Hello WildCattle,
My sights are different, but not very different. I only have one leaf, and just like yours, there is no standing back sight..........Frankly, neither of them look original. The front sight is quite tall...At least 5 or 6 mm.
My front sight is only 2mm tall. If I do the math, increasing its height by 4mm would bring my rear sighting requirements "above" the rib surface by about 1mm.
It's almost like Rieger was confused if he was making a shotgun or a rifle.
Yes, those were my thoughts exactly. Several people seeing my rifle for the first time, with the rear sight folded down, thought it was a 410 shotgun.
Your rifle is crossing, that means too high velocity and more than likely too light of a bullet. So at least, it goes in the expected direction. Are L&R at least on the same plane (unlike the Fraser)?
In some ways this is funny; a Fraser that I can't get to cross, and a Lefaucheux that crosses.
Yes, both barrels appear to shoot on the same plane, although it was hard to see any close groupings from the individual barrels when your shooting high and only have 20 cartridges of unknown velocity with bullets that are 50g too light.
The center to center distance is ~22mm at the breech and ~18mm at the muzzle. Barrel length is 71cm, i.e 28".
My barrels have the exact same center-to-center distance on both ends. My barrel length is only 60cm, i.e. 23-5/8", which means my front sight needs to be a bit higher than yours. Distance between front & rear sights is about 50.2cm. Since your rear sight is significantly "lower" than mine, you are likely going to see far better results in elevation.
As for the loading I am converging to the *ball park* of 40 grs of IMR4895.
I found this reference from Didier Mottay, a Guns and Shooting Online reader, of the first original "M" load for the 232 grain flat nose bullet: (converted from mps)
200m = 1598 fps
400m = 1300 fps
600m = 1097 fps
800m = 950 fps
By back calculating the ballistics I get:
muzz = 1955 fps
100m = 1770 fps
I have discovered only two references that give an exact muzzle velocity of an original 232g loading. One for some Knyoch ammo.
" .... Somebody shot off 7 rounds of the Kynoch ammo. 232 grain nickle bullet; 39.1 grains of flake powder; 2008 fps .... "And this one from a link, which gives a very interesting history of the Lebel rifle.
" .... The new rifle fired a new cartridge, known as the Balle M. The Balle M, or 8x50mmR Lebel was basically a shortened and necked down 11x59mmR Gras case. The Balle M fired a 232 grain jacketed flat nosed bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2,050 feet per second...."http://www.cruffler.com/Features/NOV-01/historic-november01.htmlI suspect that our rifles would have been regulated to uses these original 232g loadings in the velocity ranges indicated.
In cross referencing several sources of vintage loading, your suggested load of 40g IMR4895 should be spot-on for the 232g jacketed bullets. I will "up" that a tad (+2.0g) for lead bullets and will be trying some lead bullet loads, perhaps later today.
BTW, As soon as I saw the pictures of your gun on George's site, I called about it. However, I was not sure that I needed two of them!
I'm glad you don't have two of them, I think this is going to be a fun little gun once I get all the bugs worked out. I'm already anticipating some sight changes.
