Alternate C96 Broomhandle Rear Sight

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

I see that many of us have/had a Mauser Broomhandle as well as a Luger...

I was searching eBay for a C96 Broomhandle rear sight assembly, and found this...It was described as a "M24/30 FN MAUSER PART, CARBINE REAR SIGHT"...

The dimensions are identical; the sight markings are different; the slider indices are different...but it fits and works fine in my Broomhandle slide!!!

A good alternate to the C96 sight, which is getting hard to find...

(It also fits homemade artillery Luger sight bases)...

Got a question. Is that rear sight lower than the original C96?

Since my C96 shoots 1 foot high at 25 yards A lower rear sight would be welcome.

[sheepherder]

Since you had mentioned the artillery Luger rear sight, I thought I'd post this alternative to that sight...

It's from a Martini. The star in red is above the Luger artillery rear sight for comparison; all other pics are the Martini, leaf folded & extended. (The F indicates Front). The base is ramped and is graduated 50, 100, and 200 meters. The leaf is graduated 3, 4, 5, and 6 hundred meters. The elevator has one V-notch, the leaf has another.

It's designed to be soldered onto the barrel, but I am confident that it can be milled/dovetailed to fit the artillery Luger barrel/sight base.

The ramp is straight and the graduations staggered, the opposite of the Luger. After you hit 200 with the ramp, you would flip up the leaf and continue to 600.

Interesting.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by kurusu

Got a question. Is that rear sight lower than the original C96?

The dimensions are identical; the graduations are different. Depending on what distance you are shooting, POI will be different. Wildly so, in the upper ranges (if you go by the graduations).

The V-notch is in the same place as the C96. In theory it would hold the same POI. In practice it would likely be off a bit due to tolerances & allowances being different from sight to sight.

I offer it here as an alternative to broken or missing C96 sights that I have seen listed on eBay/GB for up to $200. The one from the pic in post # 5 above cost me $38 complete (band, spring, screw, leaf, elevator assy).

Edit: 20 Jan 2015

I am in the process of shortening one of the in-the-white FN/Chilean/Argentine Mauser rear sight leafs, and I can tell you that you ain't gonna mill these leafs with a HSS or even a Cobaly end mill...I have two broken ones to prove it...I ended up milling it with Carbide end mills...

The main body is still ordnance steel; HSS end mills work fine on that...

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

The V-notch is in the same place as the C96. In theory it would hold the same POI. In practice it would likely be off a bit due to tolerances & allowances being different from sight to sight.

Too bad. I had hopes that the v notch in it's lowest position would sit a smidge lower than the original piece (about 2mm lower) that would bring the POI at 25 yards to an acceptable point of aim.