Just a post about a recent job I did for a neighbor friend of mine.
He has a classic Mauser Model B that came from Africa (along with him, the neighbor that is...
) that is chambered in 9.3x62mm. This gun was used by his best friend's granddad as an engineer for the British army, building roads and bridges in eastern Africa (ala "The Ghost and the Darkness") and was used to feed the laborers as well as keep the lions off them. At any rate, a nice gun, with a lot of history to boot. (An article is slated to appear in a South African gun magazine in a few months about it).Upon receiving the rifle (as his best friend had no reason/justification for it in S.A.) my neighbor commenced to cleaning it up a bit and working up loads. The stock was cracked (due to age) so a synthetic was put on it, with the original stock to be kept for display only. My neighbor, now reaching an age where eye sight becomes a challenge with iron sights, asked me about finding a Rigby style peep sight to fit to it, hoping it would improve his ability to acquire a target more easily (I had already replaced the front sight for him with a brass beaded one, that had to be milled to fit the 4-4.5mm dove tail).
After much searching, only one company was found to be making these old style sights, and it was located in Germany. With the exchange rate, taxes and shipping, the sight came out to about $350!
As my neighbor jokingly says, "My dad is half Scots, and that is just more than I'm willing to pay!" So back to the search...As chance would have it, I stumbled across an American machinist, who was making them by hand. Rob Zimmerman makes each of these sights lovingly by hand, with a limited number being made (about 6 sights every 6 months or so). So, having discovered this, I contacted him. The price was very reasonable (comparitively, at $256) so I approached my neighbor's wife about it as Christmas gift, and long story, short; Christmas morning found him looking into a ring box, with a puzzled look on his face. This was shortly followed by a shocked and amazed look on his face as he recognized what that little part was.
Fast forward a month or so, and my neighbor was in my garage asking as to when I might be able to mill out a spare cocking piece (for the bolt) to fit his sight. The cocking piece is harden steel, so it required some special tooling. Specifically a solid carbide dove tail cutter that was .260" wide and 45 deg. Fortunately, I had a .245" dovetail cutter (for milling dovetails for 1911 sights) and we were off. I have to say, I was a bit nervous with him standing over my shoulder as I cut the piece, but all went well. A new firing pin was also needed, as the Model B has one that protrudes from the cocking piece, and would interfere with the dovetail/sight. Having found a suitable (shorter rear shaft) firing pin, we then lapped the lugs on it to match the cocking piece. Voila! Job done (aside from drifting it into the cocking piece, which was done in short order).
Yesterday, we had the chance to get out to the desert for some shooting, and the venerable 9.3x62 came along. Turns out, the Rigby peep sight ended up being about 1.5" high at 100yds when fully bottomed out, with 250gr Barnes Triple shock rounds at 2500fps. Perfect. No need (yet) to regulate the elevation (done via the two side holes on the sight, that have dentent balls that would "click" into a 1/16" ball endmill hole run into the sight shaft). The windage, by chance ended up being spot on.
At any rate, it was a good day. My friend was happy, and I was quite proud at being able to help him out, and modify his rifle to a period correct state. In the future I'll have to rust blue the sight, but that's another post.
Here's the sight, mounted on the cocking piece, with the shorter firing pin underneath.
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Here's a view of the sight on the rifle, from the rear right side.
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And here is a picture of the sight from the right side...
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