Stevens-Pope Schuetzen Tang sight needed..

[krs]

I have a nice Stevens Schuetzen rifle with a possible Harry Poe heavy octagon barrel in .22 LR that I've had hanging around for over twenty years. The serial number is 4646.

I bought the rifle with factory scope blocks and a front sight installed, but only two threaded holes where the original tang sight was installed.

I'm now interested in the rifle - actually my wife began to want to shoot it when I started talking about maybe selling it - so I'd like to find an appropriate sight for it. I don't mind a reproduction sight but the hole spacing is only 1.48" (probably meant as 1.5" when it was built in the 1920's -1930's).

Is there anyone here who knows of sources for such sights? I've been through all of the available Marbles and Lyman product descriptions and none of theirs has such spacing. I don't think they'd be tall enough for the rifle anyway.

The only photo I have is this one:

The thumbnailed photo is one of a similar gun that I took from an auction house yesterday. It shows a correct sight. Nicer rifle too - that one sold for about $7K.


Apologies for the crummy photo quality. That image dates back to my first digital camera, a Sony FD71 of about 1/3 meg.
The sight in the photo is a cheap and wiggly one that I bought somewhere. It has since broken right out of it's mount and is unusable. It waved around so much it was unusable when new too.

 

[rcmodel]

Possibly Axtell has or can make one with the correct hole spacing.

http://www.riflesmith.com/sightsstevens.html

Finding an original would be a stroke of luck, and very expensive!

rc

 

[krs]

Hi RC, yeah, I just came back here to say that I think I've found it, and it's Axtell. A place called "Track of the Wolf" has listings for several Stevens tang sights, some by Axtell, some not. They don't specify the hole spacing so I think at the price I'd better call on monday to verify the fit.

Whoops, they DO show the spacing and it's.......1.485" !! It says that the base screws are 5-40 and that'll be right too. Those holes had almost stumped me. I could tell they were a 40 tpi with my gauge but the fit was loose on my 4-40 tap. I'll be durned!

RS-STEVENS-5AS Stevens Tang Sight, Custom Vernier mid-range, 2-1/2" elevation and windage, by Axtell Rifle Co. . . . $310.00






Anyway I think I'm set.

If there's someone interested, the Track of the Wolf has eight pages of tang sights and parts for sights to fit most all of the Sharps, Winchester, Ballard, Remington, Stevens, etc. rifles both for target and hunting rifles. http://www.trackofthewolf.com/(S(ky...d=14&subId=167&styleId=770&PageSize=10&Page=7
and here I thought they dealt only in flintlock and early percussion arms.

 

[Jim Watson]

Isn't that pretty.

Buffalo Arms carries several brands of tang sights, some with Stevens screw spacing.
http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/2,217.html
They even have a repro of the odd little double drum adjusting Pope sight, in the Red River section.

 

[krs]

Thanks Jim. I'll have to give them a call to see how tall that is. There's a deep drop from the top of the barrel to the top of the tang - best I make it at the front mounting hole is 2 1/2" so a sight will have to be fairly tall.

I'm also interested in finding an appropriate palm rest for the rifle. I can hold it with my off hand under the trigger guard but my wife needs the leverage of her hand further out. The rifle weighs 12 lbs.

I was surprised to see prices for these so high. I paid $600. for the thing not long after I got out of the army. My 20 year estimate was under by a couple of years - I got out in 1969.

That really is a lousy pair of photos now - they used to look good. The rifle is nearly identical to the thumbnail one except mine has maybe better figure in the wood and the forehand grip is more worn. It's the same engraving pattern on the action but the checkering on mine doesn't have that flour-de-lais (spell ?) in it and my barrel is octagon all the way. I've got two old Stevens catalogs that show the rifle and all the options that were available. A buyer could have one in just about any configuration he wanted, and there were ladie's models too.

 

[Jim Watson]

One of the guys at our BPCR match today was shooting a CPA (44 1/2 Stevens) in .40-65. They are well made rifles although his was of plain styling.
CPA makes Pope-Stevens style palm rests, see at:
http://www.singleshotrifles.com/palmrests.html

CPA carries sights for their guns and could probably advise you on how tall a staff to get.
The guy today had what looked like a midrange Soule sight and it takes his .40 out to 500 metres or 600 yards.

 

[krs]

Ah, I just came across the singleshotrifles catalog using a search for palm rests in another of my tabs. I didn't get to a place where cost was mentioned but that's a good idea about contacting them for info about the sight installation. Their description says that they use a direct copy of the Stevens 44 1/2 action to build their beautiful rifles on to order.

I've spent a good part of the day learning about a whole aspect of shooting that is going on and is quite popular. I had known a little about BPCA shooting after being attracted to one of the latemodel Browning high wall rifles that are, or were made in some of the old calibers begining with .45-70 and larger. I didn't end up buying the rifle and guess I hadn't thought about it much in ten years or more.

This rifle has no distinctive markings on the barrel except for some number stampings that look almost random that are under the foregrip.
The bore is beautiful - nice and shiny now and didn't take much work to get it that way. A .22 wouldn't wear much but I had been afraid I would find a lot of pitting under the grime/dust because it was probably exposed to corrosive priming material (?) I'm not really too sure about that in a .22 though.

Anyway, it's proving to be an interesting exploration and I like my wife's interest in the rifle. She shot it today without a rear sight at all and kept her shots within a 6" circle at about 20 yards. She's 5'3" and only about 115 pounds so the rifle looks almost as big as she does. She has to lean pretty far back to get it balanced offhand.