Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer hunting with iron sights?

I'm with the guy that said"I did until my eyes went". I shot a doe in a group of feeding doe that was already limping. Looked like a doe to me with out a scope. Turned out to be a buck,could not make it out clear enough through the snow and distance. Enjoy Iron sights while you are young.

I carried a K-31 a few years back but never had a shot while it was in my hands. My partners were punched out so I decided to switch rifles to my M700 so as not to limit myself. Killed a 3x4 the next day at probably 80yds. Still haven't blooded the Swiss.

I have never hunted with open sights until the last couple of years, and I killed a couple of hogs last year with my Blaser R-93 308 Tracker barrel. This year, I killed a couple of does with my R-93 9.3x62 Tracker barrel.

I still hunt with my Winchester 1894s and my Marlin 1893 with iron sights. I refuse to put an optical sight of any kind on them. All but the .25-35 1894 and the .25-36 1893 have tang sights which suit my aging yes better than the factory sights. The .25s are saddle guns used for lion hunting where shots are never more than 25-35 yards at the most.

Used a model 700 ADL in 30-06 for first 4 years before I got a scope.Killed a few deer and a few other critters.I think it was either my 16th or 17th birthday my dad bought me a scope for it,many moons ago.

retrieverman.... thats a horribly short sight radius.... what gives there? Scout scope for other times to move the sight that far forward? I'd have thought a peep around the rear scope base area would be much more forgiving and quicker to use accurately.

Looks like it works fine though.

KC.. the sights on the M14 and M1 are not similar, they are exactly the same.... grins.... good glasses can keep you shooting irons almost forever but most folks don't want to do it that way.

That is the way Blaser puts the sights on their "Tracker" length barrels, and it hasn't been a problem. I shoot this barrel quite a bit with a scope in a QD mount, and it fits nicely behind the rear sight.

I hunt deer with irons frequently when it's raining out, I find it easier than any of the systems I've tried for keeping scope lenses clear in the rain. My most common rainy day rifle is a "jackknife sporterized" Swedish Mauser with a Williams receiver sight. The other is a 99 Savage .303 with a tang sight. Both work pretty well. I've killed caribou with the Savage as well. When I was a kid, living in a shotgun only area, I killed deer with an Ithaca 16 gauge pump with nothing but the front bead. It wasn't that unusual to see people doing that in those days. It was probably more common than slug guns with sights on them. A friend's young daughter needed a small, easy shooting rifle to start deer hunting with, I gave her an open-sighted 92 Winchester SRC I had around and some 1100 fps cast bullet handloads. She killed deer with it for a few years until she got bigger and her dad got her a .243.

Killed a couple deer with iron sights, both does. One with a .358 BLR and one with a 1904 Winchester .32 WCF.

There is nothing like the VISUALS of a deer going ass over teakettle, when you can see the whole thing!

That said, I love scopes. I'm glad smart people figured out how to put everything on the same focal plane, with a crosshair no less.

For here, in W. Oregon, the ranges can be close, the action fast, and you can count on the rain. I've found my scope to be a hindrance and have pulled it and gone to an XS Sight System, Ghost Ring and put a flo. orange dot at the bottom of the post for fast acquisition,, just like the flo. orange dot on my Rem 870. This sits atop my Rem pump, '06 carbine. It's point and click,, just like my recurve bow. At these ranges, MOA is not an issue.

p.s... It'll group in the 2" bull at 100 yds, with a good rest, even with my blurry vision only able to approximate the target.. and that's with the wide-open aperature.

Good shootin',, Ken

do it while you can. the time will come when the eyes wont allow it.

I have never have hunted big game with irons, but hopefully soon I will. I like to be a little different, which is why I hunt with Ruger #1s. My wife gave me a Ruger left-handed bolt in .270 Win. many years ago. Great rifle, but other than the bolt on the south side there's nothing different about it. So, I'm going to have a front sight attached and try clamping on a NECG peep to see what I can do. The XS set up looks nice, but I want the option of just un-clamping and re-installing my 6x Leupy if need be. Tags are few and far between in AZ, so I'll start with javelina and play the rest by ear.

Deer hunting with iron sights,

That's all I have ever hunted with. I don't shoot past 100 yards neither. A long shot 'round these parts is 75 yards. All but one deer was ay 70 yards rest were under 30 yards. I've been deer hunting since I was 12 and 'am 59 now. I've killed lots of deer in them years.
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If you correct for the vision to shoot irons, its gonna typically be a LONG time before you can't... like more or less in the late 70s or early 80s.

Shot my very first deer last fall with a Benelli M2 Tactical with iron sights and a bulk pack Winchester 12 ga. rifled slug.

It's an experience I will remember always.

I used irons for years, on 22's squirrel hunting, and on a 54ML they work. Now I pretty much use a scope, unfortunately my eyes haven't held up as well as the rifles did. I still use them on pistols, but that has gotten to be a problem.

One of the things I really like about iron sights is how nice and trim the rifle feels. Especially while doing a walk around hunt. There are times that a scoped rifle will work better, low light, alfalfa or wheat fields etc. In the river bottoms filled with pucker brush, I do not see a down side to iron sights.
It's also kind of difficult to scope my older mannlichers as I do not want to be the one that drilled holes in them. This gives me incentive to really like iron sights.

99 savage in 3030 tang sight, works fine on texas deer

The notion that anybody older than (fill in the age) can;t use iron sights is open to question. I am 57 and use iron sights regularly for all sorts of hunting. My wife didn't start using them until just a few years ago, and is becoming quite competent.

One common misconception about iron sights is that they can't be used when the rear sight becomes fuzzy to our eyes. But if the notch is big enough to show light around the front sight, then quite accurate shooting can be done, even on small targets. An aperture sight makes this easier, but an open rear is still useable when fuzzy.

One reason many people give up on irons after using scopes for years is they try to use irons on a scope-type paper target--and they can't see the bullseye well enough. They then blame the sights, when the target is all wrong.

Put up a target with a big enough bullseye that contrasts with the background, and irons can suddenly become useable, even for older shooters. Many bullseyes on today's scope targets are too pale, because shooters want to see the holes in the bullseye. Instead, an iron-sight target should be either very dark or (especially with pale front sights like the common bead) white on a dark background.

Blue sheets of construction paper are perfect.