Thread: Iron sights

I have shot deer out to 200 metres with open sights, with no great difficulty. I am less of a fan of aperture sights on hunting rifles than I used to be, although for older eyes they are better choice. For a hunting rifle I prefer a wide shallow V rear sight, and a bead front sight, and I have converted all of my open sighted rifles to this apart from the .303.
These open sights, with the bead used properly, are as accurate as an aperture sight out past 100 metres, but seem more user-reliable in my experience, in other words I found that is was too easy to ignore the rear sight completely with an aperture, and be hold the front sight in the wrong place, often too low in the peep. (Yes, I know the eye is supposed to centre the front sight automatically, but that is not entirely true, I have had a lot of inexplicable misses with a peep sight on animals, particularly, the 'ghost ring' type. There is certainly diminishing returns with a wide aperture; with a thin surround 'ghosting' is it too easy to not even use it at all if the shooting position is awkward and you are pressed for time.

Wide open V - like the old british express sights, with a bead held low in the v, so you can only see the circle. (And also, despite what people also say on the internet, with these type of sights they are as accurate as peep sights at 100 metres, and with which I have shot many one inch groups if the rifle and load are capable of it. Nearly as good, is a notch, also used with a bead front sight.

I have no time for a blade or post front sight with an open rear sight, since I have found that in the bush the top of the front sight will often blend with the target or surrounds, and then the elevation will be wrong.

Interestingly, you can shoot extremely well with a variation of this set up, but with no v or notch at all in the rear sight - just simply a straight black bar. The bead is placed over the centre of the rear sight (which just looks like a black block or rectangle), where the eye seems to naturally find the centre of - with the accuracy at 100 metres being the same as a peep sight or v rear sight.

V or notch rear sight. Bead front sight. Sight the rifle in so that the bullets falls into the centre of the area covered by the bead at 100 metres, and then shoot with both eyes open and use the bead like a red dot sight, and shoot through it. But anything from the centre of the bead up to the top tip of the bead is fine (- or three inches higher than that point at 100 metres, if you want to take advantage of your point blank range.)

Do not be tempted to use too big a bead. It is not necessary to have a large one for some special reason, although I often see this recommended. Do not get any plastic coloured sights, truglow or whatever it might be. They are rubbish to use, and break easily.

File your front bead at a 45 deg angle away from the shooter, so it catches the light from above. It will be like a bright little moon. Deer are not often white, so when sighting the rifle in, use black paper with a white bullseye so your front bead shows up. Or grey toned paper with a white bullseye, which ever works for you.

These are my thoughts on this matter, upon which I have spent a great deal of time experimenting on different rifles with different sights, on paper and deer and goats.