Burying the front sight in the V reminds me of how I was told Italian Carcano rifles were to be aimed. This was different than mausers and other WW2 rifles with barrel mounted rear sights where you lined up the top of the bead with the top of the notch in the rear.. I'll give that a shot next week.

Re powders, all I have is OE in FFF and FF, and some Grafs 2F. I had tried the first day's loading with OE and FFFg to overcome the power loss from PH#6, but that didn't do much, so that's why I tried FFg and FFFg with one bullet weight today.

What I'll try next is paper patching 504s up to 508-510s at the current charge of 130 FFg (but with the bead in the crook of the rear V) and the same patched bullets with 140grs. Separately I'll try both loads out at 50yds. If the spread between left and right barrels tightens and elevation is helped with a different sight picture, I'll look to drift the rear sight to correct the POA.

Right now I could take this rifle out and harvest a deer, but it wouldn't be humane. Looking forward to dialing this in.

Re your time in the USAF and Guard, I did not know that the USAF flew A7s. I always loved that the look of that plane but thought it was only for carriers. Learned something new. As an undergrad I went to the UW in Madison. I know I saw A10s over Madison...trying to remember if that was after graduation or back in the late 80s when I was still studying there.