I received an interesting email today regarding our state championship in December. A shooter new to lever action silhouette asked whether an unmagnified red dot sight is legal. I told him no and quoted Rule 3.1.3(a) which says “Rear sights may be open, receiver, or tang sights, mounted as originally intended.”

He correctly pointed out that a red dot sight is mounted on the receiver and that he would mount it as originally intended, so why would that not be a legal “receiver” sight.

I replied that I think the term “receiver sight” refers to a special peep sight mounted on the receiver but that we were getting outside of my expertise on lever actions and iron sights.

Has anyone ever seen this come up with the committee or to a jury? Anyone have any insight as to what part of the rule makes an unmagnified red dot sight illegal when it is not specifically excluded in the rules?

Thanks!

Dustin

OH BOY HUNTER RIFLE ALL OVER AGAIN.

This is the result of dropping Cowboy from the name.

Here we go. And I don’t think there is any need for even discussing this at all!!! Put me on the jury at the tournament. I won’t mind at all saying it just plain wrong. All is well as is. If someone wants to put a red dot on their lever action rifle by all means do so. It’s your rifle and your business to do so. Then that person should take the lead in developing a whole new classification of rifle with red dots or any other sight they choose and get people to shoot in it and leave the current rules just like they are and shoot them just as they are. If this is approved to shoot side by side against those shooting under current rules then by all means don’t stop there let everyone get the sandbags and bipods and put us all together head up.
If it doesn’t show, regardless of any interpretation from anyone that considers this within their realm of expertise, I’m T Totally against it.

Here you go Dustin, to me it is pretty clear that for lever silhouette the sights must be iron sights and not glass based.

From the 2020 rule book Under 3.1.3

Listed below are the three classes
of Lever Action Silhouette Rifles. The below listed rules (a - f) apply to all
classes of Lever Action Silhouette Rifles. No rear or front sight may contain
a lens, magnified or non-magnified. No extended mounts are permitted. (The
intent of these rules is to establish a match for common hunting carbines and
other lever action rifles. The match is focused toward shooters who enjoy
shooting hunting arms and do not want to make the investment required of
other specialized types of shooting competitions.)

Item a under 3.1.3 allows a corrective lens, but that is different to then an glass based sight, which a red dot is. The above rule also mentions rear and front sights, also alluding to iron sights.

If he is a new comer to the game, I would have let him shoot but out of competition. If he is a seasoned competitor, then he knows the advantage a red dot would provide over iron sights and is just being an ass if he is pushy about it.


In the NRA highpower rule book, for a palma rifle it specifically lists out metalic sights:

3.3.1 U.S. Palma Rifle—
(a) A rifle with metallic sights chambered for the unmodified .308/7.62
or .223/5.56 NATO cartridge case.
(b) Any service rifle with metallic sites chamb

Zoran,

Thanks! That answers it! I was looking at a 2016 rule book but the 2020 one is clear.

Everyone else, don’t panic. This sky is not falling. Just a new guy asking some questions trying to figure out how to put a sight on his “tactical” lever gun that has a Picatinny rail but no front sight.

Dustin

Wellll, it didn't say no lasers.

MOTO VITA wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:15 pm Wellll, it didn't say no lasers.

Would the lens in a laser be considered a corrective lens? I mean technically it is correcting the light into s coherent beam. Although a laser might be hard go see at 100 yards..

Other than to check some historical variation, why would anybody be referring at a 2016 Rulebook?
The current (2020) edition has been posted on the NRA website since, well, 2020.

No1_49er wrote: Sun Aug 29, 2021 1:35 pm Other than to check some historical variation, why would anybody be referring at a 2016 Rulebook?
The current (2020) edition has been posted on the NRA website since, well, 2020.

I guess I was “referring at” the 2016 rulebook because I’m just not very smart.

Dustin

When you google search "nra silhouette rules" the first link from the NRA takes you to a 2016 rule book. The second link goes to a 2019 rule book. In fact I had to go to the full nra list of rule books to get a 2020 version. So it can be easily done.

I think anyone should be surprised that the NRA has something more recent than 2016 if we're being honest with ourselves.

There ya go. https://competitions.nra.org/competitio ... ule-books/
Does that make it easier for anybody?

Yes. Downloaded to my iPhone

Probably using the 2016 rulebook because that was the last hardcopy version.
The one we all carry around. I have updates printed off and stapled into mine.
Not all ranges have cell signal to view a pdf.

If our "sanctioning body" gave a crap they would print and distribute some rule books every decade.