Iron sights and seeing the sights and target.....

[fpgt72]

I know this is really a LR type place, but for that I am going to assume you folk have done your fair share of shooting with irons at what I would call the start of a long range shot 100 yards.

For me (old dude with glasses) I am having a real hell of a time with irons anymore. I wear progressive lenses, and if I move my head I can have a choice, the front sight, the rear sight or the target-ish. Never all in one shot, one is going to be very fuzzy.

I am looking for suggestions on how you guys work around it.

I also shoot a bit of sporting clays, and have no issue with the bright orange clay on the sky or against green, but if it is against dirt for example I have issues picking it up.

Part two of this is I just have a hell of a time with the target. A silver dollar sized red sticker on white paper is pretty darn rough for me to see, and if my "eyes get tired" big issues.

In using glass there is no real issues, duh. But with irons major issues. This also hits me with hand guns, but not quite as bad on most as the distances are much shorter and the sights generally have some kind of "little helper" dots, fiber optic, something. On an old single action I have had to paint the front sight as I just can't pick it up like I once could.

Looking for suggestions for helping this. I have a pair of non progressive now and going to give that a try. I actually bought those for the motorcycle, and figure with the wrap around nature of those glasses they would make great shooting glasses.

 

[308pirate]

It's physically impossible for the eyes to focus on two distances at once. It seems that you can when you're young because the eye can change focal distance extremely quickly. That accommodation goes away as we age.

Shooting clays requires target focus. Get your prescription fixed so that your distance vision is 20/20.

Iron sights traditionally require front sight focus IF you're doing bullseye style, precision shooting. Top practical pistol competitors like Ben Stoeger have demonstrated that you can shoot quickly and very accurately using complete target focus with the front and rear sights blurry. It takes re-training yourself but it can be done.

The easy button to shooting rifles and pistols when you can't focus on the front sight and don't want to deal with blurry sights is to install a reflex (red dot) sight and learn how to use it. You need 100% target focus (never focusing on the dot) to shoot successfully with a red dot sight on a pistol.

Maybe not what you want to hear, but that is what you need to hear. I learned all of the above the hard way because I have extremely bad uncorrected vision, yet compete at a fairly high level in USPSA and got to NSCA A class in Sporting Clays.

 

[Halfnutz]

I've gotten back into air pistol this year and at first I had a hell of a time with the sights. I tried reading glasses. The front sight was crisp but the target was completely "washed out". I spoke to another club member about it and he recommended a lower power. This helped immensely.

Now just this week I picked up an Anschutz air rifle . The front and rear aperture sights are adjustable. Shooting in my 10m basement range, the lighting for pistol does not work for rifle, nor do the glasses. I had to dim the lighting at the firing point and open the apertures for the rifle in order to be able to discern the target at all. I'm shooting off hand ("awful hand" as some call it) and a clear sight picture with defined concentric circles is pretty important to say the least. Our club allows anyone to shoot rifle supported (half support) on league night, but we can't compete in half support until we are 55 years old. I've before got 4 more years before that.

I get along ok with AR "ghost ring" aperture style sights, those stamped steel "buck horn" style are worthless. A red dot or reflex sight with out corrective lenses is getting to be my norm on non-precision rifles.

Glasses set to or within your focal point for each discipline is the advice I've been given. Corrective surgery may be an option, but I'm not having anyone cut on my eyes until I cant see through either of them.

Welcome to middle age.

 

[fpgt72]

It's physically impossible for the eyes to focus on two distances at once. It seems that you can when you're young because the eye can change focal distance extremely quickly. That accommodation goes away as we age.

Shooting clays requires target focus. Get your prescription fixed so that your distance vision is 20/20.

Iron sights traditionally require front sight focus IF you're doing bullseye style, precision shooting. Top practical pistol competitors like Ben Stoeger have demonstrated that you can shoot quickly and very accurately using complete target focus with the front and rear sights blurry. It takes re-training yourself but it can be done.

The easy button to shooting rifles and pistols when you can't focus on the front sight and don't want to deal with blurry sights is to install a reflex (red dot) sight and learn how to use it. You need 100% target focus (never focusing on the dot) to shoot successfully with a red dot sight on a pistol.

Maybe not what you want to hear, but that is what you need to hear. I learned all of the above the hard way because I have extremely bad uncorrected vision, yet compete at a fairly high level in USPSA and got to NSCA A class in Sporting Clays.

Maybe not what I wanted to hear but what I was thinking. Getting old is not for the young.

I really don't want to do a red dot, I have a few hand guns with them, and just don't care for them.....I don't have an issue using them but for some reason my brain sees it as "cheating".

Growing up with just irons it is how I learned to shoot, and just sitting down on the bench with a box of 22 is a good "zen" time for me. I was out back shooting last week and in walking back to the house I had a deer scare the crap out of me. Where did she come from. I have also had them just stand behind me in the brush and basically "watch" me shoot. It is so odd. I will sit down there and watch the birds, owl and such and just decompress. I get to retire in 3 years and work is getting more and more of a challenge.

Anyhoo, thanks for the words.....I guess I am really wondering with the new glasses without the progressive lenses do people find that more "easy" to shoot with over progressive.

In using glass I find my eyes get "tired" if I use the glasses, but if I take them off it is much more easy on my eyes, I wonder if this is from the progressive lenses. I know for a fact that others can't see through my scope, only my boy (26) can see and his eyes are crap like mine are. We had the family out for BBQ and shooting right before it turned off hot and I had a bunch of 22's out there and no one past him could see through them. We did bunch a bunch of clays in the back yard however.....I think I hooked my new daughter in law on busting flying discs.

 

[308pirate]

I really don't want to do a red dot, I have a few hand guns with them, and just don't care for them.....I don't have an issue using them but for some reason my brain sees it as "cheating".

For tens of thousands of years humans have been focusing on their target when flinging a weapon at it. Why? Because that's how our predator brain is wired to work. In the last 100 years, focusing on the front sight became a thing and ever since then people have been forcing themselves to do this unnatural focus when firing a weapon.

Red dot sights let us use weapons the way we're meant to use them, by focusing on the target. I can't help you if you think that's cheating. You can either continue to struggle and decline or get with the program in the 21st century.

All my carry guns have red dot sights. I want to cheat like a motherfucker if I have to fight for my life.

 

[Jgault]

Maybe not what I wanted to hear but what I was thinking. Getting old is not for the young.

I really don't want to do a red dot, I have a few hand guns with them, and just don't care for them.....I don't have an issue using them but for some reason my brain sees it as "cheating".

Growing up with just irons it is how I learned to shoot, and just sitting down on the bench with a box of 22 is a good "zen" time for me. I was out back shooting last week and in walking back to the house I had a deer scare the crap out of me. Where did she come from. I have also had them just stand behind me in the brush and basically "watch" me shoot. It is so odd. I will sit down there and watch the birds, owl and such and just decompress. I get to retire in 3 years and work is getting more and more of a challenge.

Anyhoo, thanks for the words.....I guess I am really wondering with the new glasses without the progressive lenses do people find that more "easy" to shoot with over progressive.

In using glass I find my eyes get "tired" if I use the glasses, but if I take them off it is much more easy on my eyes, I wonder if this is from the progressive lenses. I know for a fact that others can't see through my scope, only my boy (26) can see and his eyes are crap like mine are. We had the family out for BBQ and shooting right before it turned off hot and I had a bunch of 22's out there and no one past him could see through them. We did bunch a bunch of clays in the back yard however.....I think I hooked my new daughter in law on busting flying discs.

For me progressive lenses simply didn’t work, looking through the different part of the lense drove me nuts especially when shooting. I switched to one pair for mid to long ranges and one for reading. If your using progressive lenses the optometrist explained the problem isn’t just the vision clarity but how fast your eye can adjust to a different distance, think of adjusting a scope, your eyes just don’t adjust or focus as fast as they used to. Unfortunately without glasses your eyes are actually having to work much harder trying to focus, making them more fatigued, and will lead to even more issues. When my vision started to get worse I tried to just squint through it, but the more I did the worse it got. Since wearing glasses when I read or drive consistently my prescriptions have stayed about the same the last 3 years.

 

[fpgt72]

For tens of thousands of years humans have been focusing on their target when flinging a weapon at it. Why? Because that's how our predator brain is wired to work. In the last 100 years, focusing on the front sight became a thing and ever since then people have been forcing themselves to do this unnatural focus when firing a weapon.

Red dot sights let us use weapons the way we're meant to use them, by focusing on the target. I can't help you if you think that's cheating. You can either continue to struggle and decline or get with the program in the 21st century.

All my carry guns have red dot sights. I want to cheat like a motherfucker if I have to fight for my life.

I get that, and agree if I am in a fight for my life bite scratch kick, nothing is off the table. And to say I am stuck in the past would be an accurate statement for me.

But I am not talking life or death, I am talking just fun and wondering if my progressive lenses are holding me back.

 

[308pirate]

I am talking just fun and wondering if my progressive lenses are holding me back.

Yes, they are

 

[smoothy8500]

Yes, it's getting more difficult but I'm still shooting NRA Highpower at 57 with iron sights. There's a common formula for corrected vision using single script lenses. Ditch the progressives, they are messing you up. The idea is for the correct focus slightly past the front sight so the target is still readily seen and the front sight is discernible. For AR15 it is +.75 added to your distance prescription. M14 (M1A) and Garand with the longer sight radius is +.50 added. Not perfect, but lets you enjoy those irons.

 

[fpgt72]

I found a pic of the target that prompted this thread.

I had done this over on a C&R forum (where my main interests lie) and we are talking Carcano bullets and the very few different flavors we have to shoot if you want to play with these old ladies. If you are interested you have Hornady, don't think made anymore. PPU Spitzer but the "correct" size, and Lapua (not sure you can get in the states). And I was doing a test with some hornady rounds I had loaded up and some PPU, and commented on how I just could not see the target.

Now when I look at is it is a "well you dumbass no one could see that at 100 yards".....yea I know, I have different colors of dots now hopefully that will help. This is also what prompted me to order a set of non progressive lenses for "the motorcycle" and shooting.

Target is a 1/2 sized torso, with a green dot in the center, I could not see the green dot, and had trouble with the black torso....but I can see the plates just fine.

So a photo of the target and my "range". The tape is over the holes I made "guessing" where center was, not a good way to test. The small tear drop white plate is invisible to my eye at 100, I can get all the orange plates and make out the orange on the white on the 2x4.

For the carcano test I just recorded hits and misses on one of the plates and called it from there, not the best but I think it is good enough for where I was trying to go.

 

[fpgt72]

I figured I would also post a photo of the carcano in question, perhaps a little more fitting for this forum, while still not a "long range" rifle, one of her sisters is quite infamous. This came out of a closed museum, and I am going to leave it as is. She is a few thousand off from her sister.

I am going to choose words very careful here, I don't know the feelings this group has to this kind of thing. Hope I don't piss anyone off with this. It is just an object like any other object.

 

[mtrmn]

I had the same problem with irons until I had to have the lenses replaced in my eyes due to cataracts. I was gradually mounting optics on all my iron sight weapons. Now after surgery with long distance replacement lenses (they gave me a choice of good up-close vision or long distance) it's like I'm 25 again with irons. (Everything else is still a 61-yr-old experience)

 

[308pirate]

?

 

[fpgt72]

I had the same problem with irons until I had to have the lenses replaced in my eyes due to cataracts. I was gradually mounting optics on all my iron sight weapons. Now after surgery with long distance replacement lenses (they gave me a choice of good up-close vision or long distance) it's like I'm 25 again with irons. (Everything else is still a 61-yr-old experience)

That is slowly coming my way. The eye dr brings it up every time I go in. I am just so afraid of someone poking around in my eye.

Not really part of the thread but an eyeball story.

Story time:

I also play with old cars, I was working on welding in a new inner fender on a '63 bug and was grinding down one of my welds. I should say I am a grinder not a welder. I am what you would call a farmer welder, the stuff will stick together and stay together but it ain't gonna be pretty.

I am grinding away and have my normal glasses off, and wearing safety glasses with the little shields on the sides....safe I figure. A flake hits me in the cheek and bounces into my eye....my luck what are the odds.....on Saturday evening. I suffer all day sunday and go to the Dr on monday. Everyone has had something in your eye...well take that feeling and crank it up to 11 this hurt like hell. They put numbing drops in my eye and heaven, it was better then sex. When the Dr came in and looked, oh yea I can see it, your eye has already started to cover it up pretty well.....cover it up? You eye is a bit like your skin and puts a new layer on all the time....so the chip was "berried" he had to "dig" it out. Just look this way you won't feel anything, and I did not, but the world did move in real strange ways as he dug the chip out.

So I bet eye surgery would be a bit like this and not like Clockwork Orange but that does not make me any more unafraid of it.

 

[roostercogburn98]

All my carry guns have red dot sights. I want to cheat like a motherfucker if I have to fight for my life.

No such thing as cheating in a fight for your life. Well said indeed

 

[Im2bent]

VIA for AR-15/A2

Makers of adjustable apertures that allow shooters of all ages to see their sights and target clearly.

www.meritcorporation.com

 

[Im2bent]

https://eyepalusa.com/

 

[KYAggie]

Poke around on this website and give them a call. The guy who owns this is on M14 forum and he seems to know a lot more about aging eye troubles than just about anyone I’ve seen. He’s a little opinionated online, but from what I gather his opinions are based on a lot of experience and likely correct.

LENSES – ShootingSight

shootingsight.com

 

[308pirate]

He’s a little opinionated online, but from what I gather his opinions are based on a lot of experience and likely correct.

LENSES – ShootingSight

shootingsight.com

I know him personally. He's forgotten more about optics and vision (he's an optical engineer IRL) than most will ever know.

People would do well to STFU and listen when he speaks.

 

[KYAggie]

People would do well to STFU and listen when he speaks.

My thoughts exactly!!

 

[smoothy8500]

That known "common formula" for prescription I mentioned comes directly from Art himself at Shooting Sight. He and Bob Jones are well regarded eye experts in the Highpower circles.

 

[308pirate]

That known "common formula" for prescription I mentioned comes directly from Art himself at Shooting Sight. He and Bob Jones are well regarded eye experts in the Highpower circles.

Art's local to me and I had the pleasure of shooting many matches with him at Miami Rifle and Pistol Club. Extremely knowledgeable and very generous with that knowledge/