The Lee-Speed rifle we looked at yesterday came with a set of really neat sight protectors, which I think are worth a separate video on their own. Quite a lot of work went into these, for something as simple as a sight protector!
Bolt Action Rifles
Vintage Saturday: Mr. Lee Goes to China
Note the bandoliers of individual cartridges – these Lee-Metfords predate the adoption of charger clips, and would have been reloading one round at a time.
Book review
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Over the past 15 year, Dave C. George has compiled three volumes of his book “Carvings From the Veldt”, documenting nearly a thousand carved rifles from the Boer War. This is feature almost unique to […]
Book review
Book Review – The Last Enfield: SA80 the Reluctant Rifle
Available from Amazon: Available from Collector Grade Publications: Since we are in the midst of an ongoing video series looking at the development of the SA80 weapons family, I figured this would be a good […]
You may indeed be a giant nerd, but I think much of your audience is as well. I know I’m a giant nerd and I enjoyed the bonus video.
That is great! Thanks for this gem.
The Lee-Seed is a work of art. An elegant design (“elegant” in the engineering sense) created and assembled by master engineers and craftsmen with thought and care and attention to detail. The attention to detail even extends to the sight protectors! The expected sale price ($1,400 for this and four other rifles) seems awfully low for such a magnificent artifact.
It’s amazing that somebody went to all the trouble to make the tooling to create the sight protectors, I wonder how many they sold
Why so apologetic about the nerdiness?! If Forgotten Weapons doesn’t geek about about those things, who will?
You’re wrong – it was definitely worth it’s own video. I’ve never seen anything like those before.
True. Protecting the front sight is really something you should do when the rifle is not guaranteed to stay safe. In field conditions, the rifle’s muzzle tends to get stuck into inappropriate obstacles a lot. That may be the reason for protective sight hoods being added to the M1903 Springfield after trench experiences (said hoods are more or less add-on hoods and can be removed). I suppose the Lee-Speed needed to protect the front sight because it was adjustable (which necessitates some form of protection from the elements anyway). The adjustable front sight of a Swiss K31 has protective ears forged around the sliding post, just as the M1 Garand has ears forged into the sight base. Did I mess up? SAY SOMETHING!!!!
This kind of sight protector is not meant to protect the sights from hard wear and tear. This is obvious from their light construction. These are, instead, a target shooting accessory meant to protect sight blackening from being rubbed off during a shooting match.
And I’d like to add my thanks for taking a look at these. Accessories are a whole collecting field in themselves. I’ve had the pleasure of looking through several “shooting boxes” that are always full of interesting curiosities! ^__^
Well worth the video Ian.