For open sight shooters, rear sight side mount issues?

[logandiana]

I have a custom built Remington 40X action that I set up for 1000 yards. No competition, just family stuff.

I have tried several rear sights along the way both top mount and side mount. It seems that every side mount sight that I try never has enough room to make a reasonable zero center. It's like the redfield style side base is too thick.

In order to center the sight above the action I have to crank the windage way over. I can get it centered, its just that now I have very little room for actual windage adjustments on one side and a ton of room for windage on the other side.


Never seem to have this issue with the top mounted sights, but would prefer to use side mounts for the fore/aft adjustment and the ease of removal for storage/travel.

Anyone else experience the same?

 

[Park ranger]

Yep, not set up like yours but a Lipski base and Phoenix side Mount. I have like 7 moa of right left. Sucks

 

[Walt Krafft]

Center the rear site in its travel, then rotate the front sight on the barrel to get zero on the target. Your rear base looks normal to me. I will look and see if I have a thinner one.

 

[davidjoe]

Here is a picture of my side plate for comparison. This one is the same as my others on 40-X’s from various periods.

I think you are right that the side plate you are using is thicker than the standard width contemplated by sight manufacturers.

 

[Bill Rodolph]

I have milled mine down. Very simple and basic to do. The ones I have done were not hardened and cut easily. I complained to Champions Choice many years ago and Mr. Pearson told me to put it in the mill or take a dremel to it!

 

[logandiana]

I have milled mine down. Very simple and basic to do. The ones I have done were not hardened and cut easily. I complained to Champions Choice many years ago and Mr. Pearson told me to put it in the mill or take a dremel to it!

How much did you have to take off?

 

[Bill Rodolph]

Don't remember, too long ago. But you can measure pretty close to how far you have to go with your calipers. Get the aperture where it looks like it is in the center and measure back to the center of your sight. Get you closer than you are now. Then you can fine tune it with the front sight like Walt suggested.

 

[Park ranger]

Center the rear site in its travel, then rotate the front sight on the barrel to get zero on the target. Your rear base looks normal to me. I will look and see if I have a thinner one.

This won’t work if your using a front ladder sight like a rightsight. It has to track up and down plumb so you maintain a no wind zero from 300-1000. ( fullbore shooter here)

 

[logandiana]

This won’t work if your using a front ladder sight like a rightsight. It has to track up and down plumb so you maintain a no wind zero from 300-1000. ( fullbore shooter here)

This is exactly what I was thinking. It’s a Scott Riles sight. If I rotate the front sight out of plumb, then any time I change elevation, I’ll also be changing the windage slightly.

 

[Walt Krafft]

It works fine in my experience. It takes very little movement of the front sight around the bore to make a big difference on the target. I rarely had any wind zero differences from 300 to 1000.

 

[Mudcat]

Its usually due to having a base that is not the correct offset for the sight/receiver combination. If that is the case and you move your front sight to "align" with your rear sight which is not actually centered over the bore, your wind zero will shift as you move for each yard line. To have a consistent wind zero, you need to have both sights on the same plane for elevation, eg, both sights centered over the center of the bore line. hope that makes sense.

 

[logandiana]

The problem has been solved. As some above mentioned, I was in fact using the incorrect sight base. The one I had was for a Winchester 52. I was able to get a 40x base from a user here on the forum and the difference in thickness was 0.239.
The correct thickness base moved the sight over to center over the bore, and now have plenty of equal windage adjustment on both sides.