Has anyone seen a rear sight blade like this before?

[cubrock]

I recently got a .44 Special 1950 Target that shipped in 1955 to Evaluator's Limited in Quantico. The rear sight blade is like none I have seen to date. It is much thicker than a standard factory blade, as shown in the pics. It fits fine, but has a bit of front-to-back wobble to it. I assume it is aftermarket, and perhaps a target blade of its day, but it has me very curious. Can anyone tell me more about it?

Also, the gun letters with checkered walnut stocks, but came to me with Cokes. It came to the guy I bought it from with Cokes. Perhaps it was someone's target revolver back in the day....

Thanks in advance!

[Muley Gil]

I have a dovetailed Colt 1911 rear blade like that. Never seen one like yours on an S&W though. Neat!

[Clean Break]

No distracting reflection alongside either vertical plane... Flippin' sweet! CB

[2152hq]

That's a nice job.
Possibly made up by sandwiching the original blade between two extra pieces. Then shaping to the original blade contour, cutting out the notch and widening the front.
The notch, looking from the rear, looks hand cut/filed.

Or using the bottom piece from the original blade and adding it too a new one piece blade.


I've done a couple similar but only adding a piece to the rear and recutting a finer, U shaped notch for a customer who used a fine bead front site in Bullseye Target.
Lead/tin soft solder blues well with most cold blues to hide the jointing, which isn't much anyway if it's done right.
Silver (hard) solder to attach the bottom to a complete new top, and the joint is never seen when assembled.

[Hondo44]

Quite a nice piece of handiwork and excellent photos. I don't think it was pieced together. There would have to be two seams if a blade was sandwiched between two added pieces and I don't see any seams.

I believe like Mulkey Gil said, it's another sight with a custom notch filed in it that was soldered to the top of the threaded portion of the original blade which was shortened. JMO.

The nut on the sight screw no longer looks peened and will probably unscrew giving you a better look at the bottom of the sight blade.

[cubrock]

I noticed the sight screw nut and figured that came from this blade being installed. I'll have to see about taking the blade out when I get a chance.

I was kinda hoping someone would come along and say "Hey, that is an X brand sight that was sold in the 60s" or something like that. It shouldn't surprise me that it might be someone's labor of love to get the target blade they wanted. Thanks for all the responses!

[M29since14]

Have never seen or heard of such a thing but it looks like a good idea. I wouldn't mind having a couple. Thanks for showing us that.

[bettis1]

Never saw one like that but it gave me a thought. Reversing a blade shaped like that (so that the wider aspect was to the rear) and then carefully painting the converging sides with a white paint should make a sight picture that would be very quick to pick up. Very much like a currently produced white outlined sight.

Bob

[Tired Gunsmith]

Looks like the work of the late George Hyde.

[M29since14]

I would like to see a pic of the front sight, too, if possible. Thanks.

[handejector]

I like it. A very neat job.
I agree that it is hand filed. It might be attached to the threaded ferrule of a factory sight as mentioned, or it might be one piece made from scratch.

Now, the question burning in my mind- WHY?
I see no advantage to the thick blade that is relieved so that the thickness means nothing in regard to the sight picture. A thin factory blade can be relieved at an angle like that- I've done it. Why make it thick and then file it open like a thin blade can be done????

[M29since14]

It gives a neater presentation. Look at the third picture. In the factory sight, the face of the blade sits in a different plane from the last horizontal edge of the sight body. With this design, a more tidy presentation is achieved. But it is not entirely successful because of the semi-circular notch in the sight body.

If it is fitted carefully, the design would also serve to prevent some of the back and forth rock of the blade that is common with the factory sight.

Just too bad that semi-circular cut in the sight body is there to spoil the whole thing. I believe someone made a blade for S&W sights that in fact did cover the body so that when viewed from the rear, the blade face was all that could be seen.

None of this matters much from a utilitarian point of view, but if I had a choice, I believe I might prefer the "improved" design for any kind of precision shooting (like metallic silhouettes, for example - if some committee didn't immediately rule it illegal ). Anyway, I think if you used it for a while, it might "grow" on you.

Final thing is that the blade appears to be taller than standard, thus my interest in the front sight. This might have been nothing more than a skilled fix for a gun with problems that would not shoot to point of aim with a standard height blade. If you see an unusual front blade, probably not. If the blade is standard height, may have been a "fix."

[Muley Gil]

"Now, the question burning in my mind- WHY?
I see no advantage to the thick blade that is relieved so that the thickness means nothing in regard to the sight picture. A thin factory blade can be relieved at an angle like that- I've done it. Why make it thick and then file it open like a thin blade can be done????"

There is less glare with that open "box" in the front of the blade. It gives a sharper sight picture.

[cubrock]

Here is the front sight. Appears to be a standard 1950 Target Patridge blade, to me.

[Walter Rego]

I seem to recall seeing advertisements for King-Tappan .45 Auto sights that had that type of notch. Maybe someone modified one of those by silver soldering it to the S&W part that fits inside the sight body and engages with the screw.

[M29since14]

The King Tappan sight used a vonStavenhagen layout of sorts - a bar beneath the square rear notch, with a horizontal "100-yard" bar and a dot on the front sight. I don't see any relationship to the OP's pictures.

Thanks for the picture of the front sight. It does look standard to me, too.

[cubrock]

Well, a bit of the mystery of this sight may be solved. I got to shoot the gun today. The gun shoots very, very well (especially for just grabbing some different commercial loads and shooting it and not working up a load using bullets cast for the gun). The sight picture is fabulous. However, the high rear blade makes the gun shoot quite high at 25 yards. It shoots about 2" high with 210 grain cowboy loads from Black Hills, putting 5 shots in 1 3/8" at 25 yards. It shot slightly larger groups with Winchester 240-grain round noses and put them a couple inches higher.

With how high it shoots with the rear sight all the way down, it would appear to me that this sight likely gave someone a good 6 o'clock hold on a Bullseye target. Given the sight picture and the addition of the Cokes, I think it likely someone set this up the way they wanted as a target gun. Doesn't appear to have been used much, but I guess we all do that from time to time - spiff up a gun the way we like it, then move on to other things.

I bought it to upgrade my current shooter 1950 Target, which isn't in quite as nice a shape. However, my other one shoots 240-grain bullets more accurately than this one, and to point of aim. I may just keep both and use lighter bullets (I'm thinking 429215 in both solid and hollow-point variety) with the newer gun. I had planned on selling the Cokes and my original 1950 Target to make this one an even swap. I'm not sure I can part with either item, now. The Cokes are a dream for shooting and since I like to shoot Keith bullets in my .44s, and my original 1950 Target does that better than the new one, it looks like it will stick around.

Here are two quick pics of the gun with one of its targets today. My aiming point was the orange dot in the center of the bull.

[Hondo44]

The notch could use a little final squaring up anyway. I'd take some off the top and lower it at the same time and get your elevation range back.

[cubrock]

Silly me - that hadn't crossed my mind. Thanks!

[M29since14]

I would shoot it some more before I did anything to it. You never know what you might "discover."

Of course you should keep both guns and the stocks. What were you thinking?

[Clean Break]

Heavier bullets often have a higher point of impact than lighter ones do; maybe this was set up for some originally. CB

[M29since14]

So, I am curious... how is it going with this gun? Did you get the elevation problem resolved with some different loads? Wouldn't be surprised if this gun would shoot closer to POA with a slightly hotter (faster) load, or, as Clean Break says, one with a slightly lighter bullet.

[elm_creek_smith]

Did you think about using a six o'clock hold on that bullseye target? It looks like the reason for the sight setup, if you were holding on the little bitty orange dot with rear sight bottomed out. If you used the six o'clock hold that should give you some adjustability.

ECS

[jrhoney]

That looks like a much better rear sight blade than the stock ones. I might be inclined to make one it I ever break another rear sight on my Model 28.

[cubrock]

I haven't had time to do anything else with it, but I'm not going to go lighter than 210. Speeding the loads up should be the ticket, as Cowboy loads are usually way low on the velocity scale for a given bullet weight. I'm going to experiment with some of the faster 240 grain loads to see how it does, as the ones I had with me were only clocking 750ish fps.

I was holding 6 o'clock on the tiny orange dot. Given I intend to use this gun in the field, I don't want to get used to a bullseye 6 o'clock hold. An imaginary aiming spot about the size of the dot is what I like to have perched on my front sight blade.