Saturday, January 12, 2019

Sling and New Front Sight on Cabela's Hawken

One rifle I've been shooting lately is my Cabela's Hawken, made in Italy by Investarms. At some point I'd like to take it hunting, which IMNSHO requires a sling. Being a more modern design than, say, my long rifle, I didn't mind mounting modern quick detach swivels.

I found this set by GroveTec at MidwayUSA which fit. I paired it with this Hunter carry strap. Installing the rear swivel required drilling a hole in the stock. The front swivel clamps around the lower ramrod pipe. Before installing it, I Loc-Tited the screw securing the pipe since I noticed it was loose already. I also Loc-Tited the Chicago screw holding the strap to the rear swivel. In my experience, thread locker prevents a lot of problems. I even put some on the inside of the part of the front swivel where it clamps over the ramrod pipe.




The other addition I made was to replace the Williams fiber optic front sight with a Lyman 37ML white bead from October Country. The dovetail for the front sight is .360" instead of 3/8" (.375"), which is more common in the US. The Williams sight never fit the dovetail that well and wasn't as secure as I'd like.

The Lyman front sight wasn't as good a fit as I wanted, either. I wound up dimpling the bottom of the dovetail recess to raise some metal and shimming it with a small piece of 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper. After the sight was in I staked the dovetail as well.





The new sight is a little shorter than the Williams it replaced, so I'll have to rezero the rifle. No biggie.

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