My late lamented C.Sharps 1875 was equipped with a "mid-range" vernier sight for target/range use which was lovely, but I found it terrible for hunting; bulky, way too tall, awkward when casing/uncasing, just an all around PITA. I eventually located a much simpler tang sight, similar in form to the Lyman Ideal, which could be mounted to the same base as the mid-range job. Thus I had the highly-adjustable, long-range vernier for range use and could easily and quickly switch to the Ideal-style hunting sight. The hunting sight did not go out much beyond about 400 yards, which is much further than I would ever shoot while hunting, but it was very compact and sleek and also much more resistant to accidental mis-adjustment in the field. It had a vertical staff with a threaded socket to accept various sizes of apertures, and I usually just used it without anything installed, letting it function as a ghost-ring.
I left the barrel-mounted sight in place as well; it was sighted for short range, about 75 yards, while the tang was sighted for 200. Perfect!
Except...it wasn't. On the occasion of shooting my first...and so far only!...elk, the animal fell to the shot motionless and I approached it through the intervening 100+ yards of brush. As I came close, the cow began to struggle to her feet. I was not really surprised by this, and had the gun in a low ready position. I quickly threw it to my shoulder and squeezed off a shot, but at some point while traversing the brush the aperture staff had gotten halfway folded down. My quick snap shot was taken instinctively using the barrel-mounted sight. The staff, folded down towards me but not all the way against the tang, was driven by recoil into my cheek putting a nice jagged hole through it right into my mouth.
From then on, my rifles that have tang sights have the barrel-mounted sight removed, hopefully to prevent a reoccurrence of that little adventure.
Here are my two current favourite hunting aperture-sighted single shots: First, an Uberti 1885 with the open barrel sight replaced by a ladder-style unit. Yes, that is a plain old 3/8-inch flat washer epoxied over the open vee on the crosspiece. Works beautifully with a front bead, globe with inserts or flat-top post. Mine has an old Dockendorff tunnel with a brass crosshair.
And here's a Henry single shot, with a Marbles Bullseye aperture in place of the open rear sight and a red fibre-optic bead up front.
Not exactly uber-traditional, but lots of fun and very effective.
