Back in the glory days, telescopic sights were not nearly so refined as today and were often viewed with suspicion. Virtually all high-quality American firearms had provision for sophisticated iron sights from domestic makers Lyman, Redfield, Marbles and several others. Installation was usually no more complicated than bolting on the sight and, perhaps, installing a different front sight. Often as not, a good peep sight would provide accuracy on par with the scopes of the era.

Most sight sets provided on factory iron-sight rifles these days are pretty rudimentary and, fairly, cry out for improvement. The resident M77/44 Ruger bolt-action carbine, nice a gun as it is, is no exception. The integral scope mounts and rings provided with the rifle gives you the impression the gun was intended to sport a scope and the simple folding U-notch rear and gold bead front sight were merely an afterthought. I figured a 6-pound .44 Magnum with an 18" barrel would remain a lot lighter and handier without a scope, but it still needed a serviceable set of iron sights for best performance.

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