The Ancient Buckhorn sights of yesteryear.

Brutus

Brutus

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Recent threads got myself to thinking about this. Many lever carbines-rifles come with these as factory standard. And a multitude of antique and reproduction long rifles also have them.
I've changed them out on my own Winchester carbine, but for various reasons I will not do the same thing with my Hawken rifle copy. Henceforth, I plan to keep my deer hunting/shooting at or below 100 yards or less with this muzzleloader. Now I might, just might, consider plopping a varmint at a maximum of 150 under the right conditions, but not on anything I plan on bringing to the table. These aging eyes have their limits. Some people would consider this a BP subject only, but the fact is many modern made lever rifles still have them on top, right from the factory.

Anyone else like to comment on this subject?

Edit: I do not like these old style of sights guys and gals! lol
 
Lot's of people don't like buckhorns but I don't mind them at all and combined with a small brass bead I find them accurate and easy to adjust quickly with different aim points for different distances.

I must have been a crack shot with buckhorns in another life..... :)
 
Buckhorn refers to the one type of open sights. The big curving "horns," serve no purpose whatsoever. Disregarding depreciating the value of the rifle, the big horns should be ground off, so the top of the open sight is level, like most open sights are. Cooey sights are an example of this.
A person with good eyes and used to open sights can do surprisingly well with them, but they are far inferior to good aperture sights, with the "peep" hole close to the shooting eye.
 
Agree with you Bruce. I have a Browning B92 at my gunsmith right now getting the buckhorn rear replaced with a slot blank and a Lyman tang peep sight installed.
 
Nothing beats a good peep or aperture close to the eye....but when I shoot buckhorns (specially the full ones) I treat them like a ghost ring and just center the bead on the target and let fly.

If I'm lobbing them out there and don't want to play with the elevator, I will bring the bead up and line it with the top of the horns instead of the center

Regardless of preferred sight pictures, the fact is there are so many choices and it's easy to change them out.
 
H4831 said:
Buckhorn refers to the one type of open sights. The big curving "horns," serve no purpose whatsoever. Disregarding depreciating the value of the rifle, the big horns should be ground off, so the top of the open sight is level, like most open sights are. Cooey sights are an example of this.
A person with good eyes and used to open sights can do surprisingly well with them, but they are far inferior to good aperture sights, with the "peep" hole close to the shooting eye.
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My sentiments exactly. Most of my lever guns wear aperture sights.:)
View attachment 13534
 
SHELL SHUCKER said:
My sentiments exactly. Most of my lever guns wear aperture sights.:)
View attachment 13534
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On my own lever carbine, I prefer the Williams FP receiver sight instead.

I find many of the more recently popular rear peep sights have a rear aperature hole that is large enough to toss an adult dophin through them.
When they are too large, it's harder to measure their improvement over factory irons.

lol
 
I've got 20/20 vision with either contacts or glasses, but I can only deal with two types of open sights: an express-style shallow V, or an aperture (or on some guns ghost ring) rear. Buckhorns or the typical open rear with a groove are not conducive to good shooting for me.

Modern rifle manufacturers should do better by their customers and put a better rear sight on their guns.

This may be a matter of preference, but I prefer a white bead to a brass one 10 times out of 10.
 
I prefer brass because it shows up well for me against dark and light targets but we all have different eyes! It's nice to have choices.
 
Can-down said:
I prefer brass because it shows up well for me against dark and light targets but we all have different eyes! It's nice to have choices.
Click to expand...

In this case, choices are easy too. I've painted a few sights with model paint and made them good-for-me in about two minutes.
 
The stock on this carbine is low so with a good cheek weld the buckhorn sights line up quickly.

I don't find that I can shoot tight groups with them but then it is not a target rifle.

P5120174.jpg
 
Silverado said:
In this case, choices are easy too. I've painted a few sights with model paint and made them good-for-me in about two minutes.
Click to expand...

Yup me too..... since it's hard to paint brass I paint them white.

Thing is the brass appears bright against dark targets and dark against white or light colored targets.......it's a chameleon type thing.
 
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