joelweb
Well-known member
If you want to put an aperture or peep sight on a Pedersoli Missouri River Hawken muzzleloader, below are some considerations.
I had a gunsmith put a Lyman 57 GPR on my Pedersoli Hawken in 2024. To install the sight, he needed to drill and tap one new hole in the tang and he used one existing hole. He then ground some material off the windage screw on the sight and used a forge to move the rear part of the hammer off to the right so that it would clear the sight when cocked.
It now clears by about an 1/8 of an inch and works great. The gun is a dream to shoot and consistently delivers tight groups at 100 yards with 400 grain lead conicals.
With that said, I don’t like how the Lyman sight is easy to bump out of adjustment. It is so easy to accidentally move that you need to check the sight alignment every time you handle the gun. I worry about that level of reliability for hunting situations, and so I picked up a Williams Hawken FP sight thinking I'd give it a try.
While the Lyman sight is better looking, the Williams sight stays put more firmly when you are done adjusting. That’s what I’m looking for in a hunting application. Additionally, the mounting configuration is the same for the two, so they should mount on the same surface without major modification (with some shimming, of course).
Well, Williams sight hangs way to the right of the Lyman sight and the hammer will not come close to clearing the Williams sight. The only way I can think to make the Williams sight work with this application would be to move the sight so far aft that it is mounted behind the hammer. One would need to shim the sight excessively to get it to work in this location. I'm not going to attempt that.
So, I’m back to the Lyman sight. I sure would like to figure out how to anchor that windage screw if anyone has a suggestion. Also interested in learning about anyone else's experiences mounting a peep sight to a Hawken, and a Pedersoli in particular.
I had a gunsmith put a Lyman 57 GPR on my Pedersoli Hawken in 2024. To install the sight, he needed to drill and tap one new hole in the tang and he used one existing hole. He then ground some material off the windage screw on the sight and used a forge to move the rear part of the hammer off to the right so that it would clear the sight when cocked.
It now clears by about an 1/8 of an inch and works great. The gun is a dream to shoot and consistently delivers tight groups at 100 yards with 400 grain lead conicals.
With that said, I don’t like how the Lyman sight is easy to bump out of adjustment. It is so easy to accidentally move that you need to check the sight alignment every time you handle the gun. I worry about that level of reliability for hunting situations, and so I picked up a Williams Hawken FP sight thinking I'd give it a try.
While the Lyman sight is better looking, the Williams sight stays put more firmly when you are done adjusting. That’s what I’m looking for in a hunting application. Additionally, the mounting configuration is the same for the two, so they should mount on the same surface without major modification (with some shimming, of course).
Well, Williams sight hangs way to the right of the Lyman sight and the hammer will not come close to clearing the Williams sight. The only way I can think to make the Williams sight work with this application would be to move the sight so far aft that it is mounted behind the hammer. One would need to shim the sight excessively to get it to work in this location. I'm not going to attempt that.
So, I’m back to the Lyman sight. I sure would like to figure out how to anchor that windage screw if anyone has a suggestion. Also interested in learning about anyone else's experiences mounting a peep sight to a Hawken, and a Pedersoli in particular.
