Dave Markowitz
Member
Several years ago I bought a Cabela's Traditional Hawken rifle in .50 caliber. It isn't a faithful copy of the real Hawken rifles of the 19th Century, but nevertheless, it's a well made and nice shooting gun. It's more or less a variant of the Lyman Trade Rifle, but fitted with a cap box on the stock and double set trigger. Also, unlike the Lyman, it was available with a left handed stock and lock. Both the Lyman and Cabela's rifles were made by Investarms in Italy.
One thing I did not like about the rifle was the sights. The rear sight, in particular, was frankly a piece of crap. The adjustable rear notch was a wide open "V" with lateral play. IIRC, the Lymans's have rear sights that are dovetailed in, which makes replacement with a fixed but better sight easy. Unfortunately, the Cabela's rear sight was held on with two screws and nobody made a good replacement.
So, I decided to install a Lyman Model 66SML aperture sight, made for the Lyman Great Plains Rifle, Trade Rifle, sidelock Thompson-Centers, and similar rifles. (I'd previously replaced the front sight with a fiber optic one. It should be the correct height to use with the new peep, but if not I'll get something suitable.)
The Model 66SML is mounted on the tang with two screws. It uses the rear wood screw which goes through the tang into the stock, plus an 8-32 screw into the metal of the tang. The tang on my rifle wasn't drilled and tapped so I did that today.
A full length view:
This rifle has a 1:48 twist, so it can shoot either patched round balls or conicals like a Hornady Great Plains Bullet or T/C Maxi balls. So far, I've just shot it with PRB and it did well.
Simple work like this is a main reason I bought a small lathe and mill back in 2013. I used the mill as a drill press today. It took me about 45 minutes to do this, which included digging out the rifle and rear sight, schlepping them out to my backyard shop, and doing the work. In contrast, to have a gunsmith mount the sight it would require locating someone local or shipping the rifle, getting onto his wait list, and probably paying about $75 to $100. Since shooting is my primary hobby, I will eventually do enough jobs like this to largely offset the cost of the tools.
Of course, that doesn't even account for the satisfaction of doing it myself.
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to try it out soon.
One thing I did not like about the rifle was the sights. The rear sight, in particular, was frankly a piece of crap. The adjustable rear notch was a wide open "V" with lateral play. IIRC, the Lymans's have rear sights that are dovetailed in, which makes replacement with a fixed but better sight easy. Unfortunately, the Cabela's rear sight was held on with two screws and nobody made a good replacement.
So, I decided to install a Lyman Model 66SML aperture sight, made for the Lyman Great Plains Rifle, Trade Rifle, sidelock Thompson-Centers, and similar rifles. (I'd previously replaced the front sight with a fiber optic one. It should be the correct height to use with the new peep, but if not I'll get something suitable.)
The Model 66SML is mounted on the tang with two screws. It uses the rear wood screw which goes through the tang into the stock, plus an 8-32 screw into the metal of the tang. The tang on my rifle wasn't drilled and tapped so I did that today.
A full length view:
This rifle has a 1:48 twist, so it can shoot either patched round balls or conicals like a Hornady Great Plains Bullet or T/C Maxi balls. So far, I've just shot it with PRB and it did well.
Simple work like this is a main reason I bought a small lathe and mill back in 2013. I used the mill as a drill press today. It took me about 45 minutes to do this, which included digging out the rifle and rear sight, schlepping them out to my backyard shop, and doing the work. In contrast, to have a gunsmith mount the sight it would require locating someone local or shipping the rifle, getting onto his wait list, and probably paying about $75 to $100. Since shooting is my primary hobby, I will eventually do enough jobs like this to largely offset the cost of the tools.
Of course, that doesn't even account for the satisfaction of doing it myself.
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to try it out soon.
