Question about aperture sight for Ithaca 49

[moewadle]

I have an Ithaca 49, you know, the 1961-1978 made single-shot lever-action, 22 rimfire (LR in my case) with a Martini action. This is the most common variety with the front sight integrated into the barrel band. I am a traditionalist so do not want a scope and have 63 year-old eyes and would like a peep sight put on this little rifle just for fun. This is strictly a range and plinking fun gun. It is worth about $150 these days for a nice one so I don't want to sink a fortune in a decent sight. I would hope I could find something for $50 or less. Hope I am not too naive. Anyway, I know NOTHING about sights, period, except that peep is better than open iron sights. Please help me out here. For what this information is worth, when this gun was out in the early 1960s a common ad for it showed a boy scout shooting it with a mounted receiver sight. Also, I think I saw something on the internet a while back about Williams at one time making a sight for this particular rifle. Anyway, is there something out there that could be mounted using the rear sight dove tail??? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Onmilo]

A Williams 5D economy apeture sight made for the Winchester 945 and Marlin 336 should fit the bill nicely.
They are somewhere around the price range you want to spend but you may have to have the gun drilled and tapped for the site which will run about $25.00 additional.
This link for Brownells Gunsmithing is a good place to start looking.HTH
http://www.brownells.com

 

[moewadle]

Thank you, Onmilio, and about Brownells

I live only 60 miles from them so it is a natural to use their over-the-counter gun technician services. You folks may or may not know that you can walk in with a firearm and a gun technician will help you decide which of their products you need for your particular gun. It is a very nice service and probably works most of the time. However, when I was a real newbie I went in there 6 months ago with a Stevens Favorite, the new model called a 30G, I believe. It has a dovetail open sight on the receiver. I asked the gun tech the same question and he brought me an adapter for the dove tail slot and what I now know is a ghost ring for it. That seemed fine to me at the time except I thought the opening in a ghost ring was pretty large for rifle shooting. Well, it is way too large. I only spent about $22 total on this for my gun but I feel that most of that was wasted. So, I do not know why he did not fix me up with a Williams sight or something of the sort. Thanks again.

 

[Shawnee]

Hi Moe...

Would suggest you find a rifle - any rifle - that is currently wearing a peep sight (or GhostRing) and see if your eyes can deal with it.... before you decide what to do with your Ithaca.
Peep sights are good but they get less good as one's eyesight starts to go and, at some point in the downhill slide, they get really difficult to use.
Common advice years ago was to buy a peep, then carefully screw out the disc and throw it away - leaving the (obviously bigger) arpeture of the sight frame to use instead of the smaller hole of the disc. And that was often quite good advice - maybe even the prehistoric basis for the logic of the GhostRing - but failing eyesight changes the playing field a lot. You may well find you can actually do better with standard open sights.
Good luck !!