Rifle Quarter Rib Purpose

[BeeMaa]

I've seen several beautiful rifles sporting a "quarter rib" for the iron sights.
These rifles would be classified as custom or at the higher end of the price point.
So my question is why?
Why is a quarter rib necessary?
Is it ornamentation, does it provide additional stiffness to the barrel or another reason I've not heard of?
A little insight would be appreciated.

 

[Rimbaud]

Good info here -
http://www.hallowellco.com/quarter_rib.htm

 

[bruce moulds]

because it costs more?

 

[Newboomer]

It does look a lot better than a Picatinney rail.

 

[BeeMaa]

It does look a lot better than a Picatinney rail.

Man, you hit the nail on the head with that.
And it does add a very classy look to a rifle.

Just seems kind of ironic that something made for the use of open sights sees more utility as a scope base.

 

[Accidental Villain]

English is not my native language so I`m not sure I use the correct words here, but the quarter rib is there to eliminate multiple optical levels for your sighting eye. Sighting over a good quarter rib is basically just like sighting over the rib of a nice shotgun. Raise the rifle to your shoulder and the front sight/bead shines just like a diamond in a goats ass. Its superfast, quite accurate and by far the best open sight solution for a DG rifle in my mind.
Scopes are often attached to the rib because you don`t want to build anything in front of the rib that are higher like bases on the action.
Installing a quarter rib is expensive because often the gunmaker must make it from scratch, shape it to the barrel and then ideally solder it to the barrel. Then it must be sighted/blued. This obviously takes a lot of time.

 

[cbvanb]

English is not my native language so I`m not sure I use the correct words here, but the quarter rib is there to eliminate multiple optical levels for your sighting eye. Sighting over a good quarter rib is basically just like sighting over the rib of a nice shotgun. Raise the rifle to your shoulder and the front sight/bead shines just like a diamond in a goats ass. Its superfast, quite accurate and by far the best open sight solution for a DG rifle in my mind.
Scopes are often attached to the rib because you don`t want to build anything in front of the rib that are higher like bases on the action.
Installing a quarter rib is expensive because often the gunmaker must make it from scratch, shape it to the barrel and then ideally solder it to the barrel. Then it must be sighted/blued. This obviously takes a lot of time.

With your “diamond in a goats ass” comparison I’d say you might have a better command of the English language than I do!

 

[Luvthunt]

YEH, never heard that one!!!

 

[Accidental Villain]

YEH, never heard that one!!!

Well,,I have a couple of those Recknagel luminated beads for one of my rifles so could have rephrased to ruby or emerald or something

 

[Aaron N]

Can anyone here give me some measurements on the length of their quarter ribs? I have my .318 blank that I’d like to get everything machined integral and my barrel guy is asking for a drawing of what I’d like

 

[Jefferry404]

what is the diameter of the barrel blank?
Steve

 

[Jefferry404]

Mr. Villain is quite right regarding the scope bases or such in front of the qrib (on the receiver) sighting plane. For example, a 1.75” blank diameter, allows the top of the qrib to be the same height as the square bridges on a Mauser style action. I actually set the the height 5/1000” lower so the eye is not distracted by the base edge.
Another consideration with blank diameter is what I call “goldline” which is the amount of the rear sight embedded goldline visible above scope bases or square bridge.
For round actions with scope bases, thinning the bases by 20-30 1/1000” helps with this (unfortunately does nothing for the sighting plane issue).
Steve

 

[Aaron N]

what is the diameter of the barrel blank?
Steve

It’s 1.259”

 

[Ontario Hunter]

English is not my native language so I`m not sure I use the correct words here, but the quarter rib is there to eliminate multiple optical levels for your sighting eye. Sighting over a good quarter rib is basically just like sighting over the rib of a nice shotgun. Raise the rifle to your shoulder and the front sight/bead shines just like a diamond in a goats ass. Its superfast, quite accurate and by far the best open sight solution for a DG rifle in my mind.
Scopes are often attached to the rib because you don`t want to build anything in front of the rib that are higher like bases on the action.
Installing a quarter rib is expensive because often the gunmaker must make it from scratch, shape it to the barrel and then ideally solder it to the barrel. Then it must be sighted/blued. This obviously takes a lot of time.

Most coaches, myself included, stress that for moving targets the shooter is NOT supposed to be looking at the bead, only the target. In fact, many coaches will actually remove the bead from a shotgun for beginners. Similarly, a rib only acts as another potential distraction. For trap guns ribs with double beads MAY be helpful for orienting the gun before the target is pulled, but by far the best technique is to make sure the gun fits perfectly and forget about the rib and bead. Anyway, trap targets are pulled high gun with shotgun mounted. This is not how it's done hunting in the field where the shotgun is mounted and fired all in one motion. For shooting standing targets with a rifle I cannot see how a rib would be any advantage whatsoever. Zero. If the barrel is not aligned, the front sight is not in the rear sight. Everything in between doesn't matter. Rib on a rifle, unless it has some positive effect on barrel harmonics that I'm unaware of (but will not discount), is pure asthetics. Personally, I think it looks clunky. Like a woman with too much makeup.