An Alexander Henry right side hammer rifle in 450 #2 has come to live with me. It is of about mid 1870s vintage and is somewhat unusual in that it is fitted with a detachable rear long range tang sight. The sight is not made to come down low enough to be used with the front sight at anything less than 4 or 5 hundred yards and the rifle has the usual barrel mounted 2 leaf and a slide bar rear sight. Pondering this I started looking at the front sight which seemed a bit odd to me. It is obviously original but just a very small square sided and ended block with a bead and set well back from the muzzle. The interesting thing is that the sight block has a hole running through its base. I could well see a detachable and higher front sight that would sit on the block and fasten through the hole and possibly even have a wind gauge adjustment. Since the 450 #2 was a popular target cartridge of the period it stands to reason that the rifle could have been ordered with, in effect, 2 sets of sights. The barrel also appears to have a very fast twist that was used with the heavy target bullets. Has anyone seen anything like this or a Henry with an odd holed front sight? While I'm writing, does anyone have a spare set of 450 #2 (500/450 #2 Musket to use one of its longer names) loading dies sitting around the house?
Last edited by HalfaDouble; 09/20/21 06:55 PM.
