Mistakes mistakes mistakes

[stephenc]

Over the holiday weekend I started on another project ... something to do while waiting on funds to finish my other project .

The idea was to make an adjustable peep sight for my martini henry .
Things was going along pretty good until it came time to make the eye piece of the sight .
To be honest .. I didn't have a real clear plan on how to make it . The first try was an abject failure .
The second try came close but it wasn't right .

What you'll see below is the third try .... it was actualy coming together just how I wanted it to .
But once I got to where it was about 75% finished I caught a mistake .. when I did the math to center the hole in the eye piece I had it in my head to use a 3/8 edge finder .
But when I did the set up ... I used a 1/2 . ... oops .

So yea back to the scrap box for try number 4

Sorry about the not real great pics ..

Things are still in the rough stage With some minor changes to be made when I finish it , but it's pretty close to the finished product .

First two is the sight on the rifle .. I used a side plate to avoid having to make any alterations to the rifle .
you'll notice how bulky it looks from the rear ... one change is going to be to thin it down a bit .
The brass piece is the windage screw . . It's threaded 40 tpi to give me a relatively fine adjustment at roughly ..012 per half turn if I've done the math correctly .

Elevation is adjusted by simply lossening the thumb screw and sliding it up and down ,
Again if I've done the math right I should have enough elevation to get to 600 yards .
To make repeatable adjustments I plan on using my shaper to engrave a scale for the elevation .

8 total parts and about 25 hours so far ,...

[Glenn Brooks]

Not 'mistakes' - Iterations! Great things grow over time!

Very interesting mechanism. Fascinating how it works. Nice Job! Just a question about the machine screws showing in photo 3: could make (or buy) a couple of round head, slotted machine screws to emulate original fastenings? They look fairly small...

Glenn

[spro]

I just like it. I think this is test bed and fasteners and thickness changed later. If you are right-handed I can almost feel the adjustments in my left fingers. Sturdy without detrimental modifications. my .02 and a smiley.

[stephenc]

I do plan on changing the fasteners to something more appropriate , I just used what I had handy .
I think that the brass windage screw is going to get re-made as well , I was Thinking that some contrast would look nice once I blue everything. Now not so much .

[spro]

Who am I to say "close" ? You already said as much. I still see the work and how it is adjusted without really disturbing anything.

[stephenc]

I have everything a tight barely sliding fit at the moment , the idea is to keep any slop out of it and still slide freely after I give it a quick sanding and loose a tiny amount of metal when I rust blue it .
That's the plan anyway ... but I've never rust blued anything before so I don't know how much if any my dimensions will change once finished .
Worst case scenario .. everything's still too tight after bluing and I have to sand an file a bit and re-finish .

Before I started this I tried to sit down and draw up some actual plans , but I tend to work better by the seat of my pants and make it up as I go along .

[spro]

I think you/ I have to do that. You will get more advise about blueing from persons here.

[stephenc]

Finished product

Almost finished anyway ... I didn't have a drill bit small enough to drill the apature hole so it waits untill my msc order shows up .


I did decide to do away with the brass pieces , I didn't care for how it looked.
You'll notice the Verneer style scale , I do wish I had some way to number it properly .. but counting lines works . With the scale if I've done the math correctly adjustments are right at 5moa and 1 moa .
And has enough travel to get out past 600 yards .

the windage will adjust in 1/2 and 1 moa increments with a half turn and full turn respectively.

Anyhoo .. pics ..