Pietta front sight height ?

G

Gavlan

New member
Hi all, I have a 1858 NMA and have just now got round to shooting it ( made in 2012) .
My question is ,, Do Pietta put an unusually tall front sight on these Rem 58's ?. mine shoots way too low, windage is good .
My load was 28gns Pyrodex- P , wonder wad and a 454 ball.
Shot at 20 yds they were hitting 6-8 " low from poa.
Do Pietta expect you to file your sight blade to suit ?. so they make it taller.
Excuse my lack of proper Grammer it's past my bed time and I'm beat...:o
 
That is weird. Yes Pietta 58 sights are abnormally tall but that was to make them hit closer to POA instead of the 75 yards they were originally sighted at.
 
Supprised the heck outa me , when I take my 1860 and 51 out I hold at 6 o,clock knowing they shoot high and narey a problem so when I took this 58 out yesterday I fully expected for it to print somewhere close doing the same thing,, but no.
A 6 o'clock hold with the Remington ploughs into the ground, I think i'll try a couple of different loads and see what gives before I go any further ,
Thanks Hawg..
 
Yer but I like to see the target,,,;) .
That's how I found out how low I was hitting but I couldn't see what I was aiming at , dang barrel gets in the way,,:rolleyes:
 
Well I lowered the charge to 25gns and low and behold it closed UP the groups and started hitting higher at 15 yds,,, about 4" low now .
I can live with the adjustments in need to make on my hold , I believe I can get to a happy place with it at 25gns.
No need to file any sight down or anything drastic like that.
Now if only it would stop pouring down I might be able to go out back and shoot the darn thing again,,,;)
 
You can also forget all that BS about a "proper" sight picture and use a long range pistol shooters trick and put the front sight base on top of the rear sight. When shooting really long range I use part of the barrel itself as a front sight. That way I always have the front sight on the target. No holdover guesswork.
 
I'll try that next time around Hawg,
I think I just need to shoot it a lot more than I have been doing..:D
 
Filing down the sights on a Remington 1858 clone isn't drastic, it is normal procedure after you find your sweet load and figure out what is th best grip hold for you. Don't adapt to a weird hold to bring the gun shooting to POA. The sights come out of factory taller than originals, and in case of Uberti or Pedersoli, dovetailed, precisely so you can adjust them to your most accurate load and prefered hand grip.

Most guys who shoot in competition prefer to set the guns up so they will print in the center with a six hold and proper sight alignment at 25 metres, that is, to shoot 3.6 inches high. Then, when firing at 50 metres you adjust like Hawg describes. Filing the sights is just normal procedure.
 
Sight picture I use. The worst I can get is a "9". I'm one of those kind of people who can't shoot well using "6" o'clock hold.

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My last new 58 had the same front sight your talking about. I tried what Hawg is talking about and never messed with filling the front sight down. I know a lot of people like to load a large powder charge in the cylinders but that to me is a waste of powder when you can't hit anything. I found out long time ago a smaller charge say 25 grs will give you much better groupings on target than a larger charge of powder.
 
Well I did see better grouping with the lower 25gn , I might go as low as 22gn just to see but I worry about not having good compression or any, even with a wad.
I have filler but don't wanna use it if I don't need it.
It's a whole bundle of fun playing with these guns and getting them to do what you think you want them to do,,,,, within reason of course.
Gotta love it don't ya,,,,?.
 
That's when I found out these guns would shoot when using lighter powder loads. Those heavy loads had the round balls all over the target, after a few shots it looked like a load of buck shot had hit it. With the lower chargers the balls started hitting close together. Tried it on a small steel round target and before the smoke would clear I'd hear it smack the steel.:D Never happen with large powder chargers.:(
 
If it stops raining anytime soon I'm going out back of the house and going to try some "lighter " loads , see if I can get it to play a tad nicer.
I have a sneaking feeling the problem ( if indeed there is a problem) that it's 10% the loads fault and 90% my fault therefore making it 100% my fault,,,,
Like I said ,," gotta love it ",,;)
 
If you are interested in maximizing precision, it is imperative that you do a load workup for any given projectile to find out what gives you the best group. The variation in these guns due to changing the charge is astounding.

Also, I did a series of tests in one of my black powder revolvers using the minimum load that the ball would seat on all the way up to the maximum load, with and without filler, and in no case did a no-filler load provide the best group.

Precision reloaders will adjust their cartridge overall length so that the ogive of the bullet is just touching the rifling when the cartridge is chambered. This is done so that when the bullet starts moving it is immediately engaging the rifling, instead of building up a head of steam before hitting the rifling and then stripping on the rifling.

I believe the idea of using a filler is analogous. The idea is that regardless of the charge, the ball is seated flush to the cylinder face so that it has less room to build up velocity before engaging the rifling. Of course in a revolver, because of the forcing cone, there will always be some amount of "jump" to the rifling.

Many original revolvers had "gain twist" rifling, with no twist near the chamber and more and more twist towards the muzzle to also help with this stripping problem.

With reproduction revolvers, most .44 guns will develop maximum precision around 18 grains 3F powder. Walkers require quite a bit more - mine shoots 3" groups off a bench at 25 yards using 45 grains 3F Goex.

I use Cream of Wheat for a filler. I also use over-ball lube as it is required for N-SSA competition.

Steve
 
I don't shoot much for groups but I don't miss many Coke cans at 25 yards one handed with 25 grains in my .36's and 30 in my .44's and 40 in my Dragoon. If I benched them I daresay they would do better than 3 inches.
 
That's good. I only have one reproduction that shoots worth a darn - my Uberti Walker. I re-benched it two weekends ago and off a bench at 25 yards it was making a 3" group.

I've got a 2 Uberti 1858s, a Pietta 1858, Pietta 1860, and two Pietta brass 1851 44s, and none of them will do better than about 5" off a bench at 25 yards with their best load workup.

Steve
 
The only one I shoot light loads in is my G&G. I use 15 grains in it but haven't grouped it since I first got it. This was about 15 yards. I wasn't sure the balls would even go 25 yards with 15 grains.:D The black spot is 2 inches wide and three tall(not including the drip) the widest two are 2 7/8.

 
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