I was having dinner last night with my son's father inlaw when the toppic of guns and shooting came up. Apparantly in the mid 1960's he was a "sharp shooter" in the South African Army and qualified by shooting a 4" group at 500 meters using an FN rifle in 7.62 Nato with open peep sights. Sounded like a feat of remarkable marksmanship. I could see a scope sighted rifle off bags on the bench doing that kind of grouping, but open sights and prone position left me wondering on the feasibility? I did not challenge his claim, only told him that was some incredible shooting. Any thoughts from competive shooters?

not by me ... but I've seen some folks that rock it on a whole 'nother planet than I.

At 600 yards we use a 3 inch spotter disc that is put in your last bullet hole, while the previous is taped shut. Target comes up and you can see your very last shot location....

ANyway I've almost never shot anything but the AR15 with iron sights in service rifle, in a jacket prone with a sling all the way to 1000 yards.

I have a spotter disc somewhere from Camp PErry from a 20 shot 600 yard match no sighters, that my pit crew gave me when we swapped relays... had 17 .224 cal holes in the 3 inch disc....

And I've shot a lot of groups that were 5 shot groups off a bench with irons testing different components at 600 yards. Almsot all have been 3-5 inch groups with the right ammo.

Absolutely doable and that level of accuracy is exhibited regularly at XTC and LR matches. I'm classified as Master and have shot 100-9x with an AR service rifle on the 600 yd slow fire XTC target which I believe has a 1 MOA X-ring (6"). I've also managed 10 x's at 1000yds in Palma competition which is a .308 with aperture sights. Probably rare to achieve with a service grade rifle, but not beyond possibility.

Would be rare with a service grade rifle and service grade ammo, but not at all rare with a service rifle and match ammo.

HM with Service rifle both XC and LR.

That adds up

Editing... good catch

Thanks ... wanna give me some shooing lessons

Took too many years to learn how myself... went from can't hit the paper, to hope to hit the black to piss me off if I shoot a 9.... and a 10 is a warning oops...

All I can say about shooting lessons, don't EVER discount hours of dry fire time. Flat amazing how much better I ended up shooting taking that to heart plus seeing what I could see as the hammer fell, vs that being covered up by recoil...

Seventeen shots and you didn't hit the spindle... Dood?

That's some awesome shooting Jeff!!!

yep, just never got that lucky.. grins

We use 1 1/4" spotters for 600 yard F-Class. I have an uncanny knack of hitting the spindle... when the spotter is in the "9" ring.

Well I guess there IS something out there

I probably hit most spindles in the 7 ring on "verification" shots.

Yes the wind did change that much you idiot... grins

Hey, at least you are being consistent.

Was the rifle a FAL (L1A1)? Lots of different FN rifles. The differences are important.

Is the group possible with a FAL? Yeah, one lucky group. Likely? Probably less likely than getting hit by lightening.

The FAL is a nice battle rifle, but it sure isn't an AR nor is it an M14.

I'm going to say yes, it's possible and probably consistently doable.

I've shot several 16X cleans at 600 yards with Iron sights on a match rifle, several 14 and 15x cleans at 600 yards with a service rifle.
I think your sons FIL is probably not bullish*tting.

Now you've gotten a reply from one of the top shooters in the nation....

I can say the same about you my friend. I hope you and yours are doing well.

Don't think my skills ever came close to yours, but thanks for the comments.

Same back at ya and Happy New Year.

Too many missing bits of information. Rack FAL? Ball Ammo? How many shot group. Even though, I'll call b.s. The FAL is not known for it's accuracy. If some soldier here told me he qualified to be a sniper or DM by doing something like that with a rack M14 or rack M16...I'd call BS as well not only on the feat but the selection procedure as well.

It's possible for folks of the caliber that Rost and RGRX are, but they are highly trained and exceptional riflemen compared to folks like myself or even the great Lee24.

Lee 24.....HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! Good one for sure Chris .

NOoooooo had to go there eh? Well I guess Mahalo anyway.... grins.

Hujambo Jeff?

Years ago, Paul Matthews published in one of his books, that the aiming error, as he measured it, with good quality iron sights (tang sight and front aperture) is around 0.25 MOA. At 500 yds that is roughly 1.2" So a 4" group at 500 is not inconceivable, but I bet he couldn't average that.

When evaluating a claim such as the OP described, you need to take into account many component errors to arrive with the system error or what is observed on the target. The aiming error is but one component. We know that there are folk that can hold hard at mid and long range with iron sights even with a shorter sight radius than what Mr Matthews used. But what it also takes are the other components to have minimal error as well. The main question I have is whether the rifle and ammo were consistently capable of such a feat. Like I mentioned earlier, the FAL is no M16 nor an M14. Environmental conditions would be another component error contributor. Measurement criteria (how many shots in the group?, how many groups? etc) is another significant unknown factor. Almost anyone can put two shots close together at distance once in their life.

Chris, I agree, but I only wanted to point out that the iron sights are really not the big handicap that the modern world often things they are. After that, scoped or irons are all the same as far as "component error"

I agree and I disagree. Good quality sights, long sight radius...yes, iron's can be precise. I don't know about 1/4 MOA precise. But even granting that, you're talking about very specialized, limited cases and none of that apply to a FAL's battle sights.

Oh, yeah. That is especially true if there is an aperture as a component or if both front and rear are apertures.
My best group of any rifle that I have ever used (0.5" ctc) was shot with irons, albeit not at 500 yards.
Pete

Seejambo..... had a minister from Tanzania with us for 3 months once... thats about all I recall though...

So, Jeff, who IS this "rgrx1276" character? It's not Sheri Gallagher is it?

Yeah, "snipers" don't usually impress me much anyway. I mean, they most always use telescopic sights and bipods and such.... Schit, even my grandmother can shoot fairly decent with all that mess.

Oh ya?

You oven mitt/straight jacket boys can be half way out of the black and still score a "10" on them there Helen Keller targets ya all shoot on...

Just to be clear, I never said that. Grins.

Just think how small of a target we could shoot if the rules allowed us to open our eyes and use em while shooting..

Heads out to 300, chests to 1,000.

Does the job, no?

I forget the group sizes,but even before the AR platforms came into vogue, I saw a lot of smallish groups shot with match grade M1A's and even National Match Garands at 600 yards.

Yep - Jeff and I can do that with open sights.

You gotta get yerself outta hock with "sherri" though, you're all on your own on that one. Not sure which one is gonna be after ya worse.

Offhand, of course

That would be impressive. I could do it all day long though. One shot groups.

In the rain, of course.

And without a bipod, rest or sandbag.

That's what those "Helen Keller" targets are.

Heads at 300 offhand wouldn't be so bad. Chests at 1000 could be a bit rough though.

Umm... cough cough... mousegun .... cough cough

can't believe I said that.

mousegun = Easy at 300.... but 1000 requires 90 jlks, at least for me anyway...

Get some robitussin... Grins

I used to shoot high power with an ex special forces army retired that will remain nameless because I don't have his permission. He told me that any High Power competitor ranked expert or above could outshoot 95% of the military snipers. I thought that was interesting, and please don't set fire to me, as I'm just repeating what he said.

John M

If target dimensions have an especially good fit with ones sights, it's quite possible to shoot much better than one can see. Never thought I could do less than one moa with irons until I picked up a Sharps with high end sights. It probably helps that the sight plain is about 37 inches from front to rear.

I used to know a HP shooter who almost made Master back in the M14 days with coke bottle glasses. He told me--"you don't have to see the target well, you just have to see it the same way every time".

Thats almost right RE seeing it the same every time.... but it is pretty important to see the front sight as clearly as you can, the target can be very blurry though.

Something tells me that most of you are not Marines , all marines shoot 500 meters prone when we were in boot camp! With a M-14 of course ! semper fi Ozzie

Musta been a while ago, according to the two jarheads I work with they qualified with M-16A2's & neither fired a 4" group ....

No, I'm not Sheri Gallagher.

I think he was yanking ya chain there... grins.

What are you doing in Israel? I just noticed that.

yep the 14 has been out of circ for boot camp for a long time now...

Marines shot the 14 at 500 yards on the Baker 5V target. Even shooting all Vee's, you're not holding 4 inches.

Vs... isn't that the enlarged braille target they used to shoot on? Grins.

I think it's possible to shoot a 4 inch group at 500 meters with iron sights, just like it's possible to bench press 1000 pounds, but very very few people have the physical skills to learn to do either, and fewer have the combination of physical ability and drive to learn to do it.
As a small aside from the gist of this thread, I'd like to see a side by side study with say 10 top marksmen shooting several groups at 1000 yards with iron sights, and then shooting several more groups with the identical rifle with a high powered scope, as high as they desired, and then compare group size between the iron sight groups and the scope sighted groups. Wonder how much difference there would be? I suspect less difference than most people would think.

Royce

Royce, in the BPTR Creedmoor game, we have guys doing exactly what you describe, albeit with blackpowder cartridge rifles, but scope scores are generally lucky to be as good as irons, and very rarely better. Even then, just by a few points. And these are old creeky guys that have trouble seeing their shoelaces and the like.

Irons are much underrated - but generally by guys that don't shoot them.

Brent
Thanks for the input. Wonder if parallax in the scopes has something to do with them not fairing better than they do.

No, the scopes are fine. They are adjustable for parallax. It's just that irons aim so much better than you think they can. Even for guys with mediocre eyes - like me. Paul Matthews once set out to test what the aiming error is with iron sights - it turns out to be about 1/4 of a minute. While a scope might beat that, it becomes relatively moot in comparison to the target and the accuracy of the rifles and the ability to hang with the conditions (that last one is the killer).

Where can I find this comparison by Paul Matthews? I'd like to examine his methodology. My first thought is that claimed 1/4 moa would be difficult to sift out, and more probably lost in the noise.

It is in his book, The Paper Jacket, if memory serves (dangerous assumption).

But here is his technique. It takes two people who are pretty trusting, a really good benchrest, or better, a gun vice, and a 2-way radio.

The idea is simple. Using a black bull the size of your normal sighting target for that distance, put a pin in the exact center of it. A thumbtack will do. But prick a deadcenter hole.

Now, aim the gun/vice/bench at your backstop at the designated yardage and line it up so that the sights are about centered on a clean, smooth backer board.

Have your "shooter," with breech open, sight through the rifle and, using the radio, tell the second person who is at the backstop how to move the target left and right, up and down, quickly (before eyes tire) until it is centered for a shot according to the shooter.

When this has been done, poke the thumbtack through the pin hole in the center of bull and make a hole in the backer board. That's the "shooter's" first "shot".

Remove the bull and w/o touching the rifle or moving it in any way, repeat the process 4 or 9 more times for a 5 or 10 "shot" group.

Measure the group size as the distance between the pin pricks of course.

Does that make sense?

Brent

Thanks BrentD,
Yes, it makes sense. I am familiar with the process he used. BTW, This is the 4th time I'm telling myself I need to get that book.
One additional thought; The sights and sight radius of which you speak are probably worlds away from what the OP is describing. A FAL has battle sights and what...a 20" radius if that? BPCR has precision sights and what...30+"?

I personally shoot a scope much better than irons. If you get a chance, check out the scores of the Leech Cup vs Wimbledon (Irons vs Any (glass or iron) at 1000 yards. RGRX could tell you better, but I can't think of a Wimbledon winner that used irons. Wimbledon scores are pretty consistently better than Leech too.

I remember Nancy Tompkins shooting the Rocky Mountain Palma Match (RMPM). There were some of the hardest of the hard iron's shooters there and Nancy won. JJ Conway was there shooting F-Class before it was popular, and his score beat Nancy's handily (I think he was like 80 at the time). In addition to glass, he also used a rest, so it wasn't a perfectly fair comparison.

Part of why I shoot glass better than irons is my vision. That's a no brainer. But the other part of it hasn't been described yet. With glass, I'm watching the wind in real time. No delay in going from spotting scope to sights than going through a shot process. With glass, I'm through my process and ready to break it when I see my condition. I can also hold off very precisely if I need to and break a shot quickly. RGRX and Rost probably can do the same with irons. But I can't.

I have long forgotten what the OP was talking about. Our rifles typically use double apertures (front and rear) and have a sight radius of 36". I'm sure that matters to a degree.

Hey Jeff,

I'm working diplomatic security in the disputed territories, (west bank).

any thing is possible with practice and a rifle with the right ammo. Most people would be surprised what a good service rifle is capable of in the hands of a man who knows the rifle. Plus you must remember, men who grew up in the early years before 1960 cut their teeth on open and peep sights, scopes were a gimmick item , not dependable and only used by very few people. I grew up in the 50's and early 60's and never used a scope on a high power rifle until the early 70's. My opinion is, you should never start a kid with a scope and should make them learn on iron sights and they will always be a better marksman in the long run. 4 inch group at 500 is very doable. Last year at our hunting cabin i was shooting at a metal plate about 8 x 10 at 300 yards off hand with a Marlin 30-30 open sights and was ringing it every time the younger guys just couldn't believe it . They just had no idea a 30-30 would do that at the distant with open sights, they sure looked at the old round and lever gun with a different prospective .

Head down, CYA, in our prayers! Keep up the good work!

Jeff and Carolyn

With how many shots?

5 its fairly easy on the right conditions. 10 makes it harder....

1 shot is really easy.

Yes, I would agree with that, mainly because they get to shoot a lot more than military snipers do. There is no requirement in Hi-power to be able to jumpmaster an aircraft, call for fire, call in CAS, rig an inverted-V and burst a transmission to another continent....etc.

Having said that, you do not want a Quantico or SOTIC grad drawing a bead on your azz. He won't miss the second shot.

I"m always impressed with what snipers accomplish. Most of it without shooting.

I have almost always been not impressed when they would cycle through the shooting sports. They'd be the quality of expert at best generally and that was the very first classification I was ever issued and I thought I sucked at that point.

Of course IMHO no one should miss with a second shot. Thats way to easy.

But I may hold myself and others to a high standard.

AND....conditions were EXTREMELY GOOD!!

and the shooter was extremely good. Grins.... yeah right....

Was a pretty decent day now that ya mention it...

Have shot my share of spindles out..600, 800, 900, 1000yds...mostly iron sights. But, there are a lot of folks that have shot out far more than I ever did.

ya mean there is folks better than a Ubl?

We shall see once I begin shooting F-TR. Moving to Phoenix in 19 days. Then the fun begins.

Phoenix? Ya know it doesn't really snow there all winter long....

Have a safe move and good luck! Have fun!

Jeff