Henry rimfire question

[86er]

I put the new Hi Viz front sight on my Henry .22. Has anyone used the bullseye rear sight - I don't know what it is called? How about a dovetail groove mounted peep? Do these replacement rear sights work with the front sight height? Any other thoughts on sight changes? This is the model with the barrel band front sight.

[Hobie]

My eyes just won't work with peeps located where the issue open sights rest on the barrel. I need one at the rear of the receiver or on the tang. That said, a Williams Guide Receiver Sight on the tip-off grooves should do just fine. I do believe you will likely have to have a higher front sight. I think that is the WGRS-54.

[L_Kilkenny]

I have one of those bullseye rear peeps around someplace. Awhile back I broke the rear sight blade on a 10/22 and was gonna put it on there. The dovetail was too close to the receiver to get the job done (sight to long). Something to watch out for on that end.

Other than that I had it on a 94AE originally. IMO the edges of the peep were too thin for the sight to be much good. The sight pretty much disappeared when I went to use it and forget about naturally centering when you can't even see it. I'm sure the distance from the eye didn't help.

It was the right height on the 94 and appeared it would of been good for the 10/22 too.

I've been lookin hard at the Skinner sights for the 10/22 "Takedown". It uses a barrel mounted peep and has a substantially thicker rim. Not sure about height with your new Hi-viz though. Personally I'm waiting on a Skinner 10/22 Receiver sight or going with Williams something or other. Been siting at the laptop for the last hour looking at various sights and trying to figure out what I want myself.

Edited to add: 86er, ya might look at the hi-viz open sights I linked to in the other thread. Low enough it may work with your existing front sight. It's for a 10/22 but at $20 you can just not use the front sight.

[BenT]

This is what I did with my son's Henry youth model. I file a shallow dovetail in the receiver. Then I used a Williams rear sight with the replaceable blades, and used the peep insert. I filed the bottom of the sight dovetail because the dovetail is only as deep as the scope mounting rib. I then JB welded a piece of brass rod on top of the front sight .

[earlmck]

I've put the Marble's Bullseye sight on a couple of the levers. I haven't shot them a lot since the installation but I think I'm going to like them, the little shooting I have done so far. My eyes are using them fine, and I have been having real trouble using a regular open sight the last few years. I'll try to make a full report in a few months after we've done some serious tin can shooting and I see how kids, grandkids, etc. like them.

There are two lengths of these, short and long, and I imagine you want the one that will fit between dovetail and receiver and still put the sight as close to your eye as possible. The long one is working nicely on the Browning 53 and 65; it needs about 2 3/4" between dovetail and receiver. The short one would only need about 1 3/4" from dovetail to receiver.

They do sit a bit higher than the original open sight but these particular rifles needed lower front sights as they came from the factory and the Bullseye height helped me out. If your sight height was perfect originally you'll probably need a taller front with the Bullseye.

[AJMD429]

This is a comment I posted on another thread, and the photos are a VERY accurate representation of what the sight looks like to MY five-decade-old eyes...

I find the Marbles "Bullseye" sight to offer one of the best 'views' of sights I've used - better precision than an 'open' sight, and you don't have the entire lower half of your field of view blocked out like on open sights (and most 'peeps'). Windage is only drift-adjustable, but makes a great hunting sight. Anyhow - no gunsmithing needed, simply replaces your factory sight in the barrel dovetail; not the 'best' sight in all situations, but WAY better than the factory sight. In addition to the conventional elevation-adjustable model, a more compact fixed model is available (might be a great 'ghost ring' for a shotgun or hog gun if you wanted to swap front sights to get proper elevation). Note that some (?all) Puma's have wider-than-standard dovetails, and a bit of shimming is needed when swapping sights; I just slip a bit of thin metal or plastic under the sight before driving it into position. Notice how much of the field of view a 'conventional' open sight blocks - I did not change the front sight out, so the rear would block as high as drawn, and was the same width as the outer aperture of the Marbles.




I've put the Bullseye's on several guns now (including all my 'shorty' leverguns), and generally they are just a tiny bit higher than the factory ones, but see in the pictures above that a high (i.e. folding) rear open sight will be about the same as far as the 'optical' height; it is just that the top of the sight is higher (about the same as a 'full buckhorn'). They are a very 'fast' sight to use, if you just whip the gun to the shoulder and verify that the front bead is somewhere in the large-ring area; then if you have a second to fine-tune your aim, you just make it centered in the smaller ring, and you can shoot very good groups (I can't beat it with a 2.5x scope or probably even with a 4x scope, from standing).

I would like to have a machinist or JB-Weld expert make me a sight with the 'Bullseye' aperture, only mounted on the Williams FP base, so adjustments could be very precise, plus the sight would be in the 'rear' position.

I did see a dude who just mounted a section of dovetailed metal (I think a piece of scope-base rail) on the top of his Marlin and put in the Marble's Bullseye that is drift-only (no 'ramp'). Made a durable and nice 'ghost-ring'. He had to put in a 'blade' front, and hand-file the front sight to get the height he wanted, but then he drilled it out with a Dremel, and made it a home-brew 'Firesight'. Was a really nice end result.

[3leggedturtle]

86'er I, JB Welded a Williams 94/336 5D peep on my Henry in November of '09. It is still holding on. I roughed up the site and receiver with 220grit sandpaper, and cleaned it 3 times with lacqer thinner. When I put it on, I left the rifle sit for 5 days b4 I started shooting it. Someone on this forumn also mentioned they D+T'ed their Henry for this side mount peep also.

[Pete44ru]

FWIW - The barrel band front sight model is the H001 Standard Henry, and it's only slightly problematic to install the higher front sight required for most of the top-mounted, "clip-on" receiver peep sights.

The available "clip-on" sights utilizing the scope mounting grooves in the receiver cover are the aforementioned Williams WGRS-54, the New England Custom Gun Grooved .22 Sight, and the Skinner Grooved Receiver Sight (made for Henry rifles).

The best way to raise the barrel band front sight for the new, higher, line-of-sight would be to epoxy a bead atop the existing front sight blade.

I elected not to get into the front sight shenanigans, and installed a peep sight that readily zeroed using the issue front sight - to which I applied a dollop of orange sight paint - the Williams WM-96 Peep (which DOES require D/T one hole atop the receiver cover).

Here's the WM-96 on my H001



Here's the Skinner sight



The WGRS-54



The NECG grooved .22

[keyston44]

I have the Skinner Rimfire sight on my H001. It was too high for the original front sight so I installed the taller front sight from the Henry 22 magnum.

Key