Custom tang sight

[marlinman93]

A friend of mine is a retired tool and die maker, and builds some neat stuff for himself, and some close friends. I purchased a neat old Whitney-Laidley Rolling Block sporting rifle last November. The gun is in pretty decent shape, and an excellent .45-70 bore. But the little carbine style ladder sight that Whitneyville Armory supplied on the barrel lacked a lot in accuracy! And hole spacing was an oddball 1.682" spacing!
I asked my buddy if he could come up with something from his tang sights he builds, and he came through! He used one of his existing staffs, and made a special base with hole spacing to match my Whitney! He milled a stop into the base, so when putting it into the upright position, it stops exactly where it needs to be!





I just need to rust blue it and it's ready to go sight in now!

[TedH]

Very nice! I envy those with the equipment and know how to make their own goodies like that.

[hfcable]

what a talent and nice job. I really enjoy using tang sights.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Cool !

[Griff]

Very nice! I envy those with the equipment and know how to make their own goodies like that.

+1. Look good on there.

[M. M. Wright]

Oh Yeah! I really like that one. It looks stout enough to take hunting. The tang sight on my Roller is quite delicate and has been broken off before. I welded it back but it is still fragile. I have the machine tools so I could make one. Just too lazy I guess.

[marlinman93]

My machine tool talent is not good, and my lathe and mill are cheap Chinese. So when I need precision machine work, I turn to my buddy, to make this type of thing.
I stripped the finish off the staff and aperture, and then cleaned everything well, and blued the base, screws, staff and aperture. After some carding, the finish is mellow and not as shiny new as before, so it wont stand out on the old Whitney.



He built one of these for my #1 Remington Rolling Block also. It's in .22LR, and some idiot had drilled 4 different holes on the top tang for various tang sights. The outside farthest set was 2.25", which is Winchester. So I happened to have a Winchester base missing the staff, and he bushed one of his staffs to fit it.



This gun also had a buggered up front sight dovetail. Same person must have attacked it too. It had one dovetail about 3/4" wide, and then a 3/8" dovetail in the bottom of the larger dovetail! Ugly as sin, and I was afraid it would be a rebarrel. But my friend helped me out by cutting one large dovetail, and making a perfect filler for that. Then he cut a 3/8" dovetail in the filler, and we installed it with some JB Weld. The filler is almost invisible now, and the sight and barrel look original again!

[Pete44ru]

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Beautiful work - Please pass on our kudos to your friend.



.

[Mad_Charlie]

Very skillful work! Coming from another machinist that does similar projects.

[Booger Bill]

marlinman93; Many years ago I had one like yours in some type of .50 caliber. It was a very heavy rifle. It was in worse shape than yours. It had no sights but had a bunch of dovetails, some filled some not. I had thought it was for a early long tube sight. I took the gun to a gun show and sold it. I believe Ray Howser bought it who owned the Pony Express Gun shop in Southern California bought it. At the time I didnt know who he was. After he bought it he told me some frontiersman probably had it and moved the sights as he aged with poor eyesight. No doubt it probably was a buffalo hunters rifle.
Ray said this one is going over my fireplace! He didn't buy it to sell in his famous shop!

[marlinman93]

marlinman93; Many years ago I had one like yours in some type of .50 caliber. It was a very heavy rifle. It was in worse shape than yours. It had no sights but had a bunch of dovetails, some filled some not. I had thought it was for a early long tube sight. I took the gun to a gun show and sold it. I believe Ray Howser bought it who owned the Pony Express Gun shop in Southern California bought it. At the time I didnt know who he was. After he bought it he told me some frontiersman probably had it and moved the sights as he aged with poor eyesight. No doubt it probably was a buffalo hunters rifle.
Ray said this one is going over my fireplace! He didn't buy it to sell in his famous shop!

Ray is very famous to those who've been into old guns for a long time. His shop produced the first reproduction tang sights back in the 60's when he saw a need for this type of sight, and none available. These days you don't see "Pony Express" marked tang sights very often, but I have one on a #2 Rolling Block in .32-20 in my safe. At the time I bought the tang sight, I knew of Ray's store/company, but didn't know he had a part in the sight with that name on it. It was very inexpensive, so I bought it, and later found out the connection to his company.

[Booger Bill]

I didn't know about his company. Only about the store. Seems I heard he retired in Idaho? This was probably back in the 1980`s. IIRC, his shop was on Ventura Blvd and later the last time I was in it was on Sherman way in Reseda or Nortridge. And that was 15/20 years ago. Wonder if he`s alive? I bought two or three guns there many years ago.

[marlinman93]

I think his store and his company were one in the same. Unsure of whether an in house gunsmith built the sights marked "Pony Express" or if he had them done off site. Ray's shop was responsible for a lot of nice western leather for those into cowboy shooting, or wanting old style leather also.
As of 2009 I saw mention of him still being alive, in a Gun Digest article about a old S&W single action revolver. I had heard Ray moved to Arizona after retiring, but his son still lived in the Burbank, Ca. area, and both were still members of the Burbank Gun Club. But that's been a few years ago, so unsure if Ray is still alive.
Ray and his son used to bring out old gattling guns, and cannons that they owned, and shoot them at the Burbank Club.

[Booger Bill]

I bought these old carved ivory grips for a old HDM out of his shop back in the 1970`s. The gun has a bloody history. A friend of mine was a Deputy in Colorado many years ago. Someone killed a filling station attendant. He was nearby and arrested the gunman but couldn't at first find the gun. Finally he got a ladder and looked on the roof and found it. The judge gave him the gun after the trial and I traded him out of it. I think the ivory grips cost me about $60`s back then.

[marlinman93]

Love old Hi Standard semiauto guns, and the grips are very cool! Real ivory, or a composite?

[Booger Bill]

Real solid ivory.

[marlinman93]

Very nice Bill!

[Booger Bill]

Thanks! I haven't shot it in ages. I need to take it out. I bought some standard velocity target loads awhile back. I heard its best to stay away from hi speed loads on them.

[marlinman93]

Haven't heard of issues with hi speed ammo in the Hi Standard pistols Bill? I collected Hi Standard semiauto pistols for many years, and shot them in Bullseye Matches, plus just for fun. Ran thousands of rounds of hi speed ammo through mine without an issue.

[Booger Bill]

I had just thought that I had read that a time or two through the years. What very little I have shot it or am going to shoot it couldn't hurt. Short story, besides it`s bloody history, it once was stolen from me (along with more) and was recovered along with a shotgun but the barrel and stock was sawed off.
At first the detective wasnt going to give me my shotgun back so I unscrewed the barrel and told him "you keep the barrel, I`ll take the action."

[marlinman93]

Looks like an 870 Rem.? If so stock and barrel should be easy, and fairly inexpensive to buy.

[Booger Bill]

No, its a J.C. Higgins 12 gauge. I think they were called a model 20. I am pretty sure they were made by Hi-standard for Sears. I bought it about in 1955 when I was 14 years old. I recall even trading a single barrel 20 gauge Iver Johnson on it. It was a small town Sears Roebuck store. Imagine them doing that now days! I shot my first deer with it with slugs. It shot slugs well.

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

Nice work.

[marlinman93]

Nice work.

Thanks! Yes, he does some great work!

[donw]

nice! very nice!