Group size changes with target size using iron sights

[slowworm]

I experienced something odd at the range again today that I have noticed in the past but never quite realized what was happening.

I was shooting a trio of C&R rifles, an M-1, an M-44 and a K-31. Each rifle is as issued other than the glass bedding on the M-44.

With each rifle shooting at an 8” bull’s-eye target at 100 yards I can for the most part get a group I can cover with my hand. When I switched to a full size torso target my groups open up dramatically, to the point of embarrassment.

It wasn’t this way 10 years ago. I’ve kind of been away from using irons for a while and using only scope rifles. I’ve only recently gone back to the C&R collection for fun and so this is quite noticeable.

I’m middle aged and my eyes really aren’t what they used to be. It seems that as long as I can see the entire target in relation to the front site post I do OK. As soon as it gets a little too large I can clearly no longer hold a consistent sight picture. It’s as if my eyes no longer hold the entire sight picture to get any consistency and the front sight post just swims around.

I’m wondering if other middle aged peers have noticed this and what they have done to assist older eyes, or if it’s one of those growing old sucks things and we just live with it.

Thanks

J.

 

[damoncali]

I have never had good vision, and have gone through great lengths to make something work. I still haven't found anything that works perfectly, but I got a long way by talking to Art Neergaard at Shooting Sight LLC . He understands the problem well, and has a few tricks up his sleeve that can help. It may or may not be ideal, but it turns out even people with perfect vision can benefit from a slight + corrective lens when shooting irons.

Good luck.

 

[Sniper Uncle]

Sounds intriguing. What would happen if you put a flourescent dot in the center of the torso shape, making sure it is large enough to see in the sight? Maybe your focus is not as pronounced as the size of the target grows???

I have shot my K-31 at 200 yards, and need to have a larger spot in order to even see the aim point. However, I got a 1.8 MOA group at 200 yards without even really being able to see the dot...... I just knew roughly where it should be, and aimed accordingly. I learned to make a larger aim-point, however....

 

[JeffinTX]

"I’m middle aged and my eyes really aren’t what they used to be. It seems that as long as I can see the entire target in relation to the front site post I do OK. As soon as it gets a little too large I can clearly no longer hold a consistent sight picture. It’s as if my eyes no longer hold the entire sight picture to get any consistency and the front sight post just swims around. "

There you go, its a combination of middle aged eyes and not enough focus on the FS. Them middle aged eyes that has trouble focusing up close, so you're looking more at the target rather than focusing on the FS. Open rear sights makes this even worse, compared to a rear aperture sight. To shoot well with iron sights, that FS has to be crystal clear. Focusing on the target will open the groups up. Many of us service rifle shooters (who are >40 years old) put 0.5 to 0.75+ diopter correction on the shooting eye.

 

[Lead Heads]

I think it may be simpler than that. You were shooting at an 8 inch target and went to a full size torso. Theory: Aim small, miss small.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

OP,

This is pretty simple. You are able to better understand the smaller target's relationship to the front sight as being consistent than you are with the larger target's relationship with the front sight at the same distance. Although the eye naturally wants to balance and center things it has a more difficult time with expanded relationships. Take a dime and trace several circles from it. Then put a dot in the center of those circles. Do the same thing with a silver dollar. You will find it is much easier to understand where the center of the smaller circle is than the bigger one.

I apply a similar concept in LR competition, when using an adjustable aperture front sight, opening the aperture to make the target appear as a dot. This requires a mental leap of faith since the dot appears smaller than the bulls-eye would when closing down the aperture. Most folks would perceive that the bigger the target the better the results could be when in fact the thin line of white is not a better way to recognize consistency.

 

[damoncali]

OP,

This is pretty simple. You are able to better understand the smaller target's relationship to the front sight as being consistent than you are with the larger target's relationship with the front sight at the same distance. Although the eye naturally wants to balance and center things it has a more difficult time with expanded relationships. Take a dime and trace several circles from it. Then put a dot in the center of those circles. Do the same thing with a silver dollar. You will find it is much easier to understand where the center of the smaller circle is than the bigger one.

I apply a similar concept in LR competition, when using an adjustable aperture front sight, opening the aperture to make the target appear as a dot. This requires a mental leap of faith since the dot appears smaller than the bulls-eye would when closing down the aperture. Most folks would perceive that the bigger the target the better the results could be when in fact the thin line of white is not a better way to recognize consistency.

This is good advice, but it presupposes that you can see the sights/target. A lot of shooters just assume they're not very good, when the real problem is they just don't see very well. The answer there is corrective lenses, but even that is harder than it sounds for some of us. My prescription is not terrible, but a significant -4.50 in my right eye. Some have it worse.

Now try to get -4.50 lenses made for safety glasses. Coke bottle does not even begin to describe them. You wind up with thick, heavy glasses that you cannot properly look through when on the rifle. Contacts work, but tend to float about and dry out at exactly the wrong time, and do not correct my astigmatism (or if they can be had that do, they don't work quite right because your head is not straight up and down - the lenses are weighted, and can move around).

Then throw isn what JeffinTX mentioned - that the optimal vision is actually approximately +0.5 or +0.75 on top of your normal prescription (even for folks with 20/20 vision), and depends on sight radius. Now what?

I've settled on finding some shooting glasses in my normal prescription that will minimize the coke bottle effect - a pair with clip-on prescription frames with smallish lenses, and using a +.5 or .75 lens in the sight of the rifle. I don't like it - I'd prefer to not have a lens in the rifle, but it will do until I find another solution. I could get three separate clip ons - one for scopes, one for my prone rifle, and one for my service rifle, but that gets expensive. I want to make sure it's exactly what I need before dropping that sort of cash. (Getting 4 sets of glasses every couple years gets pretty pricey).

In any case, it's a horrible problem to try to solve, but makes a big difference when you do. I'm only 80% of the way there.

 

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

I'm 35. For a while there the target started getting harder to see, and I was making different targets to compensate. Got to the point I was shooting at HUGE targets (the size of 8x10 sheets of paper) with tangents as aiming points.

Come to find out my vision had gone from 20/30 or so to around 20/60.

So, I have glasses. The rear sight is hard to make out when wearing those glasses, but the front sight and the target resolve well. I had to open up the rear sight.

It's a whole new challenge.

But, if you were hitting well with the small target and you only opened up with the large target, then I would vote with those who are saying that were were no longer "aiming small".

Regards,

Josh

 

[dondlhmn]

Back in the days when I was shooting a Leupold scoped Thompson Contender competitively in IHMSA and NRA metallic silhouette (scoped handguns Standing out to 100 yards or meters), if I found my concentration or focus to be wandering to the point that my scores were affected (the range for my class was 36 to 40 out of a possible 40, so it didn't take much), I would sometimes change my hold points and the zeros accordingly so that I had to aim at small parts of the targets....ie: the center of the leg on the chickens, the center front leg on the pigs, the center of the leg on the turkeys and the center of the front leg on the rams. This usually only entailed moving the zero vertically and none to very little horizontally. This would usually help me sharpen up my focus and concentration due to the greater difficulty of holding on the smaller "target", even though with the zero shift, bullet impact would be centered on the body of the target if I did my part right.

It seemed that the mind kind of "relaxes" when it perceives that the target is bigger and not so difficult as to require a lot of effort or attention, but when the target is smaller, the mind sort of "buckles down" and things tighten up.

Funny how the mind works, huh?

 

[WesleyCE]

I think it may be simpler than that. You were shooting at an 8 inch target and went to a full size torso. Theory: Aim small, miss small.

This right here. When I have a smaller target to aim at it forces me to concentrate all that much harder.