Dangerous Game rifle and iron sights

Everyone’s eyes are different. And as Ive aged, my eyes have reminded me that I’m not getting younger. Recently and for my first African hunt, I have bought a nice left handed M70 in 375 H&H. Im REALLY enjoying the big bore power and experimenting with different bullets and loads. Since it has iron/open sights I have set them for a 100yd zero. But I went a little different route. I ordered a NECG ghost ring rear and installed and old school Redfield Sourdough front blade. This mimics a similar sight set up I have on my lever actions. Everything seems to fit me and line up comfortably.
I don’t really consider this to my DG rifle because I’m not hunting any dangerous and it is the “legal” minimum caliber. If I were to chase/hunt something that could hurt/kill me Id go bigger.
So, I’m a little curious, what style and iron/open sights do you have on your larger DG rifles and why? Feel free to post pictures, I’d like to see the set up.

I typically prefer keeping it simple, such as wide V backsights and an uncovered ivory bead foresight.

do red dot, reflex sight qualify as open sights?
this works way better for than irons

Well, Mr. Lefty,
in my opinion, mechanical sights are excellent, of course, who knows how to hunt with them.
I think a quality red dot is still the best choice.
With mechanical sights, it is difficult to hit a game that is in the shade, which is obscured by a tree or a high grov. Otherwise, I also like mechanical sight and have confidence in them

Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS said:

do red dot, reflex sight qualify as open sights?
this works way better for than irons

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Getting ready to put a T2 on the R8!

…in a QD mount of course. Still have the Z8i when I need to stretch my legs.

Greetings LeftySixgun,

Your large aperture rear sight with “sour dough” (stout, squarish blade for readers not familiar) front sight arrangement is IMO an excellent one.
That specific combination has been installed onto many of my former rifles.
Pictured below is a young me (then not even 40 yet) with a .375 H&H rifle equipped with only a vintage Redfield “ghost ring” rear sight and a “sourdough” blade front sight.

But that was many years ago, back when I used to own a lot of them.
Over the past 20+ years, I’ve sold off most of my firearms to help pay for more trips to Africa.
I love that particular setup and have hunted both deer and caribou in Alaska many times, with only that sighting arrangement on this rifle or that.

However, since switching to Africa for most of my hoofed animal hunting now, I have become an “express sight” convert.
What few big game rifles I still have are now equipped with the same fore and aft sights that Hunter-Habib described, a few hours ago herein.
Only my large white front sight beads are porcelain instead of ivory.
Ivory shows more class while porcelain shows what a cheapskate I am.

Fortunately, even though I’m getting quite old (yes quite), my eyes are still doing well.
Therefore, I continue to value iron sights.
However lately, I admit that a simple fixed power scope on my rifles is the preferred primary sighting arrangement.
But also and always, with express sights as my back up plan, in the unlikely event that my scope gets damaged, by a brontosaurus stomping on it or whatever.

The reason I now favor the express sights instead of the both fast and more precise “peep & blade” type is that if removing a damaged scope in the bush, and continuing my walk, I don’t have to then re-install the rear sight and hope it held its zero.
With express sights, I can just remove the scope put it in my day pack or back pocket of my breeches and get right back to hunting.

My favorite hunting rifle is a Brno 602 Magnum in .375 H&H caliber.
Unfortunately, mine is not an early production one.
And so, it sadly does not have the pop-up peep sight feature inside the rear square bridge.
Those were truly brilliant, in every definition of the word.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

I have same Winchester Safari Express sights on both my Czech 98 Mauser 404J and WWII Springfield 30-06. They are optional behind QR Warne rings and applicable scopes. These now discontinued rear sights have single fold down V leaf that are adjustable all ways and situated with just one screw into barrel. Bought the sights (front and rear) used like-new off eBay. Painted the gold front bead white. I checked sights on Springfield before recent safari and had no trouble getting a 1.5" group at 100 yards looking over my glasses. Last year I zeroed the irons on 404 for 50 yards and put bullets on top of each other. No chance to try the 404 irons in Africa though. Eland taken at 196 meters and +, buffalo at 110, giraffe at 136. All needed 1-4x scope assistance.

404 top, Springfield bottom.

I put a 3 mil tritium dot on my model 70 and it is very easy to pick up in low light.

Your desire to use open sights is great! I feel the same, but at my age, I decided to switch to "better" technology in the illuminated scopes that are out there. I just cannot justify taking a shot that I am not 100% certain is within 8" of my intended target.
So, I use 1-8 or 1.7-10 Swarovski illuminated scopes.

As to caliber - big is not always best. I use a .375 HH on everything except ele. For that I use a .416 Rigby.

Hit your spot and caliber is less important....

The NECG Sourdough front sight is what I prefer also, have them on my 375 and 500. The 375 has a traditional express sight (shallow V) while the 500 has the original Ruger No 1 rear sight (not really an express sight); I prefer the shallow V. I paint a white stripe on it for visibility.

I usually don't use an optic but have them for each rifle. I was practicing offhand shooting the 375 with its Leupold 1x6 Firedot and suprised myself at how much I liked it set to 1x (basicly a red dot), makes the setup very flexible. Downside is that you really need to have trust that your QD"s will come back to zero if take the optics off and reinstall it later. I have't reached that level of trust yet.

Oops, it seems like I have made several of you think that that Im ONLY using the iron sights. Lol, thats not the case. I have a low powered scope on it with Talley QD rings. I didnt mean to mislead anyone.

What is this Ontario?

LeftySixgun said:

Everyone’s eyes are different. And as Ive aged, my eyes have reminded me that I’m not getting younger. Recently and for my first African hunt, I have bought a nice left handed M70 in 375 H&H. Im REALLY enjoying the big bore power and experimenting with different bullets and loads. Since it has iron/open sights I have set them for a 100yd zero. But I went a little different route. I ordered a NECG ghost ring rear and installed and old school Redfield Sourdough front blade. This mimics a similar sight set up I have on my lever actions. Everything seems to fit me and line up comfortably.
I don’t really consider this to my DG rifle because I’m not hunting any dangerous and it is the “legal” minimum caliber. If I were to chase/hunt something that could hurt/kill me Id go bigger.
So, I’m a little curious, what style and iron/open sights do you have on your larger DG rifles and why? Feel free to post pictures, I’d like to see the set up.

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3 of my go to rifles with good open irons. These are all dedicated open irons shooters. Have of course optics for a couple of them as sort of secondary sights.
Left; Regular 1/4 rib.
Middle; Old Rigby Big Game with the excellent wide V close to the aiming eye. That sight is the main reason I went the Rigby route
Right; European «Battue» 1/4 rib.

Just a curiosity from my reloading room.

All my rifles have express sights irons, mostly 1 fixed, 1 folding (the 505 Gibbs is just 1 fixed), and lately going with 1 fixed, 2 folding (a guy on this forum loves the leaves) for some new rifles 30-06, 338 winmag, 375HH, 416 Rigby.
For my reloading file, I use a 2" grouping at 100yds and 9" big game vital zone. To the trajectory I add the +- group dispersion over distance and use the vital zone to estimate the PBR. Pretty standard.
For the loads I am thinking to use, the PRB range for 75yd zero was around 150yd and for a 150yd zero, around 200yds, give or take a few yards. This just fell out from my choices for bullet weight and velocities. I should note the 75yd zero has a secondary zero at 40yds for the up close and personal.

So, for those that like multiple leaf express sights, using the zeros above, one has a native "external turret system" with PBRs ending at the next zero range.

Did not plan for this but it does put a point on the selection of iron sight zero ranges.

What my PBR table looks like for 375HH, 300gn Swifts. Note the final prb2's.



and the 150yd zero trajectory chart.

I dont have any dangerous game rifles.

That said, I do have several rifles with irons. I vastly prefer aperture style rear sights to notches. I find them much more accurate and faster than notch sights.

US military rifles have used aperture style sights since I believe the 1903 rifles.

Miletic said:

What is this Ontario?View attachment 786719

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It's JB Weld bedding material. I bought the stock used and apparently it was formerly worn by an African big bore rifle. There was no forward sling swivel ( = barrel band swivel) and the barrel trough was substantial - even more substantial than my 404's #5 profile (except, curiously enough, the fore end cap which required some excavation for free floating my barrel). The bedding you see is approximately where the forward end of chamber is located. I regret not using epoxy dye that matched the wood. I actually had some dye to color the epoxy used to fill the void from former side receiver trigger block safety (my 98 Mauser action is outfitted with Model 70 striker safety).

A couple other odd things about this stock. It was obviously a thumper gun originally but had no crossbolt reinforcement. Consequently, it had started to crack ahead of and aft of the magazine box. I added two Winchester crossbolts. The stock also had a thin wrist which required trimming off the tapped end of rear action screw and a tiny bit from sides of mag box before bottom metal and action would pull together tight in the stock. Because the wrist was so thin I added a steel rod downward from end of action tang towards pistol grip cap (but not all the way). Most use 1/4" threaded rod for this but I went with 3/16" to conserve as much wood as possible. And of course I bedded the stock liberally at both ends.

I have Express sights on my CZ 550 in 458 Lott. I had a brass bead added to the factory sight to make it bigger and more visible. Original is around a 2 mm bead and now I have a 3 mm or 1/8 " bead. Bullet hits centre of the bead out to 75 m or 80 yards.

Ontario Hunter said:

It's JB Weld bedding material. I bought the stock used and apparently it was formerly worn by an African big bore rifle. There was no forward sling swivel ( = barrel band swivel) and the barrel trough was substantial - even more substantial than my 404's #5 profile (except, curiously enough, the fore end cap which required some excavation for free floating my barrel). The bedding you see is approximately where the forward end of chamber is located. I regret not using epoxy dye that matched the wood. I actually had some dye to color the epoxy used to fill the void from former side receiver trigger block safety (my 98 Mauser action is outfitted with Model 70 striker safety).

A couple other odd things about this stock. It was obviously a thumper gun originally but had no crossbolt reinforcement. Consequently, it had started to crack ahead of and aft of the magazine box. I added two Winchester crossbolts. The stock also had a thin wrist which required trimming off the tapped end of rear action screw and a tiny bit from sides of mag box before bottom metal and action would pull together tight in the stock. Because the wrist was so thin I added a steel rod downward from end of action tang towards pistol grip cap (but not all the way). Most use 1/4" threaded rod for this but I went with 3/16" to conserve as much wood as possible. And of course I bedded the stock liberally at both ends.

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I assumed that was the case

I believe that what you have done will not allow further firing of the stock

I prefer a ghost ring type sight for fast shooting, but I do have express style sights on a few rifles and handguns. I just find the ghost ring to be a bit faster for me. My Grandfather used to unscrew the apertures from his peep sights when his eyes really went and he still shot well enough.

Miletic said:

I assumed that was the case

I believe that what you have done will not allow further firing of the stock

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I'm not sure what you meant by "further firing of the stock"? This rifle has been fired multiple times since I restocked it, including five times last week when it took eland, buffalo, and giraffe (that sick old eland soaked up three rounds in the boiler room - poor bugger just wouldn't tip over). I guess it's fired more than forty rounds since I changed to this stock. It now has so much steel and JB Weld holding it together I really don't anticipate any structural failure down the road. And everything I did to strengthen it is certainly not unusual for a heavy recoiling rifle. Most of us bed the action to end of chamber and free float from there to muzzle to maintain consistent barrel harmonics. That's normal for any rifle. Two crossbolts in a heavy recoil rifle is pretty much the norm, especially when using Timney trigger which requires removing extra wood behind the magazine box. You can watch Larry Potterfield's Midway video for how to put a steel pin down through the stock wrist (though I don't recommend attempting to freehand drill the hole - I built a jig). Please tell me what you think I did wrong?