OzFclass

Hi Guys,

I bumped my front sight and last week decided to re-level it in relation to my rear central No.4.
My front sight has an inbuilt spirit level and I'm using magnetic 'wheeler brand' levels to attach to the rear.

So prior to shooting on Saturday I afixed a wheeler magnetic level to the *sight block* then rotated the rifle until the wheeler showed it was level and then loosened and rotated the front fore sight until the level in it was also level. Job done (or so I thought).

But, as is often the case, I awoke with some clarity this morning (I obviously problem solve/create! in my sleep).
I checked my sights again this morning and as suspected, when I use the wheeler magnetic level on the *horizontal bar of my Central sight*, it is not close to level with the foresight level. That means that when I have been making windage adjustments, due to the unlevelled horizontal bar I'm inadvertently making elevation adjustments at the same time!

So I have just re adjusted the foresight to be level in relation to the horizontal bar on my central sight. One problem solved..
But, dam this clarity, that means that the vertical bar on my central sight is now not exactly vertical in relation to the foresight and now when I make elevation changes I will also be making some degree of windage adjustment. i.e. my zero for each distance as I move further back will be increasingly out.

Solution??: Save save save and add a decent rear sight to the shopping list (Warner hopefully).

What is your method for levelling your TR sights (first to say buy a scope is off my Christmas list! haha).

cheers for any insights (pardon the pun!),
Gerard.

Gerard,i have an omark.
the little flat spot on top of the action is dead level.
i adjust the cant on the rear sight to that and get it level,
then level the front sight.

Gerard, from what you are stating is that your vertical adjustment is not perpendicular to your windage arm, if this is so then you will never get it right.
I level the windage arm and then level the foresight using the internal level. If rear sight is within specs then adjustments in both directions will be correct.

RMc

Sure you've cleared the vernier scale, wind knob & pin head with your level on the wind arm?

It sounds strange, but you seem to be implying that the sight vertical post and horizontal cross arm are not at right angles.

Since you will usually be moving along the vertical post going from 300y to 1000y (or even maybe 1200 y ?) this will extend over more than 30 (or 40) minutes. Somehow I rather doubt that your wind setting will ever approach this value. In my opinion, the most important thing is that the vertical post be vertical when you use the foresight level, this is the setting criterium I would use.
Thus your wind zero should stay close to zero when you wind all the way up. By the way, there is no requirement in long range shooting that the rifle be level when you shoot - as long as it is consistent and the vertical sight post is truly vertical everything will be OK. Unless you want to shoot sparrows and want to set the rifle zero at miniscule distances.

I would not be worrying much about this. Just arrange the rifle so the vertical post is truly vertical, then set the foresight level to match. Then of course you may need to rezero the rifle.

Peter Smith.

I am with Johnk, I would double check how the level sits on the wind arm. Ideally your level has a recess that would clear the bits that stick up on the wind arm. If the wind arm is not very loose or bent, then it is unlikely that it would be out of square with the post. Don't stick the level on the block that the iris screws into, this is not an accurate location to measure from.

Cheers,
Ryan.

Thanks guys. Yes, when checking the level of the horizontal arm on the central sight I totally removed and cleaned the area below the vernier scale. That gave me sufficient flat area to attach the magnetic level.
On Saturday I will re-test the zero and ensure I use a spirit level on the target then I can test that both vertical (300yrd to 1000yrd) settings and Windage L/R track as expected. Thanks for the 'insights'

Back when I did a fair amount of bedding, I ended up with a box of Omark tang screws. I trimmed the threads off two which measured exactly the same diameter & used to float a level off those on the wind arm.

If you have access to a milling machine (if you have a good mate like me....), one thing that I have done is set the rear sight up with a dial indicator. You then look through the rear sight and level the bubble in the front sight. You can dial the sight in vertically and then check if the wind arm is square/perpendicular if you are not confident it is square. If you have a rough wind zero, set the sight to zero, remove the vernier scale on the rear sight. That way you can check the whole length of the wind arm for squareness and bends. Reinstall the vernier.

I have done this a half a dozen times now and haven't missed. Set your wind zero and you can walk your shots up the line of a zero target that has been set up with a plumb bob.

The wind arm on a central sight had probably been bent by some sort of mishap in the past ....not a uncommon problem