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Finally got my 1890 to the range

3K views 22 replies 9 participants last post by  joe45c 
#1 · (Edited)
Got a decent day yesterday for a change, so took my newest accusation to the range. It's a Winchester model 1890 .22, in short . Not too bad of shape for a rifle made in 1908. Rifling is real nice with no pitting in the barrel. Some light pitting on the outside of barrel and receiver. Still a lot of bluing. Wood has a nice honey color. So anyway due to the deep snow at the range i decided to only trudge out to the 25 yd marker. Looks like i was shooting a little high, but i was really having trouble lining up the sights with my old eyes. Couldn't see the front sight all that clear, a little fuzzy. So here is two 5 shot groups; Brown Wood Line Amber Tan
Product Wood Musical instrument accessory Tan Hardwood
 
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#4 ·
That's one nifty shooter you have there Joe. What a treasure. Not sure if you've ever discussed it with your eye doctor but about a year ago I started using contact lenses. It's no where near as good as my eyes where when I was 16 but it's good enough that I can shoot iron sights just fine. I used to line up all the fuzzy stuff but now I can actually see. Still need granny glasses to see up close if the light is dim but I'm pleased as punch with the results.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Nice shooting with a great old rifle. It makes me think of the shooting booth at the carnival. I could not pass one of those up.
Thanks todd. I was thinking about what was happening in the world in 1908 when this rifle was made, Teddy Roosevelt was President, The 1st Ford model Ts were rolling off the assembly line, and the Chicago Cubs won the Wold Series that year, and did not win it again till 2016! This gun has held up pretty well.
 
#11 ·
I love my 1890 in 22LR. Made in 1926 it may have been refinished but at a minimum it has a factory replacement octagonal barrel shortened to about 16 inches so as to be the same length as the tube feeder. The stocks have definitely been refinished. It shoots well, looks good, and is a handy size. I once had a Rossi clone and it was ungainly to me with its 23 inch barrel. The gun was a gift for fun extensive work I did on a friends motorcycle.

I was already in my forties when I resumed my current run on shooting. I always had trouble with sighting. Along the way I found the device that clips onto your glasses and adds a magnification lens so as to pull my focus to the front sight. I also found an aperture device that dims the image of the sights but increase the sharpness of both the front and rear sight. For handguns I find my progressive lens in my normal glasses allow me to rock my head so as to sharpen either the target or the front sight. But not is well with my sight in my 70's. I have Age-related Macular Degeneration where areas of the retina are no longer useful for sight. I can still shoot left eyed for handguns (the better of the two eyes) and struggle with rifles right eyed, scoped or not scoped, but am still shooting. I have to now rely on single vision distant focus sun glasses to go shooting. Just age alone has effected my shooting and the eye thing so far is only a small part of the degrading of my shooting. I still shoot well enough to satisfy me. While my eyes are degraded (in early stages of AMD) it has little effect on the rest of my life.

I suggest both those devices (magnifying lenses or aperture devices) as definitely good sighting aids for anyone who shoots. Your scores will improve!

LDBennett
 
#12 ·
Thanks LD. I'm going to head back the range today. I marked the front post with a black marker. The silver post just kept fading out on me. If that doesn't work i'm thinking of changing the rear sight out and replacing it with a marbles bulleyes rear sight. It uses the same dovetail on the rifle's barrel, so it doesn't change the gun's value. I have one of theses sights on my Henry Golden boy, and it seems to help. But it's still a challenge to see the front post.
 
#13 ·
joe45c:

Another fix is using drug store reading glasses to pull your focus onto the front sight. A compromise focus distance for these glasses could allow a reasonable sharp front sight as well as a reasonable sharp target. I have stood in a drug store trying on reading glasses over my prescription glasses. I would hold out my finger against something a distance away in the store looking for that compromise focus distance where the finger and the distant object were both reasonable in focus. This can work for both handguns and rifles sights if you force your finger out far enough.

LDBennett
 
#14 ·
LD, yes i wear reading glasses while wearing contact lenses. I need the contacts for distance sight, but they mess up my close up vision, so hence the need for reading glasses. Yes reading glasses would solve the sights problem, but then i don't think the target would be in focus.
 
#15 ·
joe45c:

A compromise focus of both the front sight and the target is better than one or the other in sharp focus. Glass that allow youth read are focused way too close. I suggest a focus at several feet in front of your extended finger, just compare the focus of the "target" to the end of your finger. Get both about the same sharpness for a compromise.

I know the "rule" is focus on the front sight but I find the target so out of focus that sighting is even harder yet. That rule works for the young with good eyesight where they can move the focus back and forth between the target and the front sight, finally settling in on the front sight before squeezing off a round. That does not work for anyone over 40, in most cases.

Go to the drug store, try the exercise, buy the glasses, and try shooting with them. It works. I think the best approach is the Merit aperture that suction cups onto your shooting glasses. At the smallest setting in outdoors lighting and even in normally lit indoor ranges, everything is in focus: Front and rear sight and the target. The small aperture maximizes "depth of field" as photographers are likely to say.

I use all for these aids from time to time: Magnification lens, apertures, progressive regular glasses. Red Dots also solve the problem as does using a scope.

LDBennett
 
#16 ·
Oh man, I'm getting all nostalgic here,,,
That exact model was my very first real rifle,,,
I bought it at a farm auction in the early 60's for $5.00.

When I looked at it on the auction tale,,,
I was certain it had the magazine rod.

When Dad came back after paying for it,,,
There was no magazine rod in it,,,
So it was now a single-shot.

Pop absolutely hated repeating rifles,,,
He had all kinds of B-S reasons he espoused,,,
But in reality he was just a miser trying to save money.

In later years he finally admitted to me,,,
That he had tossed the mag rod before bringing the gun to me.

It was a phenomenally accurate rifle though,,,
Us kids kept the rat population down at the old town dump,,,
Lying prone on a blanket I could hit rats every shot out to 50 yards,,,
After a while I got to where I could hit a rat out to 75 yards and occasionally at 100 yards.

We had "range posts" staked out from our shooting spot.

Being the good older brother I am,,,
I gave the rifle to my baby brother when I enlisted in the USAF.

My other brother told me he traded it off for a bag of weed. :mad:

Oh well, water under the bridge I guess,,,
But I surely admire and envy that old rifle of yours.

Aarond

.
 
#17 ·
I lusted for one for years and even bought a less than accurate Rossi clone that was a total disappointment..Sold it. With the high pricing of anything Winchester today I gave up on owning one. A friend asked me to finish a motorcycle he had started but poor health prevented him from finishing. I never expected anything in return. Before I finished it he died. The day I returned the bike to his widow she offered me a pick of the few guns my friend had owned. Some were too valuable for me to take and she really needed the money from those valuable guns. I hooked her up with an auction house and she did well on them. Then I saw the little 1890 pump. It is not original but who cares. I shoot all of my guns and don't have guns as investments. It looks good and shoots good. I gained a neat gun for just helping a friend.

LDBennett
 
#18 ·
Well i got back from the range a little while ago, and i gotta say darkening the front post really helped! i could pick it up a whole lot easier. Great results at 25 yds, but not the best at 50. I was hitting my steel targets though at 50, but on paper my shots drifted around some. Today i used cci shorts. The gun ejected and fired everyone round (100 rounds). I think a lot of my shooting with it at 50 yds is picking up the target center on paper at that range, but as far as tin cans and steel every shot connected. I'm pretty impressed with this little rifle. I gotta say John Browning once again knew what he was doing when he designed it.
 
#19 ·
joe45c:

I have many guns designed by John Browning and each is a beautiful design that flat works. John designed guns and sold the rights to the designs to Colt, Winchester, FN, Remington, and others.

He designed the complete gun in his head and never put anything on paper. Once the gun was "designed" he had one of his brothers make the prototype from verbal instructions. At Winchester, when they bought the design they got the prototype, they patented it in John's name and production-ized the design. Winchester bought several guns they never produced to keep John from selling it to others.

I don't think there is or may never be another like him......a pure gun genius. The 1890 is a excellent example of John Brownings greatest guns.

LDBennett
 
#20 ·
I don't think there is or may never be another like him......a pure gun genius. The 1890 is a excellent example of John Brownings greatest guns.
So true. I have heard from time to time the question that asks, what famous person live or dead would you like to spend some time with, and he would be at the top of my list! So far i have 5 of the guns he has designed; 1890, model 94, 20ga over under Citori ( not a Superposed) sweet 16 A-5, and Belgium made SA-22. All great guns.
 
#22 ·
Nice rifle! Hope I work as well when I'm 109.;) Joe - I almost gave up shooting a few years back because I was having so much trouble seeing the sights and the targets. Ole Doc told me I was developing cataracts. I've worn glasses since I was a kid, and with them had great vision - and my eyes never changed in 60+ years. My vision started getting 'cloudy' or 'hazy'.

Had that surgery a few years ago and they fixed both eyes. No pain - no sweat. I don't need glasses for other than reading now-but I'm lazy and wear them all of the time. Sure made a big difference in my shooting because now I can see both the sights and the target. Just because we are getting older doesn't mean to accept not being able to see clearly.
 
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