Looking for Tips for Soldering on Musket Sight

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  • Allen65

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 29, 2013
    7,063
    Anne Arundel County
    I have a repro musket barrel, and need to solder on the rear ladder assembly and the front barleycorn sight. I already know how to solder, but I'm not sure what the best way is to align the sights with the barrel bore and each other.

    The barrel is tapered, which means I can't do the old door frame and pencil trick that works for lining things up along the circumference of a long cylinder.

    Any ideas?
     

    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Taper only has to do with selecting the right sight height's based on radius.
    Depending on what type of sights you have you can still use v blocks and a small square against the sight base to get the sights square to the bore. You can level the barrel and use a top dead center gauge with a level built into it the center punch or measure the diameter carefully and divide in half at each sight location, square with v blocks then cut dovetail or solder.
    Once you have one blade attached to the squared center of the barrel the other one gets easier with a piece of string centered in the bore then laid across an x on a plug or a center fit to the bore. You can see how this was done in one of the Krag builds I did in the gunsmithing forum. A lathe with a protractor would be a big help here.
    I also have a center gauge with level and hardened (prick) center punch built it into it just for this sort of thing. V blocks too and granite surface I see your in AA
     

    Allen65

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 29, 2013
    7,063
    Anne Arundel County
    Depending on what type of sights you have you can still use v blocks and a small square against the sight base to get the sights square to the bore.
    Once you have one blade attached to the squared center of the barrel the other one gets easier with a piece of string centered in the bore then laid across an x on a plug or a center fit to the bore. You can see how this was done in one of the Krag builds I did in the gunsmithing forum. A lathe with a protractor would be a big help here.
    I also have a center gauge with level and hardened (prick) center punch built it into it just for this sort of thing. V blocks too and granite surface I see your in AA

    The front sights are solder-on barleycorns, and not dovetailed. Rear sight is like this:
    https://www.ima-usa.com/collections/martini-henry-parts/products/original-martini-henry-rifle-sight-ladder-bed-mkiii-pattern, and is pretty easy to square up with the flat nocksform at the top of the chamber, and contouring to the barrel with some emery cloth.

    I'm still not seeing a convenient way to get the front sight spot-on radially. I have v-blocks and a machinist square. I have a benchtop lathe too small to fit the barrel on, but I guess I could make a center-drilled, bore size plug out of brass as a center reference and use the machinist square with that to line up the front sight.

    I'm not sure what you meant about using a center gauge. Are you talking about the type used for gauging thread-cutting tools?
     

    John from MD

    American Patriot
    MDS Supporter
    May 12, 2005
    22,731
    Socialist State of Maryland
    I'm assuming you want to shoot your repro. What I have done in the past instead of soldering is to cut a shallow dovetail and use a thin base sight for it. This gives you the ability to adjust for windage which most muskets don't have. This gives you more flexibility than any soldered on sight does.
     

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