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Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle
      #364885 - 25/04/22 04:16 PM

https://www.fieldandstream.com/rifle-hunters-guide-to-iron-sights/

Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle

Quality iron sights are simple, lightweight, and surprisingly accurate out to 200 yards

By David E. Petzal | Published Aug 2, 2021 12:00 PM

https://www.fieldandstream.com/uploads/2019/08/26/JHQ3SUWNE4GVZ2XLLOUSLLG22Q.jpg

I got interested in guns in the early 1950s, at just about the time that scopes were being generally accepted. They were, for the most part, wretched objects—difficult to mount, dim, and fragile, with adjustments that had a sense of humor. Rifle stocks were designed so you could use either a scope or iron sights, and they worked well with neither. Gun makers, in order to deal with scope-failure anxiety, equipped their rifles with miserable iron sights. The variable scope was regarded with extreme and justified suspicion. Prudent riflemen used fixed 4Xs.

Today, scopes are inconceivably better than what was around in the ’50s. Even the U.S. military has gone to the ACOG, which is an optical sight, after a century of iron. (The fact that we expended 250,000 rounds of small arms ammo per casualty inflicted in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had to buy it from Israel because we ran out, may have had something to do with the decision.)

So, are iron sights obsolete? No way. Not only are they very much alive, but they’re as much improved as scopes are. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of using these rifle sights, and a guide to choosing the best iron sights for your shooting, and how to use iron sights for the best results.
Iron sights offers these advantages:

Good iron sights don’t break. Optical sights break plenty.
The batteries never flame out because there are none.
Iron sights are lighter and smaller than anything optical.
Even the good ones don’t cost a bundle.
Inside 200 yards, you can shoot them with startling accuracy.

And there are, of course, disadvantages:

Unlike optical sights, which put the reticle and the target in the same focal plane and require your eye to focus on only that plane, iron sights involve three focal planes: rear sight, front sight, and target. Unless you’re young and your eyeballs are flexible, and unless you have eyesight on the order of 20/20 or 25/25, you’re going to have a hard time sighting with them.
They offer no magnification, which is a huge disadvantage out past 200 yards.
In poor light, where much hunting takes place, a good scope is vastly superior to iron sights.

How to Choose the Bet Iron Sights For Your Needs

There are two categories of iron sights: those for general use and those for speed shooting. We’ll start with the first.

https://www.fieldandstream.com/uploads/2019/08/26/NNKO7FNPNTLGKG3NMF643QL3RI.jpg

A blade front sight matched with a rear ghost ring, from New England Custom Gun Service. NECG
The Best Iron Sights for General Use

For general use, which includes backup to a scope, there are two designs that excel. The first is the blade front sight used in combination with a rear peep. If you’re interested in really precise shooting, you want a blade that’s square across the top, because it doesn’t fade or blur as does a tapered post. Skilled target shooters can use a square blade for a form of Kentucky windage. You’ll hear the expression, “half a blade left,” or “a quarter-blade right,” meaning the shooter is compensating for the wind by holding off center by a half or a quarter of the front sight’s width. It’s fast, and precise, but you have to practice.

The other sensible choice up front is the fiber-optic sight, which is far more visible than a blade. The most common colors are green, red, orange, and yellow. I find that bright green or dark orange work best. The drawback to fiber optics is that they’re pretty fragile.

https://www.fieldandstream.com/uploads/2019/08/26/FPPHWTS7I3HMUJTEXYW4QKHWXE.jpg

A bright-green fiber-optic front sight is highly visible. NECG

This brings us to the next front-sight consideration: Whatever the actual sight, it has to have some sort of protection from bangs and hard knocks. The military solution, for many decades, has been steel “wings” on either side of the sight. You can see these on the front sight of the Ruger Gunsite Scout.

For fiber-optic sights, the best protection I’ve seen, and which I use on both my heavy rifles, is the Masterpiece Banded Ramp-Window Hood made by New England Custom Gun Service, Ltd. (NECG).

(A digression: NECG is the go-to source for anything having to do with iron sights for hunting rifles. They have scores of front sights, ramps, hoods, and rear sights, both open and peep. The tactical counterpart to NECG is Troy Industries, which specializes in backup sights for ARs. They are of very high quality, extremely well thought out, and the prices are less than one would expect.)

The Window Hood has two large cutouts that admit light, so you don’t have to remove it to aim a fiber-optic sight. While hunting buffalo in Zimbabwe in 2017, I whacked the muzzle of my .416 against a tree and deformed the Window Hood, but the sight underneath survived, and I was able to bend the hood back into shape

https://stg.fieldandstream.com/app/uploads/2019/08/26/BLNSJYAPF4YCQ3YSGEYIBG4UQQ.jpg


The NECG Masterpiece Banded Ramp-Window Hood does a great job of protecting a fiber-optic front sight. NECG

For a rear sight, for all-around use, the best choice is the ghost-ring aperture. The ghost ring, which Jeff Cooper loved and promoted, is nothing more than a peep sight with an oversized aperture. Sighting with it, your eye registers the aperture only as a “ghost” image and unconsciously centers the front sight in it. You have, in effect, reduced the number of focal planes you have to deal with by one-third.

A good ghost-ring sight is small, unobtrusive, and adjusts for elevation and windage. It should also be very tough. Once you sight it in, you do not touch it unless you change ammo. If you’d like to see an exemplary selection of ghost rings, go to the NECG site.
The Best Iron Sights for Speed Sighting

For speed sighting, we turn to our good friends the professional hunters of Africa, who sometimes have to shoot fast or die. I’ve handled a good many of their backup rifles and noticed a high degree of unanimity in what they do and do not use, namely:

No scopes. (One masterful builder of heavy rifles flatly refuses to mount a scope on any of his hard kickers. They break, he says. He once sent me a .404 to shoot. Because it’s not a terrifically hard kicker, he’d been talked into mounting a scope on the rifle. When it got to me, the scope was busted.) No red dots. No holograms. No peep sights. Over the course of more than a century, PHs have found that the combination that works best for them is a big bead up front and a shallow rear V.

https://www.fieldandstream.com/uploads/2019/08/26/R47Y5PKBNW2WUYFSOOQPZXMIDY.jpg

A shallow-V rear and classic bead front sight, from NECG. NECG

The best material for the big bead is gold or ivory. Wart hog ivory is better than elephant ivory, as it’s finer grained and doesn’t yellow over the years.

The traditional open rear sight is a shallow V, and the good ones often have a vertical line of gold or silver inlaid in the steel that runs from the base up to the bottom of the V notch. The really good ones have a gold triangle that does the same thing. In use, you put the bead on the notch, pull the trigger, and concentrate on not wetting yourself.

Serious, working rear sights of this type are designed never to move once they leave the factory, where they are “regulated” for a particular make of ammo and bullet weight. The reason is that most PHs subject their rifles to a fantastic amount of abuse, some unavoidable and some not, and an unmovable rear sight is about the only thing that holds up.

Be aware that there are open rear sights called “express sights” that have folding leaves for ranges past 100 yards. These are a superb waste of money, as dangerous game is almost never shot from beyond 100 yards, and usually much closer, and the useless little leaves have a habit of folding flat whenever they feel like it. An open rear sight is properly set to hit dead on at 100 yards, or 50 yards, and then left strictly alone.

How to Use Iron Sights as a Backup

If you’re using iron sights as a backup to a scope, you must devote some thought and prayer to getting the scope off the rifle when it gives out. This is why quick-detachable, or QD, mounts were invented. Almost all of them clamp to a base or a rail via levers. Talley makes excellent QD rings, as does Leupold, which calls them QRW2. There are a number of less-expensive rings designed for rails and for Weaver-style bases. They all work fine.

https://www.fieldandstream.com/uploads/2019/08/26/QDV74NWQI42B2KKYIHJPU6XRMA.jpg

Leupold’s quick-detachable QRW2 rings work well in combination with backup iron sights. Leupold

The thing to remember is that it pays to tighten the levers with a light touch. Don’t go bashing them. If you decide to get them good and tight by tapping with a hammer, then you’ll need a hammer to get them off, and if you don’t have one handy in the heat of combat, you’ll need to use a rock. Tighten with your fingers, and every morning, just after tea, check to see that they’re still tight.

Probably the greatest testament to iron sights is that for a century, they were standard on every military rifle made, which is millions and millions. There were never any complaints about them. They worked under the most horrific conditions imaginable. They’ll do the same for you.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
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BillfromOregon
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: NitroX]
      #371513 - 16/11/22 06:08 AM

Well, Petzal certainly doesn't mince words when describing express sights.
I'm trying to remember if Samuel Baker addressed this subject in "Wild Beasts and Their Ways."


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sharps4590
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: BillfromOregon]
      #371514 - 16/11/22 06:55 AM

The only thing I slightly disagree with is Express sights. I say slightly because on big kickers I agree completely. However, on my little Jeffrey Rook rifle it has 4 blades and, with correct ballistics for the 255 Jeffrey cartridge which it was originally chambered for, they come right on at their respective distances. Ross Seyfried often found the same to be true.

The rifle has been relined and chambered for the 25-20 WCF which I load down to the 255 Jeffrey.

--------------------
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DarylS
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: sharps4590]
      #371516 - 16/11/22 08:31 AM

"Be aware that there are open rear sights called “express sights” that have folding leaves for ranges past 100 yards. These are a superb waste of money, as dangerous game is almost never shot from beyond 100 yards, and usually much closer, and the useless little leaves have a habit of folding flat whenever they feel like it. An open rear sight is properly set to hit dead on at 100 yards, or 50 yards, and then left strictly alone."

BULLSHIT! Stronger words should follow. I have shot 2 1/2", 5-shot group at 200yards with my 200 meter leaf on my 14 bore rifle. It's a muzzleloader, patterned loosely after an 1950-era English Sporting Rifle. Using must the lighter 140gr. 2F GOEX charge, the 200 meter leaf is zero'd at 200yards.
With the 300 yard leaf, no one in the club who has attempted it, has missed the 300 meter plate using that leaf.
The leaves on my sight remain in the position I place them, until I either open them up, or fold them down. Same happens with the leaf on my bro's Joseph Lang rifle made in 1983.

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V


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3DogMike
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: DarylS]
      #371522 - 16/11/22 12:32 PM

Express Sights:
More magazine writer blather. I highly doubt the much admired author of that "load of cow manure" has ever really tried distance with properly regulated Express Sights.
Absolutely you have to have a reasonable estimate of the range, and you have to be proficient with iron sights; something likely sadly lacking in other than the "keyboard sniper's" background I recon.

NOW: That said, one does see the vintage rifles with that parade of Express Sight folding leaves (often to 500 yards, sometimes with an added ladder sight to 800-1000 yards) that were apparently more common in old South Africa..
I have read, and cannot find the source right now, that those distances were for alternately:
1) Potshots at unfriendly natives/foriegners before they got too close
-or-
2) Banging away at a herd where if you bagged one it was great, and if not and one was "walking wounded" and got away……well you just went after another. Hunting ethics were not so finely developed back then.

That said, I find my 6.5x54 1903 Jeffery MS to be nicely sighted out to 600 yards with the folding leaves. You can (mostly) keep it on a 5 gallon bucket from a decent field rest position. Would I shoot at game? No. Could I keep unfriendly heads down? Absolutely.
- Mike

--------------------
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DarylS
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: 3DogMike]
      #371523 - 16/11/22 01:33 PM

Can't argue with that, Mike. Definitely for keeping heads down.
I would, however not flinch at a good rested shot at a bull moose from 200yards or meters, though.
I managed to make the middle of the pack at a long range ctg. match, with my 14 bore rifle.
I shoot open sights - A LOT. A lot more than scoped, as we've been involved in a monthly postal match at the ALR site.
Except for the summer month's, I have competed every month for 2 1/2 years now. We started in March of 2020.
Taylor and I have won quite a few of the matches. We always shoot the matches together, so that is a competition as well.
As the matches are all at close range, 25 or 50 yards, offhand and/or rested, it's pretty easy to win. There are only 4 Canadians competing on this US site. I suspect we do more actual shooting, than shooting on our keyboards.

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V


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NitroXAdministrator
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: DarylS]
      #371526 - 16/11/22 02:09 PM

Good comments by experienced NE shootets on express sights.

So much drivel written by modern net hack writers. One expects it from certain names.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
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crshelton
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: NitroX]
      #371528 - 16/11/22 03:10 PM

Once again, my habit of reading a few of the comments saved me from wasting time on another long BS article.
Thanks gents.

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NitroXAdministrator
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: crshelton]
      #371530 - 16/11/22 06:38 PM

I posted the link more as a beginner's article. Or for shooters who may never have used anything but scopes.

I'm a firm believer everyone should start with open sights. Especially youth, open sight air rifle or rimfire .22. Learn to shoot first.

But I think asking modern youths to start with iron sights would have them looking at you as a dinosaur.

But if I'm buying, it's my rules ...

I think it would be accurate to say my owners of rifles with express sights have never used the other leaves.

I still have to try them on my Jeffery DR .450. it would be interesting to see how firing right and left goes at each.or just the right and just the left at each range and leaf. Could one of these options hit say a 9 or 12 inch circle? I doubt the 500 yard leaf would. But using the herd logic, could it hit a larger target?

Interesting comment on this thread about shooting at a herd. A dropped beast being meat on the table. A wounded lost beast? In the absence of ethics, potentially hundreds more to try.

It is noticeable in early safari and exploration African books, shooting multiple times and wounded beasts lost, is much more acceptable. Animal welfare was not a general concept then.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"


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NitroXAdministrator
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: 3DogMike]
      #371702 - 22/11/22 04:19 AM

Quote:

Express Sights:
More magazine writer blather. I highly doubt the much admired author of that "load of cow manure" has ever really tried distance with properly regulated Express Sights.
Absolutely you have to have a reasonable estimate of the range, and you have to be proficient with iron sights; something likely sadly lacking in other than the "keyboard sniper's" background I recon.

NOW: That said, one does see the vintage rifles with that parade of Express Sight folding leaves (often to 500 yards, sometimes with an added ladder sight to 800-1000 yards) that were apparently more common in old South Africa..
I have read, and cannot find the source right now, that those distances were for alternately:
1) Potshots at unfriendly natives/foriegners before they got too close
-or-
2) Banging away at a herd where if you bagged one it was great, and if not and one was "walking wounded" and got away……well you just went after another. Hunting ethics were not so finely developed back then.

That said, I find my 6.5x54 1903 Jeffery MS to be nicely sighted out to 600 yards with the folding leaves. You can (mostly) keep it on a 5 gallon bucket from a decent field rest position. Would I shoot at game? No. Could I keep unfriendly heads down? Absolutely.
- Mike




This video adds some real perspective.

1000 yards with a .45 Colt cartridge lever action off hand.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/793822351687160?s=yWDuG2&fs=e&mibextid=Nif5oz

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mJnVPfguzSU&feature=youtu.be

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"


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DarylS
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: NitroX]
      #371708 - 22/11/22 05:32 AM

Quote:

Good comments by experienced NE shootets on express sights.

So much drivel written by modern net hack writers. One expects it from certain names.




Perhaps the modern writers are merely reiterating what has been written before. Back in the 80's (I think is was) a prominent gun rag writer named John Whooters who had been to Africa & shot a cape buffalo with a .416 Taylor wrote that express sights were only useful for shooting charging game inside 25 yards and were useless for shooting at longer ranges than that.
When I read that, I laughed out loud. I had already been shooting under 2" 5 shot groups at 100 meters with mine - and with a muzzleloader at that. This was 1987, seems to me.
The best I can do now, (2 years ago) was 2 1/2". Getting too long in the tooth, I guess. LOL- 4 of them were in an inch.


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szihn
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: DarylS]
      #372228 - 12/12/22 02:20 AM

I for one love to hunt with irons only. In my life I bet about 1/2 of the game I have killed was shot with a rifle using irons. In the last 20-22 years or so, I am betting 75%- 80% of what I have killed was killed using irons only. But it's funny; as I age I find the use of a scope gets me more and more of an advantage. When I was young I had 20/10 Vison (As my Military doctor called it "double perfect") and I could shoot very very well indeed. Well enough to have piled up a good number of trophies and ribbons as well as "blanket shoot prizes". But as I age and am now in the ranks of gezzerhood, I see the large advantage a scope gives me. Nevertheless, I just enjoy the use of iron sighted rifles and I mostly use only irons in my hunts there days.

I hunt for food and for fun. If the season comes down to the last few days and I have not bagged my game I then revert to a scoped rifle (no more Mr Nice Guy) But for the most part, I like hunting with rifles and handguns with only irons. When I do make a kill I feel better about it. Why?....I can't say exactly. I just do.
When I started hunting as a very young boy I used my Dad's M99 300 Savage with irons. I never knew it was a problem and neither did any deer, elk, coyotes, foxes or even horses and cattle on the ranch. When I turned 12, I got my own rifle, a 270 M70 Winchester with a Weaver K4 scope. So it's not like I always used irons when I was a boy, but I did start with them and I never saw them to be a problem. I think as an old man now, I just like the feeling of being out with such rifles again.

In the last 20 years, thinking back on my kills, I can count more then half were killed with rifles and handguns using the issue irons or in some cases an added peep sight. I really just like it better when I hunt with irons sights.

I do not argue that irons are better in ANY way, because I don't think they are truly as good as a good scope---- in ANY way.

I just like them.

Edited by szihn (12/12/22 02:24 AM)


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Rule303
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Re: Back to Basics: How to Use Iron Sights On a Rifle [Re: szihn]
      #372240 - 12/12/22 07:31 PM

I put a fibre optic bead front sight on my CZ550 in 416 Rigby. I put on a taller one so I could use their Peep sight. This necessitated me using the 200 mt express sight to be on at 100. Works well as it is spot on at that range. Where the author has hit the nail on the head is the damn thing can fold down with very little encouragement. So I have glued this leaf in the up position. Problem solved.

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