open sights

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11 years 8 months ago #22607 by foxhunter
open sights was created by foxhunter
It had been a long time since I fired a rifle without looking through a scope. Although I often use a shotgun with open sights for deer hunting, since the shooting is at less than a hundred yds 99% of the time. Anyway I recently bought a savage hog hunter that has open sights and I pulled the scope off an AR10 4a and took them out to compare them. I wanted a hunting rifle that I wasn't worried about knocking off the scope when I tripped in the field and dropped it(at 59 having more trouble with that ). I went out to just fire a few rounds to make sure the open sights were on and ended up spending 3 hrs shooting from 50 to 100 yds in a variety of shooting positions. What fun. They both shot equally well, but I have to say the armalite felt more comfortable and well balanced, with of course less recoil.
Bottom line, is on your armalite, I recommend back up iron sights, and I also recommend you try them out once in a while. For hunting large game like deer, at typical shooting, which doesn't often go past 150 yds, you don't have to have a scope, unless you are trying to shoot in those very early or late low light conditions. The exception may be the red dots, especially for old guys like me, since I find sight aquision is faster, than trying to line up sights. On the other hand,rapid sight aquision is usually not that critical for game, since they aren't shooting back.

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11 years 8 months ago #22609 by Dabu
Replied by Dabu on topic open sights
:I-agree:

If your eyes are good, you should be able to hit at 500 yards just fine with iron sights.

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11 years 8 months ago #22611 by mrraley
Replied by mrraley on topic open sights
This is good to hear...

I always recommend or try telling people they should get used to their rifle before going to a scope.

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11 years 8 months ago #22613 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic open sights

Dabu wrote: :I-agree:

If your eyes are good, you should be able to hit at 500 yards just fine with iron sights.


LOL you are right.

EAT your trigger fingers off gents. My dad qualified at 1 mile, yes ONE MILE, '03 Sprg...IRON sights! His vision was 20-10...something I did NOT inherit

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11 years 8 months ago #22615 by foxhunter
Replied by foxhunter on topic open sights

Dabu wrote: :I-agree:

If your eyes are good, you should be able to hit at 500 yards just fine with iron sights.


Age does things. I am finding that sight on the end of the barrel, and the taret are getting a little fuzzy. But the wife says I am still as good once as I ever was

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11 years 8 months ago #22617 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic open sights
I am hearin you fox. I am struggling to make the transition from iron to glass. For todays gun guy, you folks have a whole 'nother world. My dad could shoot, and while have better than average eye sight was a great help, he grew up HAVING to hunt to put protein on the table, glass sights were near unheard of and certainly not in the pocketbook. My generation it was a pocketbook thing. Glass was a LOT of money back in those days as compared to today, so most of us never had them. I never did, never saw the need, I was dropping varmints with no problem...my fav being water moc. Not easy to kill a snake in the water, its head shot or not.

Now my ole eyeballs are not what they were, so I need to move to glass and its not easy at my age...

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11 years 8 months ago #22618 by Dabu
Replied by Dabu on topic open sights
:huh: well, see...about that getting old thing...

what you got to do is find this thing I've heard of before called the fountain of youth. They say it's somewhere in Atlantis or something.

Good luck :P

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11 years 8 months ago #22621 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic open sights
What has happened to me has been only a slight degradation in vision but at I am approaching 70 my always dominant eye, my left, is even more dominant than before and I am still right handed and its really affected my shooting...

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11 years 8 months ago #22628 by Siscowet
Replied by Siscowet on topic open sights

OleCowboy wrote: What has happened to me has been only a slight degradation in vision but at I am approaching 70 my always dominant eye, my left, is even more dominant than before and I am still right handed and its really affected my shooting...

I have the same issue, I end up shooting a rifle left handed and a pistol right handed. I learned on iron sights on an old 1917 Enfield 30-06. Iron sights to 300 yards was pretty commonplace, but like you said Cowboy, these eyes get old.

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11 years 8 months ago #22634 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic open sights
I learned to shoot off either shoulder and in fact shot expert doing so. But I was young...

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