My Spencer Carbine is now ready to shoot real groups that are meaningful. My machinist reworked the front sight base and now in the place of the crude front blade is a nice Lyman 17A globe with an adapted attachment area in place of the dovetail. Target sights can be removed and a regular front blade put into the slot cut in the front sight base. Thus the original military look and function is retained:
(photos added by Two Flints)
The base of the Lyman Globe sight has been milled to fit the slot that
was cut in the front sight base. Opposing set screws and Loctite secure
it in place.
Here are some target photos you might be interested in seeing. They are the final results of my "development" of the Spencer carbine using the target sighting system that is installed and shown above in the first two photos.
This particular reload is the best I have found so far and is listed at the bottom of each target. The only other thing I am going to try will be to shoot soft lead slugs instead of wheel weight alloy this coming Saturday if the weather holds. I expect that the groups on target will be tighter with soft lead. I will also try to chronograph the final load. At this point, the target sights will be removed and a regular blade fitted to the front sight base instead of the globe sight. This blade will be cut so that the impact is to the point of aim at 75 yards using the lowest setting of the original military rear sight. The base for the vernier tang sight will remain on the wrist of the stock as I do not want to disturb the mount bushings. Appearance will be almost back to 100% military.
(Photos Added by Two Flints)
.56/50 Iron