Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Lets talk Iron back up sights for a bit

Well, I was motivated by another thread to buy a set of flip up/back up iron sights for one of my rifles. I'll be using that rifle for a little informal match shooting here in my area. The sights I ended up buying are the Ultradyne C4 flip up sights. These are nice sights, but a little spendy. In the other thread, rost made the comment about "cheap" back up iron sights and how they are just about as useless as a Leupold rifle scope. Or something to that nature. It was a funny comment for sure, but I don't know how much water it carries. Maybe Jeff will explain a little more of what he meant by that comment. Anyway, I wanted to share these sights with you guys. I know some of you guys like keeping a set of back up irons on your rifles. These ones get pretty good reviews, but this is my take on them and the first day impression. I'll just show you guys with targets, since I like posting target pics. I'll also post pics of the rifle. The rifle I installed these sights on is my least accurate AR15 in the house, but its one I really could care less if I drilled some holes in the barrel and clamped a gas block on to the front end of it to hold the front sight. This rifle has never turned in a sub moa target on the black rifle challenge, it hovers right there above 1 moa all the time, but it is consistent. I keep hoping one day I'll find a good load the rifle likes: Meaning a load that it keeps all of its shots inside 1 moa consistently:

Gen 1 Noveske varmint with medium weight 20" stainless 1 in 8" twist 3 land barrel. Picture of rifle without Ultradyne sights:


Rifle with Ultradyne C4 flip up sights:



Here's the best target it turned in today. With a score of 100-5X... I also believe that group was the smallest as well, at 1.285"...:

This was after a final 1 click up and 1 click to the left adjustment (if I remember right). I was starting to lose daylight, as it was around 7:30 P.M when I started wrapping things up. I look forward to shooting this rifle with these sights more when the weather is better and when there is more daylight....

I forgot to mention, I ordered these sights with the smallest rear aperature (.050") and an 8 MOA front aperature. You can buy more sizes of aperatures for both the front and rear sights and even a post for the front, if you don't like the globe type front sight pin... I prefer the holes on both sights. Like rost said in the other thread, it is almost like cheating when you use this style of sight on a round target. Of course, it works out best if you match the front aperature with the size of bulls eye you are going to be shooting at. After that, it is pretty simple.

Here are more target pics from this evening:




I also have a target I'll post in the black rifle challenge thread as well. Not as good as rost's, but with a little time behind these and a better day, I can see it doing better... Post up what you guys use for back up irons. I'd also like to hear from Tyrone on the subject of full on olympic style iron match sights. I like shooting targets and I know there are far better sighting systems out there. I'd like to see some of those, if you guys have them....

Good shooting, good looking BUS sights. I don’t know if those are good for service rifle or not. I think they might be, because the Army uses a B.U.S sights Now. The Army turned in the carrying handle type rear style sights yrs ago.

Thanks buddy. These are going to be fun. Just like shooting my winchester model 52, only it's an ar...

These are the rear sights we have on our M4’s

https://www.brownells.com/rifle-par...gi-backup-iron-rear-sight-prod26575.aspx

Very cool. Thanks for posting that.. I forgot to mention that the C4 sights In the op fit right under my Burris AR556 4.5-14x42 scope I use. No problemmo... It looks like the sights you show here do the same thing. I think what sold me on the Ultradyne sights was the front aperature style sight. I started using those on my 22 target rifles a while back and man those things make life simpler..

We have a hodgepodge of optics, some have acogs, some have m68 others just straight up open sights.

Life was probably simpler when everyone shooting service rifle used the same exact set-ups... Probably a lot more fair as well...

I should of clarified that’s in the Army far as hodgepodge and every battalion is different. Far as service rifle everyone is pretty much on the same page far as equipment. It’s all on the shooter what they want to spend. Like I mentioned in the other thread, all our service rifle folks switched to optics. Some say it’s cheating but I say it’s staying up with the times. For example majority of Jr service rifle shooters use scopes. A lot of the older folks who shot service rifle gave up due to degrading eye sight. But with rules being changed few yrs back allowing optics it brought them back..

Yeah, that is the positive thing for sure...

Funny story we have a guard guy who shoots at the club shoots. He has a nice AR all national match stuff, far as the upper goes shooting irons. First shoot, is a fun shoot. So we shoot to 600yds that’s it. Anyhow, I shoot first time shooting to 600yds. I finish and we do a pit change, Guard guy heads back to the line I’m pulling his target now. He gets to shooting, and we are in the radio. Shooter 12 is in the berm, this goes on for a few shots. Then nothing for a few minutes, then starts shooting again, he’s on target. They get on the radio shooter 12 going to shoot 2 times running out of time we were like ok. We finish up head back to the line, turn in score cards. I had to ask him what he was using for ammo. He said 62gr green tip ammo. I’m like dude go buy some magtech 77gr Sierra otm for 33 bucks. I guess he ran out of elevation, with the first rifle had to switch to other rifle brought. Still not enough adjustment, for those 62’s. Couple shoots later he finally breaks down buys some of that magtech stuff, surprise surprise he shoots better scores.

I'm not shooting service rifle matches though buddy. Here at my club, we just have fun with it. When they say we are having an AR rifle match, it's run what you brung. We have what we call scoped rifle matches, Iron sight class and an open class where you can run what ever you want... We get some heavy hitters coming in from Portland and Vancouver that have a lot more money than I do. Those fuggers spare no expense when it comes to the rifles they bring. One guy brought a big heavy azzed 26" barreled monster and I was joking with him in front of everyone and I said "we should lay $500.00 down on the table", you obviously brought the rifle that is going to kick everybody's azz".. I then said, look at my rifle, it's just got a tiny little fluted barrel on it... "You know you are going to kick my azz with your rifle.. Lets lay some money down".... The guy turns to me and says, "you think i'm a big dummy?, I've seen how you shoot".... .. Hey, it wouldn't be fun and interesting if you couldn't mess with people, huh buddy.... I'm for damn sure not the best and I've even been beaten by girls and old guys shooting beat up old Savages and Steven's 200's... One of the best beatings I ever got (I mean we, as in our whole club) was when this damn guy came to one of our rimfire shoots with a little kids chipmunk rifle. No it wasn't big stick either... This chipmunk rifle was kind of decked out with some nice peeps on it and low and behold the sob shot 5 perfects in a row.... Made us all look bad... At least back then I wasn't using a target rifle, like everyone else in the club was... I had an excuse.. Ha ha..

Ha ha.. That is funny... You see a lot of chidt at those matches I bet...

Again first shoot of the yr last yr. Bunch of are noobs, at least I chrono my load got my data. Anyhow one fella shows up with his hunting rifle couple boxes of ammo might of been Remington corlokt. Anyhow they tried and tried watching his bullet trace. Finally he got on paper, I think he finished with a score of 127.

You got to give him an A for effort, i guess..

Mine are just simple Troy folding sights. I can barely see the front blurry post out there so no need for target type sights. I just want to be able to shoot irons and hit plates. But one thing I have noticed is I like my fixed Daniel Defense A1.5 rear sight and seem to shoot better with them than with the Troy's.

So I'll take notes here and may try something different if I see something I like.

1/2 MOA clicks and a 50 thou aperture - that's pretty darn nice for BU sights!
Of course, you'll probably want a bigger hole for SHTF type shooting.

At what distance from your eye is the front sight hole 8 MOA? 8 MOA is a pretty good fit for those HP target bulls. They are 6 MOA.

Two of my AR's wear KAC's that I bought cheap some years ago. Later to learn, supposedly stolen from the government. They are marked "USMC". I like the smallness of the aperture (light around it) as opposed to my Colt AR with its carry handle sight. The latter is just about useless for my aging eyes.

I got my first pair of irons for my ar after my son retired from the Navy.

Have no idea what brand or who made them but they do their job.

I do have another rear sight that has yardage marks on it in white ink.

scuttle on the line says often with ap fronts you go bigger than you would ever think... Dunno, I liked smaller but I wasn't shooting them very often.

Did a lot with old red field sights on a 22 trying to shoot the A36 target IIRC to learn NPA better...