Sight Install

[littlebang556]

Just asking if anyone know the best/easiest way to set up front and rear sights to help eliminate/reduce chances of canting....I have an omark with an adjustable rear sight block.

Cheers

Rob Alman

[pjifl]

Before deciding on how you will do this its worth actually considering what are the actual requirements.

So what's bad about canting ??

Many jump to erroneous clusions - thinking any 'cant' on a rifle is bad but this is simplistic and in some cases counterproductive.

The requirements are

1/ The same 'cant' angle be used for every shot.

2/ When this cant angle is used, the elevation rail or bar of the rearsight should be vertical.


Thats it. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS despite a lot of bull written by people who should know better.


NOTE that there is no need for the cant angle to be zero - but the variation between it and the sight bar definitely should be. But the rifle may be canted for comfort as long as the above condition is met.

Since no one can hold the same cant angle on ranges which have varying sloped target frames, butts and mantlets, a level is by far the best way to go. If not you have to do your best by lining the foresight bar with the ground or line of targets which on some ranges introduces errors.

IF you have a level in the foresight the best precedure is

1/ With no rear sight and no foresight on the rifle get down and 'fire' many practice dry shots. You want to do this getting as comfortable as possible with the rifle. You dont want a highly canted rifle but if you find that you are more comfortable with a bit of cant thats fine.

2/ Now get someone to place the foresight on the rifle and adjust it until the level bubble shows centre while the rifle feels comfy.

3/ Now place the rifle in a vice or a rest so the bubble is centred and place in position the rearsight.

4/ NOW YOU MENTIONED ITS AN OMARK. So there is an adjustment for rear sight tilt. Adjust this so the rearsight elevation bar is vertical and you are done. This can be done by lining it up with a plumb line, a door frame, a vertical spirit level etc.

Most of the prestigeous rifles today have no adjustment for rearsight tilt. In this case the only way is to have zero rifle cant and adjust all those knuckles, twists, and knobs on the stock for comfort which is in some cases an inferior system. But they do look impressive.

Peter Smith.

[Woody_rod]

Peter has pretty much got the whole idea already.

The basic thing being to always have your foresight and rearsight in the same horizontal / vertical plane - in other words, the cant has no real effect, other than the rifle stock not being level. This is very commonplace in smallbore, even at the Olympic level - the Aussie shooter Warren Potent is an example.

You will certainly get into trouble mate if the front sight and rear sight are on different angles - leads to weird parallax issues. Dead giveaway for this is to always have to move windage with elevation with no wind effect (I mean a fair bit, not 1 MOA between 300 and 1000y)

As Peter has stated, the rear sight (and consequently the front sight) must remain vertical, regardless of what the rifle is doing.