Precision Sights on a revolver

G

Gaxicus

New member
Im digging around looking at sights for my 460 S&WPC. Disappointed so far.

The ones on it were designed before revolvers were so capable of taking game at 200+ yards. The sights are great for a .44 or a .357 but somebody just has to be doing a serious rethink on this.

Its could be argued that the 460 is a bit of a solution waiting for a problem but so did the telescope and the corvette. It can drop deer/elk at 200+ and it can be holstered at hip or torso with your hands free.

A scope or dot makes the rig almost as big a hassle to carry as a carbine or a good lever gun. Both of which outperform pistols by a wide margin for hunting but they can be pain to lug around.

I just want really good precison sights for my revolver. Has anyone applied more technology to the problem than screws and a blade? If not, what is the best screw/blade combo for precision shooting? Im looking around to try and find that out. Anybody else dig into this or run across anything?
 
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In what way are the current sites now failing you? Also keep in mind most iron sighted handgun hunters consider 75 yards the max range they would take game shot. Metallic sihloette shooters often use stock S&W sights to hit rams at 200 yards but they also state only in the game and would never attempt such a shot on a live animal. Good luck
 
The 200yd+ thing was strictly S&W's marketing hype. I'm glad they have since pulled their 250yd club nonsense. Even for the practiced sixgunner, 75-100yds as an absolute maximum is all that can be expected from most revolvers, scoped or iron sighted. Those with a great level of skill can stretch flat-shooting cartridges like the .454 to 150yds. It takes years of dedication, a strong commitment and thousands of rounds downrange to get that good.

The truth is, for lobbing lead at inanimate objects, all black patridge target sights are perfectly suitable for making hits well beyond hunting ranges. If you want to snipe at game from 200yds away, get a specialty pistol or a rifle.

Buying a .460 does not make you a long range sixgunner.
 
At some point, optics will eventually become viable anyway ~ did for me in my late 50's due to aging eyesight & multi focal-plane issures. Some red dots like JP Enterprises JP4 are smallish, unobtrusive and demonstrated tuff. For >100 meters? Thet gets to be a personal issue also but 4MOA covers a lot of territory at the extended ranges. The 460 is like the Corvette you mentioned. Not that one will never use each horse in the eng ~ nice to have'em available tho ;)
 
WOFTAM IMO (Waste Of F... Time And Money)

I dont think putting any different super-dooper sights on a revolver will help that much really. My thoughts are based on the fact that I can hit a 3' x 4' steel plate at 200 meters with my 44 mag Vaquaro's with stock (obviously) fixed sights & can hit the silhuette rams at 100 meters (but dont always knock them down), but as to exactly where I hit them, I really dont know. The limiting factors of course, are the short sight radius & the velocity dropping off by the time the projectile gets there.

Add to this, pistols are being held (one hand or two) but at only one part of the gun, the handle, whereas a rifle you grip in two places giving much more stability and control for longer shots.

IMO, if you shoot an animal with a pistol at say, 200 meters, rather than dropping it dead on the spot (unless you get a head/heart shot), you will have to go looking for the wounded animal and finish it off (if you can catch up with it)

Each to their own, I guess, but I for one think this is a bit cruel, I would rather keep the longer range stuff (say over 50 meters) for a rifle.... I know you want to holster and keep your hands free, but a short rifle can be slung over your shoulder and your hands are also free :D

Either that, or aim to hunt within say, 100 meters and for that, the stock adjustable sights should be fine :cool:

Just MHO
 
Long Shots?

Elmer Keith did all his long range handgunning with standard (more or less) iron sights. He did like gold beads on front sights, but admitted they shoot toward the light.

Gaxicus, as gently as I can say this, perfect your shooting ability at 25, 50, 100 yards and so on before worrying about 200 yard shooting.

Yes, the revolver and cartridge will kill game at 200 or perhaps 250 yards. However, no sights will 'make' the combination hit consistently at any range. That, sir, is the function of the shooter.

I have no idea how well you shoot or don't shoot. Please don't think I'm just blowing you off and dismissing you as a gun shop commando. But unless you can consistently hit 'minute of deer' at 75 or 100 yards, it is pointless to spend more money on equipment. Spend more money on loading components and range time.

Good luck with this. Keep working; nobody became a skilled marksman the first year. Keep us posted with target results. And keep believing.
 
Hold on guys. To say shooting at game past X number of yards is wrong. I hunt with handguns, mostly 5 1/2" single actions and on some days under some conditions 25 yards is too much. On another day or with different conditions who knows? 150 yards is not out of the question, maybe.

Gaxicus try try try. Learn how. Discover how. Experiment, practice, and you never know just what you can do. I shoot long range with my iron sighted revolvers and with wounded game, eat to survive, or "bad" guys. 500 yards is not a safe place to be.

Watch my 5 part video series on youtube, its on long range revolver shooting with iron sights. ( http://www.youtube.com/user/texasfivegun )

Take some liquid paper, a needle, a brass "tooth brush" and a beach chair
if you can find one.

keithfrontsight.jpg


Use the liquid paper on your front sight. Make a line with the needle to use as a reference and brush of the
dried paper with the brass brush to start over if your marks are wrong or when your finished.

The chair I am talking about puts your butt about 4" off the ground and lets you lean back. You pull your legs up
put your hands/wrists between your knees. It works better "much better" for me than a bench rest or any thing else.

I have a Caldwell HAMMR machine rest and I can out shoot it with my chairs.
You must have "0" flinch for this, a good spotter helps and if you can get the sun behind you the bullets are easy to see in flight.

You may run out of front sight with a long barrel, short to medium barrels and tall front sights are easier to work with.
I have never shot a 500 or 460 S&W but we have found with 500 & 475 Linebaughs, 414 & 445 Supermags, 454 Casull, and
44 Remington Magnum. A heavy for caliber cast lead bullet works best. A gas check is easier to see in flight. A high velocity
is not needed. About 1200 FPS is what we use the most.

If I can help PM me and I will give you my phone # and email.

Good Shootin and Good Luck! Chad
 
Hold on guys.
Click to expand...
I agree with your statements and your videos are excellent but given the nature of the question and the assumed inexperience of the OP, I have to stand by what I stated earlier.
 
Experience

All of the postings about whether or not its viable or even ethical to take a shot on game at 200 with a revolver are duely noted but kind of mitigated as this revolver is on a pie tin from a rest at 200 yards almost every time with a scope. It also hits as hard as a rifle at that range.

I dont always hunt with a revolver but I like to carry one as a second gun when I have a rifle or as an ace in the hole when I am not hunting at all. Without some big bulky optic, this pistol is totally packable for the great outdoors. It beats the hell out of packing a rifle if you are fishing or hiking and damn nice to have around if you find yourself in a survival situation, vehical breaks down, lost, etc.

The capabilties of this pistol far outstrip the sights on it. I think that is the problem. Assuming that someone seeking a solution to this problem is inexperienced because you cant match the capabilty of a 460 with your 45LC or 44 is a bit silly. The 460 is a totally different animal, especially with handloads.

I have 25 years behind a revolver in I have owned, traded, and sold dozens of various calibers and builds. I regularly practice by spreading out a bunch of clay pidgeons on the side of a hill and picking them off at 100 yards while standing. I do miss, but not by much. My buddy who is new to revolvers was able to get to about 50% hits after only 1 day of doing this (he used a 357, I usually use a .44). Im not saying long shots are easy because they are not, but they are doable, especially in a survival situation from a rest.

Point is, I dont want to pack a rifle when fishing or hiking. When you add optics to this pistol it makes it very bulky to carrry. I want sights that are more up to the capability of the revolver than the 18th century 75 yard slot and pin that came on it. Is that too much to ask without being accused of being a newbie or some kind of mall ninja?
 
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Cool idea

Hold on guys. To say shooting at game past X number of yards is wrong. I hunt with handguns, mostly 5 1/2" single actions and on some days under some conditions 25 yards is too much. On another day or with different conditions who knows? 150 yards is not out of the question, maybe.

Gaxicus try try try. Learn how. Discover how. Experiment, practice, and you never know just what you can do. I shoot long range with my iron sighted revolvers and with wounded game, eat to survive, or "bad" guys. 500 yards is not a safe place to be.

Watch my 5 part video series on youtube, its on long range revolver shooting with iron sights. ( http://www.youtube.com/user/texasfivegun )
Click to expand...

I like it. I like it a lot. Definite step in the right direction.
 
I agree, long shots are possible....

The ethics of long range game shooting are a matter of the shooter. Your point is you can do it with a scope on this pistol, but not with the factory irons, right? So you want a better set of iron sights.

One answer is to practice with the stock sights until you are good enough to make the shots you can make with a scope.

The other answer is different sights. No one I know of makes sights quite like what you seem to be looking for, but that doesn't mean no one does.

Since you want to make rifle distance shots, why not have rifle sights installed? A rifle type front sight, and a correspondingly suitable rear sight blade should be within the capabilities of a good gunsmith.

This assumes, of course, that you can make the 200 yd shots with a open sighted rifle.

I regularly shoot 200yds with a Ruger .45 Colt (7.5"). Gongs, plates, rocks, etc. I am quite confident of my ability to connect at those ranges, for fun. For shooting game, half that is my self imposed limit. If I can't get that close, or closer, I don't shoot. But that's just me.
 
Scope = Hunting Sights = Guide or survival gun

Let me settle this 200 yard game shot right here. If I am stranded by a dead or wrecked vehical in the boonies and I am days from a paved road. Since I am not hunting, there wouldnt be a scope on the gun. I am going to take that 200 yard shot off a rest on something to eat if that is all I can get. My chances of success are greatly diminished with the current iron sights. I want something that diminishes it a lot less.

In short. Pistol sights havent kept up with pistol capability. I want sights that are a closer match.

Some have posted some good suggestions that I am really taking a good look at. I will be posting my top choices.

Thanks
 
I think I know what the OP is trying to articulate. I shoot a lot of 10m air pistol and bullseye with iron sights, and I know good sights from bad sights.

Good sights have perfectly machined edges, and line up perfectly. My Austrian-made air pistols are like this. The top edge of the front sight (where a target shooter's eyes focus...NOT on the target) can be seen to perfectly line up flat with the top edges of the rear sight blade. The edges of the front sight are perfectly flat with no nicks. The front sight points perfectly straight up. I also very much like the Bomar and Aristocrat sight ribs on revolvers and pistols. Of course, the rear sights need to have micro, repeatable adjustments.

Now revolvers (without a sight rib)...have yet to find one with good sighs. Top of the front sight is always slightly angled on S&W revolvers because the barrels always have some slight under or over torque. The edges are not quite perfectly clean, nor are the edges level and crisp on the rear sight blades.

Of course, we could talk about adjustable front sight widths and rear sight widths and adjustments, and so on.

So I'm inclined to agree with him that most revolvers made today have pretty crappy sights by competitive target pistol standards. On some revolvers this can be cured with a sight rib from Bomar or aristocrat. But on others you're pretty much stuck. Well, you can break out a file.

The casual shooter will never notice the subtle differences in sight quality that a target shooter looks for, which is probably why the manufacturers don't bother to do more than what they do.
 
most people who have a revolver are not using it for long range precision work.
the people who want or need a precision revolver for long range work as the op would like, they are normally the people who can afford to pay 3-4000 to the sw performance shop and get every little specific idea they want.
 
gaxicus:

The sights on your revolver are a precision as you can get. You just need to learn how to shoot a heavy recoiling revolver.

Semper Fi.

Gunnery Sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
 
Wow - tough crowd.

Gaxicus - melchloboo2 and TX5gun offered some good advice. I'll chime in only to note that if you have the 460 with the interchangeable fiber optic front sight, consider changing it for a standard Patridge sight, which is the standard front sight for target work. The interchangeable system is very nice, since you can experiment with different sights, and swap them in seconds.

As far as a rear sight upgrade, check out the Bowen High Country, or a Millet. The Millets are outstanding rear sights and would be my choice (never tried the HCs); unfortunately, they stopped making them, but they turn up now and then on gunbroker, etc.

Often times, the width of the front sight, relative to the width of the rear channel can make a big difference, too, and many find a narrower front or wider rear channel helps accuracy.
 
For long shots with a revolver - iron sights are limited by the
size of the FRONT sight.

With a pistol length barrel ( 6" - 10" ) ANY front sight will
COMPLETELY cover your target if the range is long enough.

I would estimate even a very narrow post would cover up a deer
beyond 125 yards.
 
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