Win Model 94 Open Sight Adjustment Help...

[RonC]

I have a Winchester Model 94 in 30-30 caliber dating from the late 1960s. I have not shot it much and when I took it to the range, I could not determine where it was shooting in the time I had.

I have repeated more methodically and have determined it is grouping well but shooting about a foot high and about 8" to the right at 100 yards.

Logic says I could try to move the hooded front sight to the right or the dovetailed rear sight to the left to correct the windage. Is there a convention about which to move or which to move first?

The ramp on the rear sight is all the way down (that is, the elevator is all the way forward.) The notch is secured with two tiny screws which allow it to slide up and down the buckhorn. It appears to be almost all the way down. Any suggestions for adjusting the elevation?

Of course, there is always Kentucky windage, now that I know where it is shooting. I would really rather have it shooting closer to the point of aim, though.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions.

[Mk12.29-31]

All my Winchester model 94's shoot well with the original sights, but if yours still shoots too high with the rear sight's "ladder" all the way down....

a new and taller front sight will lower your point of impact. I would try to get one so that my most often used load would hit POA with the rear sight near the middle of the "ladder". I don't know the detail measurements for what you need though. Sorry.

If it were only a windage problem, I would first tap the rear sight for adjustment (but that's just me).

Then again, if you change front sights, you could install it so that it is adjusted to your individual rifle so that POA=POI.

[RonC]

I was shooting 170 gr Remington in the green and yellow box. An acquaintance remarked that the POI could be strongly influenced by the bullet. I can see how the elevation would be effected but not the windage.

Any thoughts?

[GlocksterJeff]

I was never a big fan of buckhorn rear sights anyway, they cover up too much of the target. My sugestion is a switch to rear peep sight from Williams. You might try looking at the Brownells website:

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=16196

[WIG19]

Originally posted by RonC
I was shooting 170 gr Remington in the green and yellow box. An acquaintance remarked that the POI could be strongly influenced by the bullet. I can see how the elevation would be effected but not the windage.

Any thoughts? Bravo for electing to fix it and not settle for KY windage. That 170gr ammo isn't going to cause that; have you owned the gun since new? No chance someone swapped a leaf out of the rear sight? Mk12.29-31 is correct in that you want your POA to be accomplished in the middle of the range of adjustment in most cases.

While I would also heartily endorse putting a receiver sight on it (Brownell's & Midway sell 'em), you want to make sure you've got the right height front sight on it, or you'll be in the same boat (albeit with more precision). If you don't go with the receiver sight, if it were my gun, I'd do the windage adjustment by drifting each end just a bit in the correct direction so that neither one is way out of whack to the eye when shouldering the rifle. A little left on the rear, a little right on the front. (At 100yds a little goes a long way.)

Here is a little exercise to determine how much higher you'd need your front sight to be. NOTE: You may want to back off to 50yds and put the rear sight ladder in the middle of its adjustmenet. The calculations in the formula work at any distance; it will seem ponderous at first, but it's quite easy and you'll appreciate the guesswork it will take out if you elect to just replace the front sight. Measure the sight radius from the notch of the buckhorn to the rearmost edge of the front bead, in inches. Put the rear ladder in the middle and shoot a group from the gun at 50yds. The formula for the correction is:
(Sight-radius x Correction-needed) \ Target distance (inches)
Example: (18" x 6") \ 1800 = .060" So you would need a front sight roughly 60/1000th's taller.

(You can also get an idea using the same formula as to how much to drift the sight right or left to fix your windage issue.)

The other possibility is that there is old severe leading or fouling in the barrel that is causing this this issue, particularly the elevation thing. Make sure the bore is cleaned extremely well; give yourself every opportunity to shoot a good group. Hope everything turns out well and it becomes a real game-getter.

:patriot:

[RonC]

Thank you, WIG19.

I hadn't thought about doing the calculations. That is very helpful, and actually obvious in retrospect, after somebody shows you how.

I bought the gun from my wife's aunt. It was my wife's deceased uncles's. I do not know the history of it other than the date of manufacture from the SN, like I said, around 1969. It has a hooded front sight and it will look strange if the sight winds up very far from center.

How do you buy a different front sight? Are dovetails standard or is Win different from Rem, Savage and others?

Again thanks for the help.

[Rusty Guns]

Another thing about the 30.30 round.
The trajectory curve works out to being on target at 25 Yards, & 100 yards. In other words if you make your adjustments at 25 yds it will be on target at 100yds It is a lot easier to see where uou are hitting at 25.
Also you can set it to be 4" high at 100yds and it will be on at 200.
You don't usually shoot a 30.30 200yds, but if you set sights to be on at 100, it is about 12" low at 200
Just a couple of things to keep in mind.
I always set mine up and shoot 150 grain bullets, they seem to do real good on White Tails.
You might try the 150's before chainging sights.
Mine has a round notch that the front bead goes into.
Very small bead on front.

Rusty