The quintant has a brown-varnished brass Lorieux-Borda pattern frame, with a wooden handle. The tangent screw, working against a spring-loaded stop, is positioned at the bottom of the index arm. The clamping screw is on the back. The instrument has three shades, in red, green, and grey, and three horizon shades, two red and one green. Index-glass adjustment is made by a screw and on the horizon-glass by capstan screws, a square-headed screw and a detached key.

Attached to the quintant is a single lens magnifier on a 112mm jointed swivelling arm with a frosted glass shade. There is also a threaded telescope bracket in two parts, fitted for correcting collimation error. It has perpendicular adjustment made by a rising-piece and a milled knob. The telescope is 158 mm in length with an inverted image and four cross wires. An extra drawtube is 74 mm long with an erect image and two parallel cross wires. A second telescope is 88 mm long with an erect image. Accompanying the quintant is a sight-tube, which is 100 mm long, a milled adjusting key, and two unidentified parts that are both missing. The quintant is contained in a square fitted wooden box.

The instrument has a polished brass limb with an inlaid silver scale from -10° to 170° by 10 arcminutes, measuring to 141°. The quintant has a silver vernier measuring to 10 arcseconds, with zero at the right.