doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com help pleease . tang sight on vintage drilling

anyone no how to properly operate and adjust these old style inteegral tang sights? it is on a collath drilling [ 12 x 12 x 9.3x72R, nitro proofed, steel barrels:















it doesnt have an obvious pop up mechanism, so i am using a screw driver for now, and not sure how the two parts work together ??

Only the open (notched) rear sight blade of a Drilling has a pop-up mechanism, either only by hand, or operated automatically via the rifle barrel switch, through a long rod inside the rib.

The more rearward "hole tang sight" ony serves to provide a sharper picture of the two parts of main rear sight. You raise the rear tang sight via hooking in your finger nail.

The sight *opening* itself is adjustable only via drifting, and you can see the two concurrent mortises, which rrun horizontally and vertically. Once you have regulated your open sights to your preferred distance and specific load, you can then adjust the tang sight so that the open rear sights are clearly visible exactly through the *center* of its opening.

Regards,
Carcano

Cable,
Judicious detailed cleaning and lubrication may free it enough to use your fingernail, as described by Carcano rather than a screwdriver. There is a reasonable chance that the original owner already adjusted it to use as Carcano described, so I suggest you give it a good try before changing it.
Mike

I've always known them to be called a 'Diopter' or a Diopter Sight.
To sharpen the sight image as Carcano states.

thank you Carcano and Mike....sometimes i feel like " duhhh" i should have figured this out ! going to the range this morning and see what i can do !

its a beautiful old gun, and should b fun to use !

Whilst Cacarno and Kutter are undoubtedly right that these flip up apertures can be used as an othopic to sharpen the view of front and back sights by increasing the depth of field, surely they can be used in their own right as an aperture sight?

If they are elevated to aim over the back sight (assuming it is a fixed standard and does not fold down ) they can be adjusted to give the correct point of impact at a longer range.