TargetTalk

Can I mount a fancy set of adjustable iris / diopter sights on the Daisy 853? I believe it has an 11mm dovetail.

Yes, I know that would be waaay more in sights than the cost of the surplus 853. Why ask why, drink Bud Dry.

Yes and no. I've looked into this a little bit, but it was some time ago.

The most direct issue is that the front sight is not on a dovetail, so if you want to put a new rear sight on it, you have to hope that they align. I was never able to determine what the correct height is (no that that info is readily available for a replacement sight either), and didn't bother to measure or take sights off another rifle to try it out.

In my case, I wanted to replace the front sight on my 853, so I could use the standard 18mm inserts I already have. From what I understand, you can remove the whole front sight/barrel weight assembly and replace it with the same assembly from the 753 (I think). It is almost identical, but has a dovetail.

HOWEVER, I also understand that the 753 front sight is a different height than the 853 rear sight, so you need BOTH front and rear from the 753 to work!

All those parts are available direct from Daisy (and reasonable cost, cheaper than you can get them anywhere else), but I never ended up doing it because the price of both front and rear sights was more than I was interested in paying to replace just the front. Rather than putting more money into an 853, I plan to upgrade to a different rifle.

I hope that helps,
marky-d

Great explanation. Would that make the dovetail front of the Challenger more versatile?

I'm not familiar with the Challenger, so I can't really comment, but if it is dovetailed, then that at least opens up options. You still might have height issues if you only replace front OR back, but if you're lucky they made them the same height so you might be okay as long as you replace them as a pair. I'm just speculating that this point though.

marky-d

BTW, I may have been mistaken about putting the sights off the 753 on the 853 -- it may be the 887/888 I'm thinking of, not the 753. The info is available online if you search it up though.

Hi, I'm new to this forum, first day in fact, but I've been shooting with a CMP 853 with the stock 5889 rear sight for a while now. The original one that came with the scope was defective but CMP sent us a mint in box replacement and it's been great. Getting scores in the 165-175 out of 200 range at 10m with Olympic targets.

Don't slide it forward as far as it can go or the screw on the bottom hits the top of the rifle and that's not good. We use the large circle insert rather than the post insert.

Best,

Bryan