I have been following the discussions in this forum and occasionally contributing ever since I inherited a model 1898 last year.  Finally, I was able to shoot it recently. Do these results seem normal? Any comments from anyone?
1. I tried some 165 grain pointed bullets from Bitterroot Valley.  The pointed bullets won't feed in my action unless I load them one at a time directly into the chamber. But I expected that with pointed bullets. These loads had mild recoil. They were right on vertically, but grouped several inches to the left.
2. A few months ago in this forum, someone mentioned that reloads with 220 grain nose bullets using 40 grains of IMR 4350 was a good duplicate of the original ballistics, and such loads should work well with the original sight settings. So I got some dies and made reloads with that recipe.  They had more recoil than the Bitterroot Valley loads. They were right on horizontally, but at 100 yards they shot so low that most shots were off the bottom of the target.  I had to set the slider on the rear sight to 1200 yards to get a good vertical result.

In my experience with handguns, it has been the case that heavier bullets with more recoil tend to shoot high, because the recoil starts to lift the gun before the bullet clears the muzzle. So why do my 220 grain reloads shoot so low?

Just a guess, but, for a start I'd say you might have an incompatible rear sight - front sight combo. There is quite a difference in height in the front blades.

Thanks for your comments, Dick.  The top of my front sight is about 9/16" above the barrel. Is that high compared to most?

At 9/16", you would seem to have the lower of the two most common possibilities, which would actually work against my theory, so, I'm back to square one. Regardless of placement on the target, what size group do you get?

Which model of rear sight is on your rifle? There are photos available from the home page.

Cannot comment on the load, or your pistol analogy, as I don't shoot very much anymore.

Some pointed bullets (usually the longer 180s) will feed OK, others won't - the receiver parts were very precisely profiled for the long 220 gr. RN, and they really didn't care about anything else.

My groups at 100 yards were about 4 to 6 inches, but with my eyes having more than 6 decades of usage, I really cannot shoot very well anymore with open iron sights. I could do much better with a scope. I suspect this rifle is capable of better groups than I got.

According to the photo, my sight is the 96 model.  My model 1898 rifle is a relatively early one (#156001), and someone (maybe you) said it was common to put the 96 rear sight on the early 98 rifles.

Another thing about the rear sight-- When I move the slider forward, I don't see the sight being lifted until I move it forward of the 1000 yard mark.  That makes me wonder if the sight is not installed right or if it might have heavy wear or might be missing a piece.

There is a switch on the left side of the bolt that prevents the magazine from feeding.  I don't remember which way it goes but it is to save ammo for the troops.  Wait ... I will go check.
Down is magazine disabled, up is engaged.