For years the standard open sight is all I ever used, and I never really found them to be as useless as everyone says they are. I've made good shots up to and just over 200 yards with the standard Marbles rear with a bead up front, never felt they were all that inadequate. But these days I hear nothing but scorn. What's up with that? People just too afraid of learning how to use a basic sight?

I think that some of the reluctance to utilize open sights is generated by the fear of being consigned to hell for wounding an animal. Given that, I believe most people opt for glass, feeling that it enhances their chance for a clean kill.

We can't all be superior riflemen.

I use glass because my eyes aren't as good as they once were, and I can hunt in low light when blacktails are most likely to be moving.

You have think how many people these days started out on scopes without ever even using open sights.

I think it's more a case of people not needing to bother. Just no reason for many new shooters to spend much time with them, considering the rifles they are buying likely don't even have open sights. Why use an inferior system if you don't have to? I still shop open sights on a couple guns but prefer a nice peep sight.

I going the other way myself. Starting to use open sights more and more, just for the challenge of it. Kind of like using a bow I guess. Killed a couple of deer the past two years with open sight rifles. My brother and I have been challenging one another. Lately, we can both shoot 3 shot groups about 1.5 inches at 100 yards. My 50 year old eyes can't do much better than that.

Every kid shoot be taught to use and hunt with iron sights before hunting with a scope . Iron sight is what learns you how to shoot and how to hunt .

I like irons and used them for years shooting NRA service rifle and CMP Garand match's. With the advent of cataracts and decreasing vision i had to stop using them. I just had cataract surgery and will be going back to irons after i replenish rifles i previously sold due to failing vision.

Same here. I bought CZ .22 a couple of years ago and my eyes couldn't focus properly using the sights. Sold it short time later.

Hunting with Iron sights is like driving a vehicle with a manual transmission. It would be good if all new hunters learned to do it that way, but the convenience of an automatic transmission and a telescopic sight are just too good to pass up. (For many)

Glad you got good eyesight. Wish I could trade you my eyesight for yours. Then you would see why I use a scope.

Presbyopia.

Even with age, you can use irons, you simply have to have the glasses corrected...

And most don't understand that with irons you can only focus on one focal plane at a time.

Hence the most important thing is front sight. It helps to have the target clear and the rear clear to, but its not needed.

I had to shoot without correction with pistols becasue my eye could and would focus on the target paper at 25 yards, and gave horrible groups, NEEDED the target to stay blurry.

When in doubt put a peep on the rear, and even an aperture in the front.

As to success... lets just say paper targets you get used to, but with game, I've shot stuff so far away that most would call you a liar, luckily my longest shot with irons on small deer was witnessed by at least 3 others in the truck at the time..

YOu have to have the desire though, especially with irons, to learn how to use them, whats important and how to trust the sights and your eyes. Your eyes are capable of MUCH more than most give them credit for.

And before someone claims I have good vision, I had to have correction in my teens, and its never gotten better, only worse, and I didn't start shooting a LOT of irons until I was in my 30s, and carried on until appx 42 with irons in competition.
Having shot same with folks in their 70s plus, its still possible even as eyes age.

And as noted, once you learn irons, scopes seem like cheating... which isn't a bad thing...

I use irons, though in the form of a receiver sight, on my ARs, M1 Garands, and lever rifles.

I have found a receiver sight to be far better than the old "semi-buckhorn" type. With the target uncovered and the longer sight radius, accuracy, both field and target, are much improved.

When I do use a scope, I generally prefer lower power.

I think too many people are hooked on the long range fad. They all think you need a 24x scope and are all convinced that 500 yards is a chip shot.

I cleared the 440 yard chickens at my local range with a sporterized enfield. I will never admit to how many shots it took to get the sights verified though....

I have a scoped SRH and several unscoped pistols. I find that I can't shoot the scoped pistol much, if any better than the collection of Smith's I have.

I might try open sights if they were a flat top blade front, and a flat top, square notch rear. Like a 45's set of BoMars, but on the rifle.

Buckhorn or v-top rears with u-notches, and/or bead fronts do nothing for me.

The 'kiddies' were never taught how to use aperture or buckhorn sights! Chances are....their 'mentors' never used them either! And then there is always COMMERCIALISM!! Grab up any one of these kids that have and are shooting on their high schools air rifle team or shooting .22 smallbore however....and they'll show you a thing or two concerning iron sight usage!!

Yes. Every kid should be brought up on them. I started in the 60's when scopes were becoming affordable and the norm. A few years ago, however, I picked up a Sharps 45-90 and discovered one can do moa stuff quite easily with a peep, a blade, and targets that mesh well with ones sight picture.



In many hunting situations though with narrow paths, poor lighting, and small targets a scope can make a real difference.

I grew up shooting irons on bb guns and .22s, although I have to admit that I never shot irons much on center fire rifles until I was in my 30s and bought a couple cheap Yugo Mausers and 900 rounds of surplus 8 mm. It was then that I learned how well one could shoot at range with irons. I now shoot irons quite a bit and have killed several deer with irons. The rifle I have shot most over the last few years is a Ted Williams 30-30 with a Williams receiver sight.

Don't get me started scopes nowadays. Most people think that irons aren't useable past 50 yards and that you need a 14x to shoot a white tail buck at 300 yards.

I was okay, just okay with irons until I turned about 40. After that I had to start converting everything to scopes. I could not see irons well enough anymore. I gave up bow hunting in part, because I could not longer see the pins and the game. Then about 50, the process started to reverse itself. Today, I'm about halfway back to where I was at 40. Meanwhile all my deer rifles got glass mounted on them. Even my turkey shotgun has a scope.

It seems to be a generational thing. One of my deer hunting buddies uses open sights, and he is deadly taking shots on moving game that I wouldn't have thought to try. My grandad also was amazing with open sights. My dad is a flintlock shooter, and is not at all comfortalbe with a scope. I on the other hand have had a scope on my rifles since my first .22lr, and only shoot iron sights if there is a rifle not suited for a scope, like with winchester lever actions and pump action .22's etc.

I read a study quite a few years ago, but don't remember where. Anyway, they tested standard open sights, peep sights, and telescopic sights against each other. If I correctly remember the results, they found standard sights to be just as accurate out to 200 yards, and peep sights to 300. It wasn't til after the 300 yard mark that scopes gained any accuracy advantage.

My son and I were out shooting gophers a couple days ago. No scopes on either of the rifles we were using. I was having a hard time with my glasses while trying to make out the gophers over the sights. Thankfully with my contacts I don't have this problem. My son said we should have scopes. I told him while scopes are nice and we can see better with them I want him to learn how to use open sights first. Once I put my contacts in the gophers were in trouble.

I learned how to shoot with open sights and then used them for 20 years in the AF. Scopes have their benefits, but anything can fail so most of my rifles have open sights and several (leveractions) don't have scopes.

I grew up using open sights (buckhorn rear and bead) on single shot .22. I used to go through a 500 round brick of .22 shorts (LR ammo was too expensive for me) in less than a month when I was a kid. The combination of a single shot rifle and open sights meant I got VERY good at stalking close and shooting straight. Even I can hardly believe some of the shots I made and the distances I was able to hit.

Even when deer hunting I never considered a scoped rifle except when sitting in a tree stand as most of our hunting was with dogs in the thickets of East Texas. Most often it was an open sighted Marlin 336 in .35 Remington that brought home the venison and I was VERY good at hitting a moving target at any range distance I could see (not too far in those days before the timber companies "raped" the woods. A standing deer at 150 yards was almost too easy.

As I got older and dog hunting was outlawed.....and clear cuts opened the woods, I began to carry a scoped rifle that was able to reach out farther than the older woods rifles were able to handle. Even when hunting small game (squirrels and rabbits) I switched over to scope sights and almost forgot about open sights.

As I aged my eyes aren't what they once were. I wondered if I could still use open sights like I used to....until a couple of years ago.

In my gun trading I came into a mint condition Winchester 9422. It seemed a crime to ruin the sleek lines of this little lever gun with a scope. I shot it a bit on targets and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could still place my shots inside of an inch at 50 yards or so (minute of squirrel head).

My eyes aren't what they once were (I now have to wear corrective lenses) and I "know" I'm not seeing the target or sights as well as I did when I was 16, but the instincts are apparently still there. I can hit a target as well as I ever did (if at a slightly closer distance) even when the sights and target are a bit blurry. Guess it's muscle memory after 100's of thousands of rounds fired years ago.

I recently began to squirrel hunt again with open sights. On my latest hunt I was able to take 6 squirrels with 6 shots (although I count one as a "miss"....I hit him in the body instead of the head).

Unlike most others, I find the standard buckhorn rear and bead front superior to peep sights. I can and have used peep sight, but I find them to be slower and never feel as confident as with a buckhorn rear (even though I seem to hot just as often). Once again, I guess it's those thousand of rounds I fired as a youngster.

I shot my first deer at age 13 in 1973 with a Springfield wearing a receiver aperture sight. Everything since has been with optics until last fall where I shot a decent muley with a Ballard 45-70, vernier tang sight and blackpowder. It did take me several hours to get close enough to be comfortable with a +/-150 yard shot (trifocals and all ). I will likely hunt more in the future with this type of setup - I have some lever actions that need some field time.

I really struggle with barrel sights on rifles, but still do well with a rear peep/aperture of some sort, so that's all I use on non-scoped rifles. I quit shooting handguns all together in my 40's (out of frustration) when I started wearing bifocals. Now in my 50's with trifocals, I can see the sights well enough that I'm starting to shoot handguns again. I need to find a dedicated lens with my midrange correction and I should be good to go...

That's all fine and good, if your eyes can be corrected to a point.

But...

1. What do you do when glasses wont correct your vision, in your shooting eye?
2 What do you do when you have 9+ diopters astigmatism, in you shooting eye?
3. What do you do when the optic nerve has partially disconnected from the eyeball and there are gray areas (that see nothing), in you shooting eye?
4 What do you do when you cant focus on two items at the same time, unless they are the same distance from your shooting eye?

I could go on-and-on, but it would be useless. I grew up shooting iron sights and didnt shoot a scope until nearly 30 years old. Was I an expert with iron sights, no, but I did ok. Am I an expert with a scoped rifle, no, but I do ok.

I'm sick and tired of all the 'I can shoot better than you because I learned to shoot with iron sights and still do types.'

I'm glad you still have the eyesight to shoot the iron sights, and wish to God I did, but I dont and I can live with it.

Why cant you?

Like so many things, it isn't really about doing what one is capable of doing or doing things in a way that one enjoys. It's all about whose dick is bigger.

I just don't like 'stuff' on my guns - flash lights, laser sights, or scopes.
Especially on handguns, lever action rifles, and Ruger #1 Sporters.

I do however have one scoped Mini-14 Target rifle.

I don't mean my comments to belittle, but it depends, and I have no issues with not shooting irons, at some point they will be difficult to shoot.

That being said I have a friend that as I recall, is 9.25 or some really large( to me at least) correction and shoots irons in competition still today.

Takes a lot of work though.

I have a LOT of floaters and I"m not saying this compares to your areas of non vision, but I've had to deal with them in the way of seeing the sight often and simply have to look it off enough until something clicks again...

I have never been able to focus on 2 things at one time. Ever.

I have astigmatism about 1/3 as bad as yours, my lenses have to be specifically oriented.

As I noted, I've been through a lot. Others have been through more.

Sometimes its how bad you want to do something.

Other times we are all aware, it eventually won't work one way and you have to do it another way.

So no offense intended, and if you can't or don't want to make it work, I've no issues with that.

Many that have good eyes etc... are simply too lazy to want to make it work. Thats their call too.

Jeff

I got nothing against open sights, i favor the BLR open sights over my Marlins or peep sights.

I was on a hog hunt once and the land owner said we could shoot a doe for 100 dollars if we wanted. Having a scope saved me 5 hundred dollars. What I sought was a doe was actually a spike buck.

I love open sights and love to shoot them these days. And, I don't feel particularly handicapped by them within their range. On the other hand, I can't think of much, if anything at all to recommend them over a scope. I consider a low power, 4x or less, to be the perfect instrument for shooting out to four or five hundred yards.

It is as fast as anything, has plenty of magnification, and gathers light.

Agreed, but nearly impossible to find these days. Marble and Williams seem to think everyone wants a bead front sight.

Certainly irons are not for everyone. Especially anyone with significant vision issues. Scopes make a lot of thing better for a lot of shooters, whether they started with irons or not. I don't necessarily think a shooter is a better shooter because he or she started on irons. There are some darn fine shots out there who have never touched a rifle the didn't have a scope on it.

I think some people give up on irons as their vision starts to degrade because they have the mistaken notion they should be able to focus on three planes; the target the front sight and the rear sight. In reality no one's eye can focus on more than one plane at a time. In handgun instructor school they preach, "front sight, front sight, front sight." In other words focus on the front sight letting the rear sight and the target blur.

My eyes have gone from 20/10 ten years ago to needing trifocals today. I can still shoot irons very well, though I prefer a receiver sight to a notch and bead. In fact I really don't like a bead at all except for shotguns. Well that and rifles with express sights because they wouldn't look right with a blade. I much prefer a patridge style front sight and a receiver sight for the rear. I might try filing a square notch in a rifle rear sight one of these days and try it with a patridge front sight. I just picked up a Remington model 8, 25 Remington and while it has the receiver sight I like, the front sight is so fine I almost cannot see it. It looks like a piece of spider web it's so fine. I'm definitely replacing that with a patridge blade.

I'd like to treat myself to shooting glasses this year with interchangeable lenses and have my doc give me a correction for distance only, with an amber tint, distance only and clear for hunting, a regular correction with the trifocals for every day use, and a correction for the distance to the front sight of a handgun or rifle.

I agree with what you are saying. And, trust me, I would give just about anything to be able to see well enough to shoot with out a scope.

With the scope, I only have to focus on a single point and that I can do. Dont get me wrong, that point is not perfectly clear, but I get by. Depending on how much pressure is in the eye on any given day, I may see a dot and a half of another, when I look at a target. And then it may be just a single dot.

And, I agree that lots of folks could shoot iron sights, if they wanted to.

No offense intended here either.

I've killed more deer with irons than scopes in my lifetime. Still hunt with iron sighted rigs regularly.

Last I checked binoculars have been available for hundred years or so I think.

I'd rather leave the gun at home than the binocs...

I have purchased files. I still have most of them. I have no issue using them. Have done so on all my MZs with irons, Have adapted all my ARs with irons to what I want flat top and width wise.

Kephart was critical of open sights about 100 years ago.

Kahuna is getting closer.

Randy

I have a buddy here, only 46, that has trouble shooting scopes already.. at least really good shooting anyway.

Pretty sure he coudl get corrected, but I've noted that it takes a lot to shoot irons.

For me it can depend on light, vs tint, or even no tint. Rear ap size has to change depending on light also, and still have to have the lense corrected to the front sight on top of it. Takes a lot of work if you have eyes like mine. And mine are not that bad.

I think we are on the same page!

Jeff

As an aside I've hunted with irons for some instances, but most of my actual hunitng is scoped, and nto with small power after shooting a red dot on a deer once and not being able to see the vines in teh way that caused us a lost/wounded deer with broken front leg right below the chest....

So when I run scopes, mostly what I run, I like the option of a bit more X than folks like because I want to see, IE if I'm going to magnify, I want enough to see any issue that might pop up...

You're aware that you can put a scope on CZ rimfire's,,, right?

Some days back here in the NE where it's raining or snowing during deer season....a scope is nothing but a PITA. You can walk up on deer,they hold tight, and close shots are the norm.

On a 10 day hunt, you can count on one or two days like that.

I think irons are pretty cool but like a peep best.

so a peep is not an iron sight? Just ribbin ya... lol

I like both open and optics according to the application. Fear WTF is that Gi Gi?

twerpes posts again!

My first problem with Irons is not shooting the rifle, it is in seeing the game clearly in the brush and against many backgrounds. Seeing a deer is one thing, finding the right spot and focusing on it is harder. Shooting at an easily seen target at the range is not a big problem, I can at least get off a shot.

Yup,he's just like that virus....what is it called......HERPES!

God I love that clip.
It's twirp to a tee.

Nope,that Blonde is smarter.

I see twerpes is posting bullcrap still but the stupid ass doesn't realize we don't see it. Probably trying to be cute with some sort of insult. He is most likely suffering from syphilis and it has got to his brain.

Herpes has a brain?

Miracles will never cease.

Getting closer to Kahuna.

Twerpes is herpes and can't see the forest for the trees. Poor little twerpes is sucking hind tit He actually thinks we care what he is posting ...bless his little tiny ass heart

Aw twerpes if I give you 50 cents will you buy a better life than the one you have? You are stoooooopid because you do not get it...I have you on ignore and do NOT read your drivel.

Twerpes I can only guess at the fact that you are attempting to insult Ken and I. Keep trying little girly man

I have worn glasses since the second grade for nearsightedness. I have worn trifocals for many years. I have rarely taken a shot over 200 yards on any game animal. For two very good (to me) reason. One I can't see a small item that far and I have absolutely no skill at judging range. My first .22 was a Savage 4c and it came with a Weaver 4 power scope. My Dad mounted it using the included 'N' mount using 10/32 stove bolts as he was an Electrician and that was the tap he had. Was unpretty to the point of actually being ugli but it worked like a champ. The only iron sights I ever used was on my Winchester 94 32-40 and I wasn't too good with it. I did shoot a Peep sight for first time when I was drafted in 1956. I did pretty good with it as I once shot a 10 round group from standing to sitting at 200 yards and got a possible (all 10 rounds in the V ring). I won a commendation from the post commander for that. However the military was the last time I actually used Iron sights till I went to Africa. I killed my second Elephant with a 470NE Merkel Double which only had iron sights,but it was at point blank range and they are rather large. My other 2 Elephants as was all my other African game killed with a rifle with a scope. However I consider any rifle to be incomplete esthetically when it has no iron sights. I see absolutely nothing to be gained by limiting oneself by using exclusively irons. I certainly don't think a person who does so is any more competent in any manner.

Good post - thank you.

i can use either.....course i used to be practiced up enough with the old Glenfield single shot, iron sighted, manual cocking 22 that with a hand full of shells i could damn near get it sounding like a semi auto had to keep up with my buddy that had a scoped 10-22....used that Glenfield up through part of high school....

love ghost ring sights on rifles, will use peep as a second choice....even growing up with the irons i am a faster shot with a scope so its what i generally use....planning on putting a red dot on my Marlin guide gun just cause i want to...

course then again the last 22 pistol i had i was picking of just over 6 out of 10 pop cans at 100 with the basic non adjustable sights on a Ruger MkII and was shooting my 1911 pretty good out to 50 on rocks and such last i had it.....

Shooting whistle pigs yesterday with a Remington 121 and the sun was glaring off the back sight enough I went to a scoped rifle.

What works to stop glare and not be permanent?

Clouds.

A steel post front sight and a carbide lamp!!

If ya can't see the sights the trick is to just make the barrel longer. And them newfangled ADJUSTABLE rear sights? Hey fixed notch and blade is how Kentucky got windage named after it



(and thanks again Rog )

at one of the 'fire gatherings Paladin had some lil gadget that he used to smoke(i think) and blacken the sights on his handguns.....not sure what it was exactly.....

1-RIfles don't come with sights

2-My eyes suck w/o corrective lenses (not so at 18, but at 52 . . . )

3-With a scope, I can adjust to corrective lenses or not in a second (fast focus eyepiece and a witness mark)

BMT

speaking of which, this here is my favorite pic from my Peace Corps years. These guys were a squad of poachers WAAAAAYYY back in the bush, and a buddy and I, travelling through on foot, were the first Whites in living memory to pass through that particular neck of the woods, hence them posing with the best they had.

The gun is an old 12 gauge Greener, on a Martini-Henry action. Besides running snares, they reloaded brass shells with black powder and cast lead ball, and wore miners' carbide lanterns to spotlight game at night.



Birdwatcher