in the throats of old barrel burners. And I did this to myself!

[waksupi]

All of the barrel eyeballing I described was at the barrel shop for Montana Rifle Company after they pooped the bed back in early March, through to the end of September. You and I don't live too far apart. When I first walked in there about ten days after they disconnected the phones and locked the doors, it looked like everybody went home for the weekend Friday afternoon and just forgot to come back to work the next Monday.

Going through the hot mess that they left behind was almost like "Here's how you take a gold mine and turn it into a garbage dump". There's a big difference between "You don't necessarily want to see how the sausage is made" and "Do you want sausage that was made like this"?

The gun drills and reamers, the CNC machines, etc., the employees were told "Run 'er till she breaks"... about zero maintenance. The reamers COULDN'T do proper reaming because the tables and ways were so abused and worn that you could watch them jump around as the guys reamed barrels. Which lead to an inordinate amount of time being spent to first continually doing adjustments and setups while working through a shipment of barrels to get the best reaming possible. Followed by a lot of time being spent lapping reamer marks out of the barrels (without getting to the point of over pinning) before they were up to standard for shipping.

Receiver castings received, supposedly ready to be loaded into the fixtures on the CNC tombstones, were bent like bananas due to core slump. Instead of sending them back to their contractor who did the casting, they bought a 40 ton hydraulic press, told their employees to bend them back to being straight so they could be used. They did have a fixture mounted with about a half dozen dial indicators to help them bend the receivers into being straight. Not sure if Dave Kiff made it for them, or if it was made in house by the head machinist. There was no milling machine in their shop when I got there. THEN had to ship the bent into shape receivers back east for re-heat treating and annealing. Then the supposedly straight receivers were loaded into the CNC machines for finishing as receivers.

The now finished receivers didn't always blue uniformly after being re-heat treated and re-annealed.

You could write a book about how they ran, at least the last year or two. It was ugly. MRC ran through about a 1000 employees over the last ten years. At the maximum, during the short period of Remington ownership, they had about 190 max distributed over all the shifts. Most of the time it was much less than that. When you go through an average of a 100 employees a year in a company that size, you're doing something wrong.

Their barrels apparently had a reputation for fine accuracy, however... Never owned one of their rifles; and I'll certainly never buy one now.

Yep, it turned into a real train wreck. Twenty years ago, they had some of the best barrels on the market. Then Brian started hiring X-cons and other dregs to work in there. Things went downhill after that. I worked across the lot at the rifle facility for awhile, was never so happy in my life to get laid off from a job. If Brian was as bad as Jeff at management, I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

[Rick B]

Good friend had a borescope. Roughly 12 years ago I took a NRA Match Rifle over to his shop to inspect the throat. Rifle at the time had 2000 rounds down the bore. Early load testing and later match scores, indicated it was an extremely accurate barrel. We set the barreled action on top of his safe and he inserted the bore scope. I recall him commenting on the throat, he stated it had a little wear, But a lot of life yet: He slid the borescope in full length and burst out laughing. In the middle of this 26" barrel was a 1" section of rifling, where the button had skidded. Rifling in this 1" area was straight ahead, no twist. How this barrel managed to shoot the groups and scores it produced, totally baffled me. Lost all faith in the barrel, never shot it again.

Barrel was from a major button rifle manufacturer. Thread and chambering by a noted High Power Riflesmith.

Never bought a bore scope!
Never bore scoped another barrel!
Rick

[Winger Ed.]

When presented with something he didn't really want to hear, or a question he didn't want to answer,
my Dad would say, "I don't know, and I don't want to know"......... and he meant it.

That's how I am with a few things. Borescopes among them.

[Petander]

In the middle of this 26" barrel was a 1" section of rifling, where the button had skidded. Rifling in this 1" area was straight ahead, no twist. How this barrel managed to shoot the groups and scores it produced, totally baffled me. Lost all faith in the barrel, never shot it again.



I have a 9 mm pistol that I rarely shoot because I once slugged the barrel and decided to drill a through hole in the slug while the slug was in the barrel. Well, I also scratched the barrel chrome lining big time. No need for a borescope to see that...

I found no problems in accuracy, it still shoots well 1" / 25 m / factory Magtech... But KNOWING about the damage took my faith away, making me shoot bad. The perfectly fine shooting barrel IS ruined in my mind.

I'll post some borescope pics tomorrow.

[303Guy]

I should probably not put a borescope down this bore.
https://i.postimg.cc/Y05h9fdJ/TWO-GROOVE_BORE_003.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I already know what it looks like. It's one of my most accurate rifles. 1942 Longbranch #4. Not so great with cast though which is no surprise really.

On the other hand, this bore does shoot paper patch.
https://i.postimg.cc/YqZRKNnK/Rusted-303-bore-007.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Cast boolit fired through it
https://i.postimg.cc/cLHwZvyX/256gr_I_mold_AUTOSOL_001.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

The bore that fired this boolit is badly rust pitted. No bore scope required to see it.
https://i.postimg.cc/7YjsrXFg/MVC-307-F-2.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[MOC031]

I should probably not put a borescope down this bore.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y05h9fdJ/TWO-GROOVE_BORE_003.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I already know what it looks like. It's one of my most accurate rifles. 1942 Longbranch #4.

Hmmmmm.... that's strange, I don't see any pics in your post, and yet if I quote to reply, apparently there's a picture in there somewhere.

This isn't the only post where I see references to a picture that isn't visible. Weird...

271142

271143

[303Guy]

That is weird. Your quote of my post shows a photo.

[Petander]

https://i.postimg.cc/ZRkpFhj2/IMG110101-000700-F.jpg

[Petander]

In the middle of this 26" barrel was a 1" section of rifling, where the button had skidded. Rifling in this 1" area was straight ahead, no twist.

I've been wondering. How can the button "skid" like that?

[Rick B]

I have no idea. We were using a 17 Hawkeye Borescope with the 90 degree mirror and the maglite lighting source. I clearly remember the image of the interrupted rifling twist. The gunsmith who owned the scope and spotted it initially. Had a lot of experience viewing rifle bores. Someone with barrel making experience, specifically button rifling. Could possibly explain it.
Rick

[MOC031]

Someone with barrel making experience, specifically button rifling. Could possibly explain it.
RickWaksupi could probably provide a more mechanically based idea of how a rifling button could skid for a small portion of the barrel before twisting again for the remainder; I don't have his detail of knowledge of machine shop operations. But having watched dozens of barrels being rifled and did it enough myself so that I understood what the Barrel Shop Boys were doing, I'll take a shot at it.

The button rifling machines at the former Montana Rifle Company (by the time I walked in the door of the carcass they left behind) were made on site by some of their employees. One was made by the machinest/CNC genius the owner had enticed away from the aerospace industry around San Diego, who also built all the fixtures and wrote the code for making the MRC receiver and parts. He didn't last long, BTW; he told me he left when he started having daymares about dealing with the owners to go along with the nightmares. They needed him; but he didn't need them. Robert's now happily doing similar things, still around Kalispell. The original rifler, now mothballed, was built by Brian Sipe, the guy who started MRC (if I have the story right).

Those button riflers securely hold the drilled and reamed barrel blank. The button rifling rod is run through the barrel blank and secured in a holder. When the machine is started, the rifling button is pulled through the barrel, turning as it travels the length of the barrel. The twist rate is mechanically fixed, in the case of these machines, by the operator selecting which hole in the twist plate to bolt the rotating fixture to. I don't have any video; that would explain it better than I can with words.

All that said, because the twist rate is mechanically fixed, there's no electronic/hydraulic mechanism involved in setting and maintaining the twist rate... about all I can think of is something slipped.

Either the barrel was not quite clamped firmly enough in the fixture that secures it, and spun briefly in the fixture holding it due to forces from the rotating button, before getting to a point in the securing fixture where it was held in place again. Or... the same scenario happened with the fixture holding the button rifling rod... it briefly rotated in its securing fixture due to the forces of rotation before getting to a point where the fixture had it secured again.

It's not all that helpful, but the picture below is of one of the two riflers in the barrel shop. BTW, between these two rifling machines crafted on site and the 1930's Pratt & Whitney war surplus rifle drills and reamers, this shop was turning out 35,000+ barrels a month while Remington briefly owned it.

271218

[Petander]

Moco31,fascinating,thank you!

In my next life I'll be a machinist and start shooting at 3 years old.

[Adam20]

seeing pictures of Winchester 1895 makes me start searching aging to find one. I asked at local gun store, he laughed and i knew he would.
Always enjoy the pictures.

[MOC031]

seeing pictures of Winchester 1895 makes me start searching aging to find one.

But I didn't provide any pictures of the Model 95... But I can...

The bench was in turmoil during a bullet fitting/math challenge.

271257

271258

My grandpop, the original owner of the Model 95, about 1930 up the Elk River. That would make him about 50 at the time. Not much of a picture of the rifle.

271259

My father, back of the picture says Oct 1940, which would make him about 15 years old. As the country had been at war for about a year by then, I assume my grandfather and my dad shared the rifle back and forth. According to my grandmother's writing on the back of the picture, that was a six lb. trout dad is holding.

271260

[samari46]

i've peered,squinted and looked down close to 500 military surplus rifle barrels over the years. Never had a borescope. Did have one at work but wouldn't fit a rifle barrel. Instead used then to check the condition of the tubes in heat exchangers.We had a graph and if the tune didn't look good the next step was an air pressure test.If it wouldn't hold a specific amount of air for more than a minute its position was charted on the graph. Then you took out the whole bundle make up a big box and off to get retubed.Then the spare set would get assembled and when the old one came back it went to stores. Frank

[Rick B]

Thanks for your explanation, regarding the interrupted rifling twist.
Rick

[Rick B]

Moco31, Great pictures of your Grandfather and Father with the 1895 Winchester. Cherish that rifle. Owned several of them over the years. Two 405's, several 30 Army's. A 30-03 and a 35 WCF. The Lyman Model 21 and 38 sights really look good on those rifles.
Rick

[MOC031]

Moco31, Great pictures of your Grandfather and Father with the 1895 Winchester. Cherish that rifle.

Oh, I do. When I'm really serious about hunting elk and sheep, the 30 Newton or the 358 Norma Magnum head out with me, stoked with Barnes TTSX bullets. But after I've had enough of elk season (i.e. the season is over or else I've filled my tag), mostly I take the Model 95 and head into the thicker stuff chasing whitetails where 200 yards will probably be a long shot because of the crown closure in those areas. A good part of my time before the military I was shooting with aperture sights; about the front half of my 30 years in the military it was still aperture sights. And I still enjoy shooting with aperture sights versus optical sights.

So... aperture sights on an accurate rifle for hunting doesn't scare me. If it did, I'd remind myself that my Grandpop hunted his entire life without having a scope on a rifle, and he apparently didn't have a problem putting elk and mule deer in the cold storage locker. (I can remember when we had a locker in the cold storage facility instead of a deep freeze at home. You stopped on the way home to pick up the steaks, frozen fish, etc. for the next few days meals).


The Lyman Model 21 and 38 sights really look good on those rifles.


That's one of the clone aperture sights, not an original Lyman (sadly); my younger brothers gave it to me one Christmas. But, it does as expected. I wonder at how my Grandpop managed the factory sights on that Model 95 in that picture from back when he was about 50. Everybody's eyes are different of course. But I never had a problem pulling that razor blade thin factory front blade down into the tiny notch in the rear buckhorn sight - when I was about 20. When Dad died and the rifle passed down to me, I was 53. The first time I headed to the range with it out of memory of Dad and Grandpop, the first time I loaded it and came up into the aim, I realized "Hmmmm... we aren't in Kansas anymore". That's why my brothers bought me the rear aperture... they were sick of my whining I couldn't properly aim the rifle.

I tried wearing reading glasses at the range, etc. Nothing helps my pathetic eyesight these days. Eventually, after measuring sight radius, I realized the sight radius was close to what it was on my Lee Enfield that I've been shooting matches with lots of the time. So I figured a front sight the same thickness as the front sight on my 1950 Long Branch should look and work about the same on the Model 95. It does.

Anyways, that's how all the pieces come together.