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A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

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Mistered
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A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

Post by Mistered » Tue Mar 27, 2018 10:56 pm

Discovered something kind of cool - I finally managed to drift the front sight out of my 1899 Winchester (several months of penetrating oil in the set screw hole) and while cleaning it with some toothpaste and brush in hot water, the top portion suddenly shined up very bright - well low and behold - the front sight was machined with a channel and a silver insert was set in it and was contoured to the 'base' mount! Great 'old school' work ya don't see anymore! It was tarnished so I thought the front blade was all steel until this point. I'll get a pic up later.
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Re: A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

Post by Conax » Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:03 am

Nice!
Silver is a great light reflector, that sight will be high vis from now on.
People weren't afraid to modify their expensive rifles in the old days. My dad had an old 12 ga double with these light colored wooden diamonds inset into the stock and forend. I asked about them, turns out he carved those and inlaid them there when he was a teenager. It looked great. If I tried that I'd butcher it for sure! He also had a Browning rifle with silver wire inlaid into scrolling designs in the stock. He once made a brass patchbox and inlaid it into his .45 caliber flintlock Kentucky long rifle. That was a $2000 (in the 1960s) custom built, curly maple stocked rifle- and he cut right into it. It turned out beautiful.
Over my head!
I think it was his Creek indian blood, making him put bits of metal decorations on his guns :mrgreen:
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Re: A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

Post by Mistered » Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:14 am

Well opinions may vary but this is what I did at the ripe old age of 17 when I built this .243 Mauser from a kit - I had a friend who was a leather smith and I was looking over her silver letters one day in her shop and well the rest is history!
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Re: A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

Post by Conax » Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:31 pm

Looks cool, very nice work!
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Re: A Neat Front Sight Discovery On my 1899 Winchester

Post by Mistered » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:47 pm

Viewed from the end the channel is very clear where the silver blade was set in - or possibly cast in and then shaped. This is very interesting as I do not believe this was a 'standard' front sight. It was tarnished and looked all steel until I cleaned it.
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