Morning Winmag - The venerable ‘06 Springfield, a classic. That one is excellent shape. Most of the ones you see now are either very nice or in some sort of sporting configuration. The bolt action military rifle will never be out of style. Which bayonet do you have with your Springfield.?
I have a 1942-dated Utica Cutlery M1905 "long" bayonet. I noted that bayonets were starting to dry up, too, and grabbed the first decent one that came by.
As far as the ladder-type rear sights went, every rifle designer in the world thought the tinier the notch, and tinier the front sight, the more accuracy you'd get.
That was fine for slow fire on a rifle range with good lighting, a contrasty target, and plenty of time. The sights had elevation markings out to 2000 yards, but that was for volley fire, where all you did was lay down fire and hoped that somebody walked into it.
These types of sights also had a close-range aperture, but everything was still too fine, and required trying to focus on target, front sight, and rear sight at the same time.
Someone finally realized that an aperture rear sight, and substantial front sight, gave much faster target acquisition at reasonable ranges. The brain needs to be only vaguely aware that it has the front sight placed in the middle of the fuzzy rear aperture. Then all that needs to be done is place the target on top of the front sight post.
This was realized with the M1917 Enfield, but was not adapted by the Brits until the later WW2 marks of the SMLE. The US put them on the Garand, M1 carbine, and the 1903A3 Springfield. Receiver or tang sights, common for a century on target guns, became "militarized", and improved combat rifles by taking some of the work away from the shooter's eyeball and brain.