new and need ideas

[tubb_ooh_lard]

ok i'll try to keep this simple i just bought shiloh sharps business rifle with buck horn sights and i need some sugestions on sights for the rifle why anyone would want the buckhorns for anything other than hunting i dont know ..and try to keep in mind that ive pretty much broke the bank buying the rifle and while i am a long ways away from shooting 1000k i'd like a long range sight both front and rear that maybe has a compromise between quality and price .. unless someone has extra's and wants to feel sorry for me ha ha ok and i'd like to get ideas on bullet wieghts and molds and dies and please dont get to mad when i say that i will probly start shooting with smokless or maybe a duplex load for ease and enjoyment untill i get a little more expearience thanks oh **** im dumb .. its chambered for 45/70

[RMulhern]

Buying a 'cheap' sight for a good Shiloh is akin to putting a washing machine motor in a Lamborghini!!

[bubba.50]

practice up on your loading and fool around with different boolits until you work your way up to a good black powder load that your rifle likes and that you can shoot well with the buckhorn sight. while you're doing this take notes from the advise you will receive here and study catalogs as you're saving the money to buy a good set of sights. you'll be much happier in the long run. my opinion and worth what you paid for it. good luck and good shootin' neighbor, bubba.

[NickSS]

Sight are like women there are good ones and bad ones. The bad ones are cheap and they will not satisfy you for long. There are some relatively inexpensive sights that are good and I will give you a couple of suggestions that are $50 to $150 cheaper than nave brand sights but will serve you well. First is the Deluxe sights sold by C. Sharps. I have six of these and they have worked well for over 20 years for me. Next is the sights that Buffalo Arms sells made in the Ukraine. These are surprisingly good for the price. Next is the deluxe soule sight made by Lee Shaver I have one of them and it is a good quality sight for the price, Shaver also makes a Soule sight out of the cheap Italian junk sights you can buy for under $100. He makes it into what he calls his economy Soule sight. I had one and it worked much better than the original unworked sight does. These can all be bought for between $175 and $350 and except for the C. Sharps sight Buffalo Arms sells them all. For front sights the best deal in the Lee Shaver globe sight with level that Buffalo Arms sells as well. They cost like $85. Now if you want to go cheaper you can get a Lyman 17a globe of like $30 but these all have 3/8 inch dove tails but you can fit them to your shiloh by making a shim from a nail to take up the extra space in the dove tail. I did this on one of my C. Sharps 1875 rifles and it works fine. I just ground the nail down on my bench grinder until it was the height of the dove tail and slightly tappered. I positioned the sight in place, slide the nail in between the barrels femail dovetail and the sights male dovetail gave the nail a couple of raps with a hammer to lock it in place and then broke the nail off (the grinding made it brittle). This sight has been on that rifle for two years and has not moved or gotten loose.

[JSnover]

What those guys said. The Bargain Basement sights belong in the basement. Practice your shooting skills, develop your load. Save your money. I'd start with a Shaver Soule with a Hadley eye cup and a front globe from BACO. If you find those aren't good enough, trade up.

[Lead pot]

I see this all the time at our local range.
You see a guy come on the range with a custom Arnold or Baer or what ever top end rifle and put a $34.00 scope on it and complain that it dont shoot.

Kurt

[Don McDowell]

While you're saving the 500-600$ it'll take to put decent sights on that rifle learn how to run it properly. It will shoot amazingly well with the irons that are on it, if you'll get this nonsense about them not shooting well out of your head.
Start with winchester brass , large rifle primers and Goex 2f,orCartridge powder or Shuetzen 2f. Find some 500 gr bullets sized .458-.459 lubed with a good blackpowder lube, and some .030 fiber wads.
Start your load at 65 grs of powder, the wad, and the bullet seated to the driving band.

[1874Sharps]

TubbOohLard,

First let me say congratulations on the purchase of a very fine rifle -- one that will give you much shooting pleasure for many years! Also, welcome to the forum. If you are like me, you will find yourself taking the Sharps out to the range much more frequently than your other rifles (I have to wonder if rifles get jealous). There is just something singularly enjoyable about shooting the Sharps.

I must agree with the gentlemen in the other posts on the advice concerning sights. You will find that a set of high quality sights will give you much more satifaction and alot less frustration than a set of cheap sights. A good set of sights will help you wring all the accuracy potential out of your rifle. I would enjoy the rifle with the buckhorn sights while you learn the ways of BPCR loading and shooting and save up for some top quality sights. I think you will find that this is the funnest rifle in your collection!

[405]

Same here, you will enjoy that rifle!

Now, you've dropped the big lunk-O-cash for the rifle.... prepare yourself to slow bleed some more cash for a while to get up to speed and learn the full potential of the gun. Start with the QUALITY dies, casting setup, bullet molds, sights etc. from the get-go. Not all at once of course, so set aside a "Sharps possibles" fund and add to the goodies as budget allows. Read and re-read all the Sharps/BPCR stuff available, scan the catalogs for the accessories. Get a copy of Mike Venturino's book "Shooting Buffalo Rifles.....". Don't believe everything you read on anonymous forums. Get a Buffalo Arms catalog (buffaloarms.com). Go slow- it can be frustrating in the beginning.... lots of frustration shows up on this forum :) These guns and this type reloading are not like out of the box Rem 700s that shoot MOA groups with factory ammo first time to the range.

[WARD O]

I also have a Shiloh 45-70 - mine is the Montana Roughrider. I started out with MVA sights and worked up some good shooting BP loads. Now I've gone back to the buckhorn with a cut down penny for the front sight. It shoots very good and I can hold them into less than 3" at 100 yards with the open sights. By flipping up the ladder I can instanly adjust for 150 or 200 yards. And yes it is set up for hunting. I was able to shoot better groups with the MVA sights but talk about suffering while hunting in anything but ideal conditions.

Before I got my Shiloh I had an Italian Armi Sport Sharps with factory tang and globe front sights. The rifle shot very well but the sight was not repeatable - you couldn't move it and come back to the same setting! I went this route before shelling out the money for the Shiloh.

Buy the best sight you can afford and be realistic about what you expect to use it for.... Dont sell the open sights short - they worked 100 years ago and they still work pretty good these days.

Ward

[Lead pot]

Nothing wrong with barrel sights on that Shiloh.
I took off the tang one year and had no problem staying on all of the steel at the Quigley shoot.
That Buff at 760? something just about takes the whole staff but it does good if the wind is not to stiff.

Kurt

[August]

O.P., you asked and answered your own questions which makes it difficult to say anything at this points. I'll share my small amount of knowledge, which has been hard won.

Every time I have to do "some business" with one of my long range rifles, it's in some field somewhere, or some range somewhere that I've never seen before. Light is different. Distances to targets are sketchy, or outright untruths. Wind is from some direction I'm not familiar with, and it swirls around in some way that only the local boys know about -- and they're not tellin'.

So, the last thing I can afford under these circumstances is sights that are not repeatable or loads that are not consistent. Getting consistent black powder loads takes a lot of time. Getting sight settings for all the possible, cockamamie places the home boys will set targets takes a lot of time. Getting a buddy to spot for you as you do all this take a lot of doing. The last thing I can afford is crappy sights or inconsistent loads.

Now, to start developing loads and sight settings with equipment that you don't intend to continue using will cause unbelievable amounts of frustration. You don't have the time for that. Really, you don't.

Play with the rifle for a couple of months. Get some good sights ASAP. Get some Goex Cartridge or Swiss 1.5 ASAP. Get a notebook ASAP. Start cajoling someone to spot for you ASAP.

You cannot achieve the potential of that rifle any other way.

Sorry.

[405]

August, I liked the rant, there's a lot of truth in it!

[tubb_ooh_lard]

well thanks everyone for the input i guess i should have been a little more specific an mentioned that my whole idea with finding a compromise with the sights was so i could go out and have fun with the rifle while i was learning what i would and wouldnt want .. id much rather throw away a 350 doller set of sights that i can afford now then to save the 7 or 8 hundred an still not have what i want but thank you all for the input

[Crash_Corrigan]

I just spent $1,295.01 for a Winchester LTD Creedmoor BPCR in 50-90. Then I spent $485 for a set of rear Kelly Soule Sights from Buffalo Arms and another $185 for the matching front sights and another 20 bucks for the Lyman 17A inserts.

They are finished as case hardened and all the estuchions are Bronze. It is a quality piece of machinery and beautiful to behold. The Case Hardened finish and Bronze looks great on a fine rifle with a Case Hardened finish on the receiver and and Badger barrel. It has a Hadley eyecup and it moves up and down the sight with caliper type precision. The trigger was adjusted to give me a glass type break at 2 1/4 #.

Then I spent another $125 bucks on a good mold from BACO that makes a 695 GR Creedmoor boolit, some felt wads, 8 pounds of Swiss 1 1/2 powder, primers, blow tube, Ballistol, patches, jag tips and brushes etc. Not to mention 100 pounds of 40-1 alloy from Rotometals.

Yesterday I cast 300 of those monster boolits and today I started to pan lube them. The cases have aready been annealed. Tomorrow I will finish pan lubing and I will get the cases primed, charged, compressed and felt wads inserted.

Then will follow inserting the boolit and taking this monster to the range for fun.



Not mentioned was drop tube, canvas cartridge belt, loading blocks, dies, compression die and period western clothing to look good while shooting.

[wills]

http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/2,237.html

Former parts unknown sights, used to be marked on both sides of the stem (dont know if they still are) Availability sometimes a problem