Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Blue diamond targetsiamond as your aim point or the bottom tip of the diamond

JB, In reading your article in the latest Hanloader I noticed the blue hollow diamond targets that were used and have a question. Do you use the center of the diamond as your aim point or the bottom tip of the diamond (which I generally do) or some other point? I make similar ones on my old Xerox in various sizes for different ranges. Thanks-Judd

Aiming at the center provides the most consistent hold, because the crosshairs can be aligned with the corners of the diamond.

That's theoretically true, but FWIW, and it may just be me, I seem to get a little tighter groups using the diamond tip.

I just stick a small round orange dot in the center of the bull to give me a more consistent aimpoint.

Different strokes for different fokes.

I would say it depends on your crosshairs, too, the amount of scope power, and what looks most precise to you.

I have designed my own targets, to use diamonds with a circle dot with a white round center. Two different sizes, for whatever FCH dot, or duplex I'm using.
With the dot reticles, it's like a good set of globe sights on a round bullseye. And I think that's why MD does it like that, because humans are good at self centering.

Sometimes the sight picture is better aiming at the bottom of the diamond.

And Jorge, I just have to comment about the orange dot. I've noticed that "glo" dots seem to float around due to chromatic error, the prismatic effect of glass. White or black dots are good, but narrow-wavelength colors just don't look right, nor do the groups. Kind of surprised an eagle eye pilot like you wouldn't have noticed that.

Well this isn't the first discussion we've had about targets. & grouping.
I prefer and use all the time small 'orange' round target spots.

Others have also said that orange dots work well for them. Seems to be different 'eyes', focus, or whatever for diff people.

Before I settled on orange targets, I made my own with pastel colors, blue, yellow, even pink.

LIGHT colored targets allow you to see bullet holes IN the target. I quit and NEVER use black or dark blue. You don't know where the holes are.

I have shown friends that WE can hold AT 6 O'clock consistently. When the trigger breaks I know immediately if I'm ON, left, right, hi , or low. Friends have changed to the same light colors & 6 O'clock hold.

Aim Small, Miss Small:

It works for myself and friends.

Jerry

Jwall, can we see one of those targets? powdr

A few months ago I got the idea here for diamonds and X's that would print out on 8.5x11 sheets. Did record a few notes but haven't taken it further than that. Definitely helpful with lower magnification where I find standard targets to be lacking. Haven't determined what works best for the diamond reticle of the 1-4x SWFA yet and looking for suggestions, for shooting groups specifically.

I like my diamonds turned 90 degrees, aka squares, like benchrest shooters use. My late brother made up a bunch of targets years ago with multiple squares on a sheet and faint elevation lines marked. He made them in various sizes to accomodate different scopes. I still use them, and prefer buff paper to minimize mirage. Orange on bright white paper "swims" on me.

I bought some real benchrest targets on Amazon not long ago, but haven't tried them yet. One type has two targets to a sheet, the other is smaller, and adhesive.

For red dots, a regular bull of the right diameter works best for me.

Yes, no problem


I use the 1" for 22 practice/sighting and some CF apps.
The largest make for decent longer range targets. When you're grouping, most of the time the bullets don't hit the orange so the black center isn't a problem.

I like and can use MtnBoomer's bottom target--light blue. It is easy to see bullet holes when your target is LIGHT colored. When they are dark>>where's the hole?

Jerry

Diamonds is all I use. But I use black ones.

Colors blur and are harder on the eyes for me.

Its one reason I can't shoot orange, the edges blur with irons. With scopes colors are a bit better, but I find that day in and day out among the colors that black on white or buff keeps my eyes most relaxed and thats somewhat important to my eyes at least.

Diamond as is and shoot at the white center, I use various sizes out to 600 depending on distance and scope.

The Redfield targets are great for most reticles.

http://www.brownells.com/shooting-a...argets-100-sku750190034-20847-26081.aspx

Notable exception is a picket post as most older german scopes have. They are usually huge. A large, really big, diamond only target seems to work the best. Reticle point to target point gives best groups of any target I have tried.

The blue diamond and dot shown above could work for all typical reticles. Nice design job !

For hunting irons, especially with bead fronts, hard to do better than a 36" square sheet of plain white paper. You naturally set up the bead to have the same amount of white on all sides. Also reduces eye strain as you are not trying to focus on the front bead and the "target" at the same time. Shaded red or ivory beads work best as there is no glare as with gold. For game, unshaded ivory is best. My carbine bead covers 6" @100 but groups are still at 3".

Redfield Sourdough gold post is also excellent. If you are shooting opens, make sure your rear notch is a generous square shape. Smoke both for target work.

excellent thread.

Jeff,

Orange is hard on a lot of eyes, both due to variations in eyesight and, occasionally, optical abberrations in scopes. For the same reasons, blue may or may not work for some eyes, but it doesn't affect most eyes or scopes as much as orange. It's also easier to spot bullet holes in blue than in black--but I use black diamonds occasionally too.

1 mil diamonds I made for someone here at the campfire

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47141769/24hrCampfireMillDiamond.pdf

On the subject of dots, has anyone else thought about covering a person with the green-glo ones as a means of camo? At a distance of a couple of hundred yards, the person would become totally invisible.

GhettoSportsman,

That's a nice target!

Thanks very much! Since I haven't been able to work anymore I thought I'd play with targets! I've made a ton of em! (many untried ) lol

Thats why I run a white diamond in the middle, black "hollow" diamond on the outside.

Orange just flat hurts my eyes.

Jeff,

Someone wrote a number of years ago, as I recall Jim Carmichel, about how the majority of shooters have some degree of sensitivity to orange, which makes it odd that so many commercial targets use orange. But American hunters have come to associate blaze orange with hunting.

I was going to shoot today anyway, and this thread inspired me to try something new for me. I've been creating my own targets using Powerpoint for years, and have made blue diamonds, red diamonds, red dots of various sizes, and all kinds of different things. Last time out I was having quite a bit of trouble seeing the blue diamond targets clearly...it's an age thing, I'm sure.

Anyway, I've learned that green is right in the middle of the spectrum that the human eye sees so I created a larger green diamond with a heavy black border, about 1-1/2" on each side.

These worked really well for me today. I had no problem maintaining focus on the target image. I think I'll keep using them.