Ivory beaded sights/early lever action Winchesters (1886's) | Winchester Sights

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Ivory beaded sights/early lever action Winchesters (1886's)

August 29, 2014
11:39 am

mrcvs

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September 22, 2011

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I have an 1886 ELW Rifle that contains the ivory bead. What holds this in place? Glue, I presume? However, mine, and others I have seen, are amazingly resistant. One would think that after over a century, these would be missing far more often than I have observed as being the case.

On another note, this is ivory, albeit a very small amount. Wonder if this will be a problem with the proposed ivory ban?

August 29, 2014
12:46 pm

Kirk Durston

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June 11, 2014

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I had an original 1886 ELW that also had the ivory bead front sight. The bead was still there after more than 100 year. As for how an ivory ban will affect the bead on your front sight ... I don't imagine they will come a-knockin' at my door to check to see if any of my guns have an ivory bead on them and I certainly don't intend to call some bureaucrat to see if I can keep my bead. On the other hand, I would hope that antiques would be grandfathered in.

August 29, 2014
3:37 pm

Brad Dunbar

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December 30, 2011

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Some of the early Lyman ivory bead sights used on Winchesters had a cylinder of ivory that ran through the sight rather than having it just out on the tip. On the original No.5 Combination front sights ("post") you can see the ivory on the bottom of the sight with the ivory flipped up as it went through vertically.

Somewhere I have a Lyman catalog picture of this in a cut away drawing of a front sight.

Brad

Regards

Brad Dunbar

http://1895book.com/