Help with 1917 Lithgow attic find

[sgabrie854]

I recently dug a heavily sporterized 1917 Lithgow from the rafters of a friends attic, among other issues it has no rear sight and lots of rust. From what I have been reading, the rear sight is pinned, but there is no hole in the barrel for a pin? there is a ~.125 inch diameter hole on top of the barrel where the sight would sit? Is the rear sight pinned on like the front sight that uses a guide with the hole? Any help would be appreciated!

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

The rear sight base is tapered to the taper of the barrel and held for and aft by a cross-pin and located against rotation by dual purpose screw. The hole you can see if for the nose of this screw. The barrel came fitted with the sights as a matched set. I haven't ever successfully matched up an odd rearsight bed with an odd barrel yet. Scraped the interior of the backsight bed until it locks onto the barrel but never managed to do that AND align the existing cross-pin holes.

No doubt others on this forum will have........ but I ain't. I have secured them using other means (and that's NOT locktite or superglue either.....!)

[sgabrie854]

Thanks Peter. Any ideas why my barrel has no hole for the crosspin? Rusted over?

[Homer]

The rear sight base is tapered to the taper of the barrel and held for and aft by a cross-pin and located against rotation by dual purpose screw. The hole you can see if for the nose of this screw. The barrel came fitted with the sights as a matched set. I haven't ever successfully matched up an odd rearsight bed with an odd barrel yet. Scraped the interior of the backsight bed until it locks onto the barrel but never managed to do that AND align the existing cross-pin holes.

No doubt others on this forum will have........ but I ain't. I have secured them using other means (and that's NOT locktite or superglue either.....!)

Yep me either. The holes have never lined up in my experiences of fitting an odd sight base to a barrel and nor would I expect them to. Successfully got around it by other means though.

Maybe the hole has been filled or a pin sheared off in the hole and the rust is making it difficult to identify. You'd have to really whack it to shear a pin off I would imagine.

[5thBatt]

I have secured them using other means (and that's NOT locktite or superglue either.....!)

I wonder what that might be...?? i dont recall you ever mentioning being based in the US so not thinking masking tape!

[Bindi2]

I wonder what that might be...?? i dont recall you ever mentioning being based in the US so not thinking masking tape!

Chewy

[Peter Laidler]

The last couple I did were for my sons old school where they'd had Ph_ sights fitted in the past and knocked/taken off the original sight bases. Got some used bases, scraped them to fit and then machined in a small internal recess. Correctly aligned the backsight bed with the recess in the fore-end and aligned with the body and soft soldered the bed to the barrel. Flat milled the shallow spot to suit the location screw and that was it. Still there to this day.

[muffett.2008]

Is it a Heavy barrel? identified by the stepdown at the front sight.
As the target rifle fraternity did not use the original rear sight, replacement barrels were undrilled.
If you wanted to reuse the mid mounted sight, after reaming to size, you then used the existing holes to align your rearsight, usually by cutting a slot across the barrel instead of drilling.

[sgabrie854]

Is it a Heavy barrel? identified by the stepdown at the front sight.
As the target rifle fraternity did not use the original rear sight, replacement barrels were undrilled.
If you wanted to reuse the mid mounted sight, after reaming to size, you then used the existing holes to align your rearsight, usually by cutting a slot across the barrel instead of drilling.

Its a light barrel for sure. The only real visable marks are the High Velocity "HV" just aft of where the rear sight would sit. Its a fine coat of rust that really does not seem that bad to obscure the stampings. Either way its going to send something downrange, everything I own has been fired at least once.

[WarPig1976]

I wonder what that might be...?? i dont recall you ever mentioning being based in the US so not thinking masking tape!

That would be Duct tape.

If you can't duct it,,,F@&$ it.