I'm relatitively new to Cap and Ball shooting and have bought 4 revolvers to whet my taste for the hobby.
I decided to take the big step and set up my 1858 Remington 5 1/2" for a 7 yard sight setting. I filed the front post to be a six o clock hold at 21 ft with the ball striking atop the sight picture. The load is a 35 grain charge set off with a Remington #11 cap ( this size of Cap fit my gun best). I alternate with either a Greased wad atop the powder or Crisco as a chain fire preventitive.
My reasoning for filing the sight was that I measured the distances on my Club's Cowboy action targets and took an average of it and the current distances for gunfights per FBI accounts and the distance came to be 21 ft as the best average. We have movable targets at our Club's Pistol Rqange so sighting-in for that distance and pratice is easy.
This Sherriffs Model Remingtons sights are very well centered and at this close range and hit spot-on!
I only had to remove less than 1/16" from the front post to achieve hits at this range with the afore mentioned measured load. I know it's slow, but I measure each chamber with a small powder measure for both safety's sake and for accurate as possible reloads. (Heck I didn't get into B/P cause it's FAST!) All in all the load and sights give a very accurate POA and impact on the target. Shots at 20 yards strike a tad higher but on Steel targets you'd never notice the difference.
I think the Remington style sights are regulated for a much lower POI than the Colt design and therefore this sight modification was the easiest type of gun to set up for this distance. I wonder how tall the front post on the Italian repla guns is as opposed to the origonal Remington '58 Factory sights? From pictures I'd estimate that the Italian sights were pretty good representations...
This Sherriff's model Remington set up this way makes for a fast handling close range blaster! I feel it is both a good outdoors companion (especally for snakes) and a viable beginners gun for shooting Cowboy steel targets.
Have any of you set-up your revolvers for close range or do you just hold under to get hits?
ZVP