Poor sight picture

[PAT303]

I've been shooting alot lately and have noticed that it is getting very difficult to shoot through the day as I cannot get a good sight picture when the sun is high in the sky.The problem I get is that I cannot focus on either the back or front sight and the target is also very blury,it is though I'm shooting through a coke bottle.I have had my eye's checked and the results were that I have perfect eyesight,I was thinking that maybe I need to stick a diopter eye piece on my glasses as I don't have an issue with peep sights but tangent sights are hopeless.Has anyone else had this problem. Pat

[mpmarty]

Normal. Just focus on the front sight and let the rest fuzz as it will. This is why at 71+ yrs old I use a diopter rear sight on my K31s, and a 6X24 scope on my serious rifles.

[stubshaft]

You will be amazed at the clarity when you put a diopter (merit) eyepiece on your glasses or spring for a Knobloch. It takes a little getting used to but it makes everything sharp and clear.

[Uncle R.]

You will be amazed at the clarity when you put a diopter (merit) eyepiece on your glasses or spring for a Knobloch. It takes a little getting used to but it makes everything sharp and clear.

I bought a Merit aperture to stick on my shooting glasses a couple of years ago. It definitely helps _ I like to say that it takes 10 years off. Even so it ain't like being 25 years old again and the sights are still awfully fuzzy although at least I can SEE 'em...
I'm finding that using eyeglasses that focus on the front sight are the best answer for me. With such lenses the front sight is razor sharp and square, the rear sight is a little fuzzy but the target is terrible, just an indistinct blur. Still, my scores are better.
Uncle R.

[PAT303]

Thanks for the replies,I'll try it this afternoon. Pat

[chris in va]

Here you go. Burris FastFire II. I have a Millet dot on my CZ Kadet, makes it absurdly easy to shoot.

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/459/bur300230.jpg (http://img510.imageshack.us/i/bur300230.jpg/)

[303Guy]

There are open sights and then there are open sights. With good open sights one can simply focus on the target and the sights do the rest. The rear 'U' notch should act as a lense and form an interferance pattern that appears to focus the front sight. The rear 'U' sight needs to be plenty wide for this effect. Even a good 'V' sight can 'focus' the front sight if it's pointed or has a small bead. It's all to do with the wave nature of light and the interferance patterns produced by light passing close to a physical object. (School science really).

[John Guedry]

One of the hazards of being a "senior citizen". My eyesight checks out as almost perfect at the eye doctors office,but at the range the sights are "fuzzy".

[lwknight]

Try regular sunglasses. Polorized are better because of all the wild light rays make the focal distance shorter . In bright light , your own pupils make a smaller aperature that extends the focal range and polorized glasses will enhance that by a lot.

Another thing that may be annoying you is allergies . Even otherwise unnoticeable hayfever makes your eyes hate bright light.

[StarMetal]

Pat,

Same problem and one solution that really works is shoot from under some kind of cover. By that I mean having your bench under a roof including side walls to shade the bench and rifle. I discovered this from building a box to shoot my semi auto pistols from mainly to contain my brass so I don't lose any of it. Us reloaders are real stinkers for not wanting to lose brass. Anyway I found a big difference in the sight picture with those pistol using that box and not using it. I'm not considering putting my shooting bench in an outbuilding or shed of some sort. You can try this (just for the sight picture, not to actually shoot or even have a loaded firearm) by perhaps standing in your garage with the garage door open if the garage is dark enough. Those front sights were stand out sharply.

[fredj338]

SOme seem to not understand how your eyes work. It is impossible to focus on three planes at the same time. Your eye can focus on the rear, fron ot target, but not all three & for all but the best/youngest eys, not even two. So your focus should be completely on th front sight. It is, after all, closest to the muzzle & the muzzle stears the bullet. I do not do my best shootig w/ sunglasses on, & a diopter device is great, but only for deliberate target work, not really practical for field applications IMO. You may alos have an eye dominance issue. That can be an issue w/ rifle shooters. For hadgun, you cn cant your head a bit & shoot cross eye dominant.

[Doc Highwall]

It could be that you are getting cataracts. Also in my studies of photography and filters, sunlight has a temperature of 5600 Deg K, a 100 watt light bulb is 2900 Deg K and the blue sky is 10,000 Deg K. As you can see there is a lot more energy in the color blue then all of the other colors combined. The reason the sky is blue is because it is so easy to scatter causing haze in our vision and all of the energy that goes with it.Wearing glasses that have the color yellow in them will help in removing the blue light that causes blurry vision. Photo brown lenses are better then photo gray at this and blue blocker sun glasses will work even better. Having only one eye with a strong color blindness and cataracts I wear special lenses made by Corning called CPF-527 which means they will not let any blue light below 527 nanometers pass through with 550 nanometers being the top end of the color blue. The color and temperature of light will affect our vision. I have had it where a cloud came over and put the target in shade at 1000 yards and then passed over the firing point with the targets now in direct sunlight and the changes really affect how I see. I shoot with a Anschutz eye piece that has five colored filters and two polarizers and change the colors quite frequently in a match some times after only one or two shots going back and forth between colors.

[waksupi]

I have widened the rear notch on several rifles, and it has helped a lot!

[zomby woof]

Your glasses prescription is designed for distance, not for the length of your front sight. You need to adjust your prescription +.50 to +.75 in your shooting lens. I have dedicated glasses for competing. I use +.50 for Garand and Springfield, +.75 for AR, M1 Carbine and pistol. It's called a controlled blur. The front sight must be clear, the target and rear sight are blurry. It can't be too clear or the target will be a total blur.

I took my rifle to the eye doctor, he did the better best routine with lenses while I was aiming. I got some real eye brow raises from the women in the waiting room.

[ihmsakiwi]

Hi Pat,
I shoot IHMSA with mainly open sights. I wear prescription lensed shooting glasses on my right eye with a focal length measuredf by my eye doctor (cant spell optomitrist??) from my eye to the front sight. As Fedj338 says you can only have one sharp option and it must be the front sight. Somedays I can't shoot without the Merit diopter, other days I am better without it. As to rear blade thickness, my Freedom Arms revolvers have those big blocky IWGS sights whixh I have adjusted to have a very small slither of light both sides of the front post and I shoot well with it, and on my XP100.s, exactly the opposite set up, lots of light both sides I shoot well also. I wish I knew which was tje better option and I would set all my pistols up the same way. One of the best tips I got when my eyes were starting to give me issues was to make sure I was well hydrated before shooting as I was advised that the eyes were the first organs to show signs of stress with dehydration. I drink a litre of water on my way to the range over a period of two hours and I am sure I can feel the difference.

[PAT303]

I think my main problem is the light,it has been blisteringly hot and bright here but yesterday a big storm blew up and it came over cloudy,the first time in months and it was alot better shooting conditions.I have been focusing on the front sight only and my .54 ball rifle shot 5 straight 10's at 50 offhand,the best I've shot in a while and trying different shades of tint on my glass's helped.I'm going to get darker tint lenses and a good size hat to keep the sun out of my eye's,I also darkened the barrels either side of the sights to combat glare and opened the rear ''V's'' on two of my rifles ever so slightly and all of it helped.I think it's a case of glare-bright sunlight management.Thanks everyone for the replies,it's all helped. Pat

[Char-Gar]

The height and angle of the sun have been playing hob with rifle sights since the mind of man remembereth not. In the old days we learned to adjust our rear sight to compensate for the effects of the sun on the front sight. That is why those hooded front sights are popular with target shooters.

If the problem isn't your eyes, get you a hooded front sight, or learn how to compensate for the effects of the sun. It is all a part of rifle craft!

[mdi]

For me and a few other "mature" shooters the problem is in the rear sight. I focus on the front sight, target blurred, but the top of thr rear sight is too fuzzy to determine. Windage isn't too bad but elevation sight picture is nearly impossible. This happens with all shape rear sights, (except peep reticles) v-shape, semi to full buckhorn, flat top, etc. Tri-focals, bi-focals same prob, so far only help is a stick-on dioper (Merit, Lyman).

[303Guy]

I'm going to have to all this to the test. I have a rifle with open 'v' rear and narrow front blade. I look at the 'target' and that front blade is sharp. The 'v' itself is hardly visible. As far as I can recall, I have never focused on the front sight, always on the target (other than a switch between front sight and target). I have had where bright sunlight makes elevation a problem.

[Doc Highwall]

303Guy, it is most important to focus on the front sight when the shot is fired. In shooting you have sight alignment and target alignment. In sight alignment it involves a good cheek/stock weld to align the eye with the sights and a way of checking this is to have your eyes closed while holding your rifle and bring it up like you are going to shoot it and then open your eyes and see if you eye is in line with the sights. If your front sight is too high this is an indication that the cheek piece is too high, if you have to pick your head up a little your cheek piece is too low and needs to be built up. Once you get it so that when you bring the gun up with your eyes closed and upon opening your eyes and the sights are in perfect alignment this will eliminate some of the unexplained fliers and is proper sight alignment. Target alignment is just using a natural point of aim at your target. Of the two sight alignment is more important example, your sights are 18" apart and you are shooting 100 yards, the ratio between the sights and the target is 200:1 which means that for every .001" that you are off in sight alignment you are off at the target .200", or every .005" = 1.00" at the target. One of the tricks I use is when looking at the front sight is when the gun goes off, is to look for the muzzle flash so as not to flinch and allows me to call the shot and promotes follow-through.

[PAT303]

The height and angle of the sun have been playing hob with rifle sights since the mind of man remembereth not. In the old days we learned to adjust our rear sight to compensate for the effects of the sun on the front sight. That is why those hooded front sights are popular with target shooters.

If the problem isn't your eyes, get you a hooded front sight, or learn how to compensate for the effects of the sun. It is all a part of rifle craft!

I'd love to have hooded front sights but if it didn't have it from the factory they can't be fitted. Pat

[PAT303]

For me and a few other "mature" shooters the problem is in the rear sight. I focus on the front sight, target blurred, but the top of thr rear sight is too fuzzy to determine. Windage isn't too bad but elevation sight picture is nearly impossible. This happens with all shape rear sights, (except peep reticles) v-shape, semi to full buckhorn, flat top, etc. Tri-focals, bi-focals same prob, so far only help is a stick-on dioper (Merit, Lyman).

Totally agree,windage is spot on but the groups are verticle through the target. Pat