Well, this is about my Mosin Nagant M38 errrrr uh cough cough my M44 modified to be a M38. Anyway I took off the bayonet attachment by driving out the 2 pins holding the whole assembly on the barrel, tapping it off the barrel, cutting off the sleeve just aft of the front sight band and then just reinstalling the front sight band and pin. This worked like a charm. Took it to the range to sight in. I used handloaded ammo, Norma cases, 45 gr. Varget powder, Speer .311 dia. 150 gr. spitzer SP bullets. It sighted in easily but with one problem. It shot 17 to 18 inched high at 100 yrds. off the bench. It seems that most iron combat sights that I have experienced all do this to various degrees. Nevertheless 18 inches high is a bit much. So then I tried
Sierra .311 dia. 174 gr MK bullets. Now it shot only 12 to 13 inches high. Still too much. The problem was how to correct this condition. The front sight is what it is, and being I lost my front sight post stretcher the front sight was going to remain where it was as far as elevation. So I said to myself, "self, if I can't raise the front sight my only other option was to lower the read sight". But how? Looking at the rear sight assembly and how it worked and was designed I could see if the rear sight slider was modified on the bottom side by removing material so as to allow the rear sight to sit further down it would also bring the point of impact down. So I took the rear sight apart and proceded to "modify" it and reblued it. Put it back together and right away I could see a noticable differnece in where the rear sight sat in the saddle. So I loaded some more 150 gr. rds. and headed back to the range. As you can see it the picture this made a wonderful difference. The point of aim is the bottom edge of the black Shoot&See target. All the rds. below the center line are me getting the new elevation figured out. The last 10 rds. are all above the center line. I could tell shooting it now, that allowing for my 53 year old eyes ans iron sights that it was shooting about 5 inches high. That's perfect. It should also make the heavier rds. be right on the money.
I know I'm not the only one to have this condition with these Mosin Nagants. Hopefully this may give some of you a way to bring the point of impact down at basically zero cost and a little hands-on can-do time
Sierra .311 dia. 174 gr MK bullets. Now it shot only 12 to 13 inches high. Still too much. The problem was how to correct this condition. The front sight is what it is, and being I lost my front sight post stretcher the front sight was going to remain where it was as far as elevation. So I said to myself, "self, if I can't raise the front sight my only other option was to lower the read sight". But how? Looking at the rear sight assembly and how it worked and was designed I could see if the rear sight slider was modified on the bottom side by removing material so as to allow the rear sight to sit further down it would also bring the point of impact down. So I took the rear sight apart and proceded to "modify" it and reblued it. Put it back together and right away I could see a noticable differnece in where the rear sight sat in the saddle. So I loaded some more 150 gr. rds. and headed back to the range. As you can see it the picture this made a wonderful difference. The point of aim is the bottom edge of the black Shoot&See target. All the rds. below the center line are me getting the new elevation figured out. The last 10 rds. are all above the center line. I could tell shooting it now, that allowing for my 53 year old eyes ans iron sights that it was shooting about 5 inches high. That's perfect. It should also make the heavier rds. be right on the money.
I know I'm not the only one to have this condition with these Mosin Nagants. Hopefully this may give some of you a way to bring the point of impact down at basically zero cost and a little hands-on can-do time