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Is this a Rocky Mountain Front Sight ?

nyforester
How do you tell what rifle it came off ?

2009_0821site0003.jpg

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12 comments

Date Votes
  • Fatstrat
    Yes.
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  • beantownshootah
    quote:Is this a Rocky Mountain Front Sight ?
    You could use that term to describe a dovetail-mounted blade front sight like the one in your image, sure.

    quote:Originally posted by nyforester
    How do you tell what rifle it came off ?

    You find one missing a front sight that it fits.

    If you don't find my answer very helpful, please note that gun sights usually aren't labelled as to make and individual sights can often fit multiple guns.

    If you really want to know which gun this came from, you're best bet is to figure out where the sight came from (ie where you found it) and work backwards from there.
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  • Fatstrat
    You might check the width of the dovetail mount. Rimfire rifle usually are 3/8" or slightly smaller. Big Bore rifles are usually bigger.
    Find out what size it is, the tr to find a gun that used that size and had R- sights.
    For example, Early .22 Stevens Favorites had R-M sights. I believe some older Winchesters did as well.
    One think likely for certain, it most likely will be a vintage gun.
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  • glabray
    Sights can be very difficult to trace to any particular gun or even to any specific manufacturer. Many sights contain no markings and most of the larger makers didn't stick to any one sight for the entire product life of a gun model. Many, such as Winchester, would install whatever sights a customer wanted or would install whatever was available at the time. The majority of factory letters do not specify what sights a gun was equipped with.

    Your sight could be called a "Rocky Mountain" although a pure RM sight has the upper front corner rounded with a pretty good radius. Actually I would call yours a "knife blade" sight with that square front edge. Yours is almost certainly from a rifle, this type was seldom installed on a carbine. Normally the blade was nickle silver inserted into a steel base. Dovetail width varied somewhat with the manufacturer but 3/8-inch was the most common.
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  • Bert H.
    No, it is not a Rocky Mountain Sporting front sight. It most closely (and crudley) resembles a Knife Blade sight. The sight in question is not a factory sight... instead, it is a "homemade" blade, inserted into an original factory base.

    These are Rocky Mountain sights...
    RockyMountainfront.jpeg
    RockyMountainfront70597.jpeg
    RockyMountainfront77881.jpeg
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  • Bert H.
    quote:Originally posted by Fatstrat
    You might check the width of the dovetail mount. Rimfire rifle usually are 3/8" or slightly smaller. Big Bore rifles are usually bigger.

    Not true... All Winchester rifles whether they were rimfire or centerfire were manufactured with 3/8" dovetails.
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  • Fatstrat
    quote:Originally posted by Bert H.
    quote:Originally posted by Fatstrat
    You might check the width of the dovetail mount. Rimfire rifle usually are 3/8" or slightly smaller. Big Bore rifles are usually bigger.

    Not true... All Winchester rifles whether they were rimfire or centerfire were manufactured with 3/8" dovetails.

    Usually I'm more than willing to bow to Berts expertise. But IMO this is ridicuolus. He says I'm wrong that the sight in question is not a Rocky Mountain style sight.Then as proof posts pics of sights that are only slightly different. Then says I'm wrong again when I said big bore rifkes USUALLY have larger dovertails. Stating as proof that All Winchesters use 3/8.
    I wonder if it has occured to you that Winchester might not be the ONLY company to ever use Rocky Mountain style front sights?
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  • beantownshootah
    quote:Originally posted by Fatstrat
    Usually I'm more than willing to bow to Berts expertise. But IMO this is ridicuolus. He says I'm wrong that the sight in question is not a Rocky Mountain style sight.Then as proof posts pics of sights that are only slightly different. Then says I'm wrong again when I said big bore rifkes USUALLY have larger dovertails. Stating as proof that All Winchesters use 3/8.
    I wonder if it has occured to you that Winchester might not be the ONLY company to ever use Rocky Mountain style front sights?



    This gets into a question of semantics. That is, whether or not this is a "Rocky Mountain" sight depends entirely on your definition of same and how much of a purist you are.

    I gave my loose definition earlier, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who wanted to call this a "blade" front sight, or "nearly" a R-M front sight, etc.

    As to where you might find a sight like this (Rocky mountain or NOT), in addition to Winchester rifles, these sorts of tapered blade sights can be found on Marlin rifles, any number of Black powder rifles, and many others.

    This sight might be a worn (or "bubba'd") factory sight, a "custom" sight, or a home-made sight. Apart from the paint that seem obviously to have been slapped on afterwards, I'm not sure how you can tell just from this image.

    Again, even stipulating that this particular sight fits a standard 3/8" dovetail, once detached its still going to be next to impossible to determine exactly which (if any) gun it was originally mounted on, particularly if its lacking any markings.

    If you just found the thing lying around somewhere or got it from a bin at a yard sale, etc, you may NEVER be able to figure out where it came from.

    Alternatively, if you got it from a specific source, you MIGHT be able to retrace its origin by going back to that source and asking around.
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  • Bert H.
    The important point some of you are missing, is the fact that the sight in question is not a factory original sight... it is a "Bubba" creation, and it crudely resembles a Knike Blade sight (that was used my Winchester, Marlin, and several other gun makes back in the old days).

    As it pertains to dovetail slot sizes, it was not just Winchester that chose a standard size for all makes and Models... most other gun makes did the exact same thing, and all for good reason. From a manufacturing standpoint, it was (and still is) much more efficient and expedient to use the same milling fixtures and set-up for all dovetail sight cuts. Additionally, with just one size of sight base, costs and time was further reduced. To the best of my knowledge, only Remington used two different sight dovetail sizes, and even they did not continue the practice but for a relatively short time. The vast majority of gun makers used a 3/8" dovetail universally.
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  • dandak1
    Every rocky mountain sight that I have seen on a lettered winchester rifle, and listed in the Cody Firearms Museum letter as being shipped with rocky mountain sights, has looked like Burts picture.
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  • Fatstrat
    I say again. Winchester isn't the only company to use Rocky Mountain type sights. And to say that anything that's even slightly different from what Winchester used, isn't a Rocky Mountain. Is the same as saying there is only one kind of cowboy boot.
    It's a STYLE that can come in various looks. As long as it incorporates a basic guideline form.
    Unless someone can produce a patent that says "This is a Rocky Mountain sight, and anyhing else no matter how similar isn't", I stand by my conclusion that the sight in question is a Rocky Mountain style sight.
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  • Bert H.
    quote:Originally posted by Fatstrat
    I say again. Winchester isn't the only company to use Rocky Mountain type sights. And to say that anything that's even slightly different from what Winchester used, isn't a Rocky Mountain. Is the same as saying there is only one kind of cowboy boot.
    It's a STYLE that can come in various looks. As long as it incorporates a basic guideline form.
    Unless someone can produce a patent that says "This is a Rocky Mountain sight, and anyhing else no matter how similar isn't", I stand by my conclusion that the sight in question is a Rocky Mountain style sight.


    You are correct, Winchester was not the only company to use a Rocky Mountain sight, but all of the various manufacturers (Winchester, Marlin, etc.) bought the sights they used from the same contract company. Simply put, Rocky Mountain sights are all the same regardless of who installed them on their rifles, and the same is true for the Knife Blade sights. If you spend any time researching the original company firearms catalogs, you will quickly see the difference between the two types of sights, and that they were the same regardless of which firearms company used them. Another useful reference is Nick Stroebel's Antique gunsight book.
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