New poster here. I am about to take delivery of a Diana 52. I have read some posts on peep sights but still not sure what would work. I notice that air arms
target rifle has a diopter sight that fits 11 mm dovetails. Thinking this sight may work or it may be somewhat high and create the need for a taller front post. Any thoughts on this? Some other diopter sights include a Daisey that is used on the avanti rifles. Not sure of the dovetail on that one. Does someone still make a front glove sight that might solve the hight problem (if indeed there is one). thanks.
You can buy them at almost any large company over the internet.
Diana makes a flat front housing for the 48/52/54 family that used to be listed in the Pyramid Air catalogue.
You can also purchase the Mendoza rear peep sight, it is solid and the only drawback is the windage screw is not the usual dextrogirous turning. Meaning that you have to wind it inversely to what you usually would any other peep sight. But it is solid and not expensive.
I agree with Jim and Hector on this. I have the Beeman Peep on my 350 and I really think it makes for a good set up. I have not tried it on my 52 but I did not have to change out the front post on my 350.
what i would really like is a micrometer click adjusting peep like the williams/beeman. the issue with any of these sights is the considerable amount of droop with the dianna 52 (better than some but still significant). the droop makes the frot sight effectively shorter increasing the need for a sight that lays close to the receiver. i read some reviews on the mendoza and the gist is that it is too tall and will shoot very high at its lowest adjustment on spring guns. itstands around an inch over the reciever.
the williams (also sold as a beeman by pyramid air) is a nice sight but i am not sure how high above the receiver it will be on the 52. does anyone have any direct expereince with this sight on a 48/52/54? i like the solution that Hector used but it does not have micro adjusting knobs. maybe not such a big deal but it is what i prefer (i still remember the m14 i qualified with in the army back in 66)
Just make sure you set the front sight at the middle point to start sighting your gun. If the rear sight deviated more than 40 clicks from the first division, re-set the front and re-sight the gun.
HTH
BTW.- you may try to get a flat front sight base/housing. To use a globe front.
I too had thought about aperture sights on the 48-54 type guns, the Beeman rear aperture sight should work, problem is that to really use this type of sight you need the globe type front sight. I have seen the sight that is made for these guns which is a replacement for the whole front sight unit and Umarex told me that it will accept the front sight inserts that was used on all of the Diana guns like the 35-50 type inserts. No rear sight will stay put on these guns without some sort of stop for it, so if you use a Beeman or Mendoza type sight will have to hold it with the stop screw that is put in the scope rail. The Daisy and Air arms sights are good looking rear sights, the Air Arms I beleive has a stop pin, however you will not probably be able to use it since the scope rail has no provision for such a pin. If you use the Beeman sight I would put a O ring around the stop screw in the scope rail, mount the sight against it to keep it in place. This also presents a problem because depending upon the size of the iris in the rear sight you will have to crawl the stock because these type of sights using the stop screw will be mounted further forward on the gun causing the iris to be too small if using a target sized hole like a .050. The Daisy or Air arms sight might mount high, if using the blade type front sight it is adjustable and hopefully will be able to compensate for this. I have over and again questioned why the barrels have droop also on these fixed barrel guns. The older match sight that was used on the 60-75 type match guns had a foot that clamped down and locked in the grooves or serations of the mounting rail on these guns, however this mount used a large thumb wheel to lock it and it might shake loose as well under recoil, but for shure would not slide back because it was made to lock on the Diana type scope rails. Best bet a Beeman or Mendoza type rear sight, the Beeman is made by Williams and a rear aperture disk would be available to accomodate any eye releif problems, so it might be the best choice.
RE: "the issue with any of these sights is the considerable amount of droop with the diana 52 (better than some but still significant). the droop makes the fro(n)t sight effectively shorter increasing the need for a sight that lays close to the receiver."
The 'lower' the front sight gets, the higher a receiver sight would need to be to get on target. To see why, draw an exaggerated picture.
maybe i did not communicate this very well. some feedback i have gotten states that these receiver sights sit higher that the iron sights. this will make the
shot go high. the way to compensate for this is to lower the rear sight or raise the front sight to bring the shot DOWN . what i was saying is that the droop is the equivalent of a short front post which would make the shot go high. (if you lower the front post you raise the shot. if you raise the front post you lower the shot assuming the rear sight is in a fixed position.) heck, maybe the droop is not the issue at all. regardless, i think you know what i am getting at. if the rear sight sits too high there may not be enough adjustment on the front post nor enough downward adjustment on the rear sight to bring the shot down. i think the mendoza is way too high but the williams may not be. i just have to test it. once i get it sighted in with iron sights i will know where to set the williams because i will leave the iron sight on for initial alignment of the rear aperature. if it is too high the aperature won't line up with the iron sight sight picture.
Hi Larry, I understand your concern with the compensation of the rear and front sights. I tried a Diana 100 rear sight on my gun, that is clamped it on and used the open sights to see how it would work. The 100 was a match sight used on the model 100 and the last of the 75 guns Diana made, that is a high target type rear sight, it was able to zero according to the open sights on my gun. With the adjustable front sight these guns come with I would think you should have no problem using the Beeman Williams sight, the 100 rear sight was running out of adjustment going down but was able to correct it with the front sight. The Beeman sight will sit lower and should have enough down or up adjustment to accomodate the stock front sight on these guns.
and you might have seen my post concerning the broken sight. anyway, i guess i would best describe this rifle as "robust". solid thats for sure. difficult to shoot with the broken sight but i will work that out. i think i will be going ack in the gym. i don't remember my M14 abeing this heavy but then i was 21 then and strong as hell. inotice that the front sight ramp has two little grooves cut in it. that looks like an attachment point for a globe to fit that ramp. maybe a globe that takes inserts (i would remove existing front post). anyone have any idea what globe might work. should i cantact rws?
