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Sight Picture Question

6K views 20 replies 9 participants last post by  SCmasterblaster 
#1 ·
I have attached the target that I use at my indoor range. The black circle area is 5 1/2 inches in diameter.

I have Vicker's Elite Battlesights on the front and rear of my G17 Gen 4 and G30 Gen 4. As you know, when you focus on the front sight the target is blurry.

When I place the target at 5 yards the black circle is larger than when I move the target out to 7 or 10 yards. When I shoot at a closer distant I can establish my sight alignment then my sight picture and my POA-POI is good.

When I place the target at 7 yards and especially 10 yards out, the black circle gets smaller and more blurry. At further distances I have a very difficult time establishing my sight picture because the black circle is much smaller and the front sight covers much of the black circle because of the further distance making it difficult to know where to aim.

I can do well at 7 yards but I really struggle at 10 yards to get tighter groups.

After I establish proper sight alignment how can I establish a good sight picture if front sight covers the black area of the target because the target is further away?
 

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#2 ·
Part of your challenge is you are shooting at a target designed for precision shooting with sights designed for combat/self defense shooting. I personally don't shoot bulls eye but I do like to shoot for accuracy. On my range guns I use a Dawson front sight that's .205 wide. Most likely, you're front sight is .225 wide. So that cuts down the ability to see left/right as the target gets smaller at distance.

The other technique to shoot a target that size at distance is to use a 6 o'clock hold. That is to stack the target on top of the front sight (front sight is below the target) instead of putting the front sight on the target. This allows you to see the whole target. Sights would need to be zeroed at the designated distance (in this case 25yds) to have that sight picture and strike the center of the target - your sights may or may not zero out for that hold at a given distance.

Given the sights that you have, I personally would go ahead and use a 6 o'clock hold. It's OK if the holes in the paper aren't in the exact center, you can still judge your shooting by how close they are to each other. If you can put a group of shots on the edge of the 8 ring that would fit inside the 10 ring, you know that you'd have a perfect score with sights that were zeroed for your target.

FWIW - GSSF competitions use the NRA D-1 target NRA Official Action Pistol Target D-1 10 15 20 25 35 Yard Bianchi Cup Past 10yds you can't see the rings (at least I can't). You have to estimate where the center is. It's a good exercise.
 
#3 ·
MtStream said:
On my range guns I use a Dawson front sight that's .205 wide. Most likely, you're front sight is .225 wide.
My Vickers Elite Battlesight front sight is .125" wide and the rear sight notch is .145" wide. When I am trying to shoot center hold the black bull even though blurry makes it difficult to see the equal space on each side of the front sight. If I shoot 6 o'clock hold I won't be aiming into the black bull and I will be able to better see the space on either side of the front sight. I will try that.

I have been concentrating on POI being the center of the target. Now that you mention it, I agree that it's OK to be off center as long as your groups are good.

Thanks for explaining about the B16 target I am using. When I ordered them from American Target in Denver I said to myself "this one looks good" without knowing what I was ordering!

Thanks for your great information MtStream. I always highly respect your knowledge whenever I read a reply to my thread or other member's threads.
 
#7 ·
Not to worry about the brain fart!! Do you know the width of you rear sight notch? I wish I had known about Dawson before I bought my Vickers sights.
 
#8 ·
I'm using a .115 notch. This is fairly narrow because I wanted better precision, but I'm getting to the point with my eyes that I may have to start thinking about a wider notch. I'm hoping my next trip to the eye doctor can put that off for awhile longer :rolleyes:

The sights really comes down to purpose. I own a lot of Glocks so I only put Dawson's on the ones I want to shoot in GSSF. The guns I use for self defense (carry or bedside) have Glock factory night sights in them. Your Vickers are very well respected for self defense applications and would do just fine in most competition formats you would shoot with a Glock.
 
#12 ·
When I place the target at 5 yards the black circle is larger than when I move the target out to 7 or 10 yards. When I shoot at a closer distant I can establish my sight alignment then my sight picture and my POA-POI is good.

When I place the target at 7 yards and especially 10 yards out, the black circle gets smaller and more blurry. At further distances I have a very difficult time establishing my sight picture because the black circle is much smaller and the front sight covers much of the black circle because of the further distance making it difficult to know where to aim.

I can do well at 7 yards but I really struggle at 10 yards to get tighter groups.
This is all true for everyone...

That's part of why it's harder to shoot targets that are farther away...

After I establish proper sight alignment how can I establish a good sight picture if front sight covers the black area of the target because the target is further away?
Some of this is determined by how you sight in your pistol... I assume this is a range pistol...

I sight in my match pistols at 25 yards... and use traditional sight alignment... Option #2 in the image below...

Font Line Circle Brand Graphics


That way I can see half the target, no matter how small it looks... how far away it is... In your case you could see half the black bulls eye for a reference...

I use this sight picture for every iron sighted pistol I own... That way, I don't have to think about how each different gun might be sighted in...
 
#13 ·
jb said:
Some of this is determined by how you sight in your pistol... I assume this is a range pistol...
Thanks jb - can you please explain how you sight in a pistol. My pistols are a G17 Gen 4 and G30 Gen 4. How can you sight in a Glock if both the front and rear sights are fixed and non-adjustable. On both my Glocks I am using the Vickers Elite Battelsights which are fixed sights.
 
#14 ·
To truly sight in a Glock you have to be able to change the height of either the front or rear sight (windage is adjusted by drifting the rear sights left or right). If you're not using an adjustable rear (most people don't) then you have to change out either the front or rear sight with a different sized one. With Glock factory sights, they make 3 different height rear sights and keep the front sight the same. Most aftermarket sights keep the same sized rear and change out the front sight.

With Dawson sets, if your POI is off from the POA you want, you can contact them with the distance you are shooting and how much the bullet needs to move and they'll send a replacement front sight to correct. It looks to me as thought the Vickers front sight is a normal fiber optic front? If you tested your pistol at 20 or 25 yards with your standard ammo and saw that it was not hitting your POA, you could replace your front sight with a different height front from somebody like Dawson.

However, there's a really good chance it doesn't need to be changed. jb or others can confirm but the typical variation I've seen is at most a couple inches at 25 yards (normally much less). For most shooters shooting without a rest, even 2" would barely be noticeable at that distance. The one exception I've experienced was my 17L, it was almost 4" off with 147gr when I switched over to fixed sights.

I personally find sighting a pistol at that distance challenging, probably (hopefully) because I don't do it much. Except for the 17L, all my Glocks are close enough with the standard height sights. Sighting really needs to be done from a rest which I find awkward with a pistol.

The process is to shoot a group, I use 5rds with pistols, then measure from the point of aim to the center of the group. To do this requires a group that's consistent (small) enough to identify it's center :) At that point you would know the necessary change. With adjustable sights you would make the adjustment then reshoot the group. With fixed sights you're just looking to get close enough to be comfortable with them.

Even though I've given the process I use, I'd really like to hear from jb, Chris and others with what they're doing.
 
#15 ·
To truly sight in a Glock you have to be able to change the height of either the front or rear sight (windage is adjusted by drifting the rear sights left or right). If you're not using an adjustable rear (most people don't) then you have to change out either the front or rear sight with a different sized one. With Glock factory sights, they make 3 different height rear sights and keep the front sight the same. Most aftermarket sights keep the same sized rear and change out the front sight.
...

The process is to shoot a group, I use 5rds with pistols, then measure from the point of aim to the center of the group. To do this requires a group that's consistent (small) enough to identify it's center :) At that point you would know the necessary change. With adjustable sights you would make the adjustment then reshoot the group. With fixed sights you're just looking to get close enough to be comfortable with them.

Even though I've given the process I use, I'd really like to hear from jb, Chris and others with what they're doing.
That's the process I use, but I'd like to step back a bit here and simplify things.

For a self-defense handgun, I select a particular factory ammunition, and then get fixed sights on the gun that are correct for that ammunition. I never shoot any other ammunition through that gun. I work to get this setup to be accurate somewhere around five yards, which I think is "combat distance". Other more experienced members may differ on the distance.

For any other handgun, I install a Dawson adjustable rear sight and a Dawson fiber optic front sight, which allows me to tinker with the ammunition to my heart's content. In this case I set the adjustable sights at 15 yards, because that's about the most distance I was shooting in USPSA. It was a good average. My groups were never anything to brag about, but at least I could make something you could call a group from a sandbag at 15 yards.

The foregoing may or may not have simplified matters, but I thought it was pertinent to the conversation.

Chris
 
#21 ·
I have attached the target that I use at my indoor range. The black circle area is 5 1/2 inches in diameter.

I have Vicker's Elite Battlesights on the front and rear of my G17 Gen 4 and G30 Gen 4. As you know, when you focus on the front sight the target is blurry.

When I place the target at 5 yards the black circle is larger than when I move the target out to 7 or 10 yards. When I shoot at a closer distant I can establish my sight alignment then my sight picture and my POA-POI is good.

When I place the target at 7 yards and especially 10 yards out, the black circle gets smaller and more blurry. At further distances I have a very difficult time establishing my sight picture because the black circle is much smaller and the front sight covers much of the black circle because of the further distance making it difficult to know where to aim.

I can do well at 7 yards but I really struggle at 10 yards to get tighter groups.

After I establish proper sight alignment how can I establish a good sight picture if front sight covers the black area of the target because the target is further away?
Use a six o'clock hold on the target.
 
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