Experimental sights/experimental ammunition and gongs

[Eric Johanen]

I am going to shoot my first gong match this weekend. 200 to 600 yards and I've decided to test sights and ammo just for fun. I will be using the semi-buckhorn rear and blade front with a BACO .458/500 grain RN Government bullet. 70.0 grains of KIK 2fg. Neck sized brass and bullet seated with the 1'st grease groove exposed. I cut a v in the bottom of the U on the sight ladder and it zeros exactly above the front blade at 200 yards. I could hold a 5 inch group at 200 benched, right in the bottom of the black using a 6 O'clock hold. A bit more front sight and the impact is middle of the 10 ring to just kissing the X ring. Between the sight base ears I get about 4 inches left and 4 inches right windage. I do want to see how close the marked yardages on the staff work with this load. It will be fun to see how well the Shiloh Sharps, barrel sights and this ammo shoots at yardage. Hope for good light on the sights and will bring my carbide smoker in case I get too much glare off the german silver front blade.

[Steve Anderson]

Good luck. Steve

[Don McDowell]

Have fun, sounds like you've got things pretty well in order. The hardest part shooting gongs with the ladder sight is gauging the wind, but even at that I had more fun shooting gong matches with the ladder sights.
Let us know how you do.

[Eric Johanen]

The match was a lot of fun. Great conditions with light and the wind from 6 O'clock slightly shifting left and right. Started at the 300 yard line. Using that traditional 500 grain RN bullet with the KIK 2fg, believe the load shot well. My mistake was not breaking out the carbide smoker from the get go as I got glare off the front blade and the sight picture sucked. 3 progressively smaller targets and I managed 2 hits on the larger one. Very close impacts on the middle and smallest target. Based on a few sighter's I ended up using a 1/16th inch above the 300 yard mark on the staff. If not for the light washing out the front sight I feel I could have done better. 220 and 600 were shot from the 600 yard line and I smoked the sights. Really gave it a go from 600 hundred but could not get any hits. Need some serious time and a place where I could walk up the sight and impact points. 220 prone I managed 5 hits (again 3 progressively smaller targets) 4 hits on the larger. A free shot/fouler after a range delay 2 hits on the middle, only the 2'nd shot for score. Followed by 2 very close misses. No hits on the third target, a small disc that did not appear much wider than the blade when looking over the sights. Offhand, on the larger 220 yard target, 1 sighter, a hit followed by two more hits. Last 2 shots just off the target at 2 and 3 O'clock. Impact difference between 200 and 220 yards made no difference on the targets. On the 220 prone I tried a few rounds loaded with OE 1&1/5 and these shot down the middle but just a bit higher just off the top edge of the target at 12 and 2 O'clock. I used the blow tube and wiped the barrel between stages. Fouling was light and moist and had no leading with a nice lube star at the muzzle. Am starting to like KIK 2fg powder. I had fun at this gong match and feel I learned a bit about using the barrel sights and front blade. With a bit of practice I think some really good work could be done and 200 to 300 yards. Longer rang will take some work.

[Don McDowell]

Good deal Eric. Those barrel sights are a ton of fun at a gong match like that one.

[Kurt]

Good show Eric.

Shooting the barrel ladder sights takes a lot of practice, but you can get very efficient shooting them.
A good sharp pocket knife is a lot of help when you find the elevation on the ladder for the longer shots when the ladder is down. My sight has a lot of scratches on the front and back of the ladder Scratches on the front is from using one powder and the back for the other powder. and they are in 100 yard intervals makes it easy to hold over or under.
The bullets I shoot are the same for this rifle. I don't use different shapes or weight for the .44-77 or switch the powder or load. I keep it the same and the sights are on the mark.
Keep at it. The only tough thing is like Don said, holding into the wind. Even that get easier the more you shoot.

Kurt

[Eric Johanen]

Kurt, yes they are fun and some serious work can be done with those sights. When I confirm the settings I'll mark them for future use. As this experiment was planned to test the load for gong and hunting use, I'll stick with the Government bullet from this BACO mold as it does shoot well and will shoot dirty. The sight picture was pretty good once I smoked that silver blade and I felt comfortable with the combination. 200/220 yards was not difficult to center up at all. Hits at 300 were on the left edge and I wiggled the sight to the right a little and centered up the impact. Unsmoked blade made hits on the small targets difficult due to the glare. Smoked up I would have done better. Shoot and learn! There were some shooters that did not do much better than me with their target sights as the smaller targets were really tough to place hits on. I am going to keep the open sights on the rifle and do more work with them and loads to feel confident that the combination works well.

[Old Jim]

The ladder sight on my 45/90 hunting rifle has some pocket-knife marks at the desired settings.

Works for me,

[Don McDowell]

The ladder sight on my 45/90 hunting rifle has some pocket-knife marks at the desired settings.

Works for me,

Yuppers and here's the proof

[rdnck]

Eric--Get rid of the silver blade in front and replace it with a blade made from a copper penny. This will solve the glare problem. I mark my sight ladders in 100 yard increments, and they are correlated with a laser rangefinder. Once you get a grip on this system, you will be amazed at how well you can shoot with it. Shoot straight, rdnck.