Experimental sights/experimental ammunition and gongs

[Eric Johanen]

I can see why gong shoots are an attraction. Distance, irregular target shapes, immediate feedback from a hit (they do sound nice) and a pretty good test of your rifle, loads and shooter. The Merrill WI match with targets from 200 to 500 is nice match. Last one I attended I used my Shiloh 44-77 Hartford with the barrel sights and just went to get zeros at longer that 200 yards. It shot pretty well and had some favorable comments on shooting with the barrel sights. You get gross accuracy with lack of fine windage adjustments but with targets wider than the front sight good work can be done. When the target width gets close to blade width it does increase the difficulty as there is no room for windage errors. Younger eye's could really smoke them but tired old eye's you do have to allow for some very close but no cigar's during the competition. I have noticed that things seem a lot brighter with them rather that using aperture sights. With the aperture sights I have problems with less that bright light conditions, Does not seem to be a problem with the open barrel sights as lots of light for the eye and even with less than perfect conditions the target and area around it is brighter. I am really liking these sights and will continue to use them on a regular basis.