Open sights and old eyes

[bchannell]

I'm getting to the point that I can no longer see open sights very well. I can see maybe 25yds and still do ok, but beyond that, it's really a mess. Any good ideas for help? Anyone had Lasix? does that help?

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

I wear contacts for work reasons, went in and talked to the eye doc and told him what I wanted, he adjusted my dominant eye perscription so that I could see the rear sight better.

You could move the rear sight forward, thats the way it was done on the originals.

Go to a smooth bore, no rear sight to worry about seeing. :grin:

 

[biliff]

Search the forum for "merit optical disc" for a more detailed discussion, but basically, if you put a small aperture of some kind on your shooting glasses, the sights will clear up. It can be as simple as a piece of tape with a pin hole in it all the way up to a suction cup mounted adjustable aperture.

 

[jamesthomas]

What I've done is glue 2 small pieces of chartruse fishing bead to each side of my rear sight then one to the front sight, so now I can line up the front sight properly with the rear sight. It ain't PC but it works. Now I can see up to 60 yards away!.

 

[paulvallandigham]

YOu want your corrective glasses to allow you to see the front sight, through your rear sight. Most "Old eyes" benefit from having the rear sight Notch WIDENED, so there is more daylight on both sides of the front sight.

If you are shooting shot at flying targets, with a smooth bore gun, you want INSTEAD to have your corrective lens allow you to see the target- NOT the front sight( bead) on the shotgun.

Getting old is not for the weak. :hatsoff:

Some people are helped by having cataracts removed( some didn't know they have them. ) Lasic surgery corrects distortions on the Cornea- or outer layer of tissues to the eye. Any decision on that question has to be made after consulting an Opthamologist. Only (s)he can tell you if you have such a problem, and whether Lasic surgery can help.

 

[necchi]

If you need glasses, get some. Everyones eyes change. Don't let vanity effect your shooting.
Been wearing glasses since I was 12, and have tri-focals now and can see better at a distance than the common 20-20 ya need to drive. The close stuff is what's getting tuff. It's getting harder to find the balance.

You want your corrective glasses to allow you to see the front sight

That's the key for me, focus on the front sight.

I've found using flat black paint on the top flat and rear sight helps remove glare. And changing the color of the front blade as needed,, white out and a black marker are in the shooting box.

Take your hat off to let more light at your eyes.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

I know for me the problem was the rear sight, I thought I was taught to align the front sight with the rear sight and then align the sights onto the target.

If you can't see the rear sight you cannot move onto the next step.

Kinda why alot of the ole guys go to a smooth bore as there is no rear sight to align the front with

YMMV

 

[reddog]

YOu want your corrective glasses to allow you to see the front sight, through your rear sight. Most "Old eyes" benefit from having the rear sight Notch WIDENED, so there is more daylight on both sides of the front sight.

If you are shooting shot at flying targets, with a smooth bore gun, you want INSTEAD to have your corrective lens allow you to see the target- NOT the front sight( bead) on the shotgun.

Getting old is not for the weak. :hatsoff:

Some people are helped by having cataracts removed( some didn't know they have them. ) Lasic surgery corrects distortions on the Cornea- or outer layer of tissues to the eye. Any decision on that question has to be made after consulting an Opthamologist. Only (s)he can tell you if you have such a problem, and whether Lasic surgery can help.

+1 on widening the notch on the rear for open sights. For target or load development, I use a tang mounted aperture, but they are not fast enough for low light woods work. I may be in denial, but I REALLY don't want to shorten my sight radius if I can help it. That merit optical gadget does work, but not for evening woods. I know, I just tried it! For me in low light a little wider notch on the rear works as good as anything.

 

[Greenjoytj]

Try a aperture rear site, you'll be amazed at with improved accuracy with a clear front sight picture. I have the Lyman 57 peep receiver sight along with their series 17A front globe style front site mount on my GPR.

 

[Rat Trapper]

Try a aperture rear site, you'll be amazed at with improved accuracy with a clear front sight picture. I have the Lyman 57 peep receiver sight along with their series 17A front globe style front site mount on my GPR.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Jblk]

One of the shooters on another site that I visit was asking for different ideas that members were using for this problem.One of the idea was to solder a small ball bearing to the front sight of about 3/16 of a inch in size.I looked through my junk box but all of my bearing were about double that size.I went ahead and made a new sight base and brazed the ball in place.When I went to the farm for a few shots I was amazed how well the idea worked.You can quickly pick up the sight in bad light.I didn't alter the rear sight on my GPR but just perch the bearing over the slot that is already present in the sight.I expect that with a little fine tuning you could make a pretty good sight picture with this change.

 

[Coot]

You can experiment with moving the rear sight forward. Before actually moving the sight, try taping a small object forward of the current rear sight & see if you can focus on that in the new position. If not, there is not much point in moving the sight. As has been mentioned, opening the rear sigh up often helps. For me, the solution was a pair of custom shooting glasses. A local (Richmond, VA) optometrist who is a competitive shooter had glasses made for me with the optical center of my prescription in the upper left corner of the lens so that when in shooting position, the sights are in focus. Normal reading (close focus) glasses are made with the optical center in the middle to lower middle of the lens which makes sense if you are sitting reading a book but does not work so well when your cheek is on the stock & you are looking down the sights to your left (assuming a right handed shooter which I am). This type of glasses and use of the merit optical disc (which his father uses for pistol shooting) were both covered in a NRA article a few years ago.

 

[majg1234]

Get your vision checked!!! I was going through the same thing last year with My S MTN 40cal flinter,couldn't see the little thin blade site for anything,Got my eyes ck'd new rx for glasses and change of the focal point for shooting glasses and now I can see that thin little site through that little notch just fine.It helped that the opthalmologist was also a shooter

 

[C Barker]

YOu want your corrective glasses to allow you to see the front sight, through your rear sight. Most "Old eyes" benefit from having the rear sight Notch WIDENED, so there is more daylight on both sides of the front sight.

If you are shooting shot at flying targets, with a smooth bore gun, you want INSTEAD to have your corrective lens allow you to see the target- NOT the front sight( bead) on the shotgun.

Getting old is not for the weak. :hatsoff:

Some people are helped by having cataracts removed( some didn't know they have them. ) Lasic surgery corrects distortions on the Cornea- or outer layer of tissues to the eye. Any decision on that question has to be made after consulting an Opthamologist. Only (s)he can tell you if you have such a problem, and whether Lasic surgery can help.

Paul is right on. :bow: I would only add that I also added a thicker blade on the front sight. That improved sight picture dramatically. :grin:

 

[cgg]

YOu want your corrective glasses to allow you to see the front sight, through your rear sight. Most "Old eyes" benefit from having the rear sight Notch WIDENED, so there is more daylight on both sides of the front sight.

If you are shooting shot at flying targets, with a smooth bore gun, you want INSTEAD to have your corrective lens allow you to see the target- NOT the front sight( bead) on the shotgun.

Getting old is not for the weak. :hatsoff:

Some people are helped by having cataracts removed( some didn't know they have them. ) Lasic surgery corrects distortions on the Cornea- or outer layer of tissues to the eye. Any decision on that question has to be made after consulting an Opthamologist. Only (s)he can tell you if you have such a problem, and whether Lasic surgery can help.

Paul is right on. :bow: I would only add that I also added a thicker blade on the front sight. That improved sight picture dramatically. :grin:

+1
I had laser surgery a few years ago and it helped my near-sightedness immensely. I can legally drive without glasses and my left eye is 20/30 and my right is 20/20--I had been 20/200+ in both! With glasses I am 20/15 in both eyes.

The laser surgery doesn't help aging eyes though and as I approached 50 I had more and more trouble focusing on close objects. Now I need bifocals to read and do any close up work and I have a hard time seeing open sights. I have done three things that really have helped using the open sights on my flintlock rifles:

1. Got two new rifles with longer barrels! One is a 44" .54 and the other is a 42" .36--now I can see the damn front sight!

2. I put wider brass front sight blades on these rifles to help make them more visible.

3. I positioned the rear sights further out on the new rifles so that they are now about 10" forward of the breech block and I cut wider notches in the rear sights to see lots of daylight around the wider front blades.

I sold a nice 29" barreled transitional/jaeger rifle that I had killed quite a few deer with; I just could not shoot it that well any more. I am shooting the longer barreled rifles great though, and like them a lot. JMO--have fun and keep shooting

 

[hanshi]

I have so much trouble with "eye floaters" I'm not sure what to do for better aiming. There is what looks like a swarm of bees constantly in my vision. That's in addition to the focusing problem.

 

[Rifleman1776]

It is often said you can tell the age of the man who owns a rifle by looking at the placement of the rear sight on his rifle. Older equals further forward.
You cannot stop the aging process.
But, there are remedies that will work, up to a point.
Getting the eyes checked is critical.
One useful remedy, and allowed at all matches, or should be, is to put a small peeper on your eyeglasses. This can be homemade, or as suggested, one of the expensive ones from Merit. There are some others on the market lower priced but I haven't tried them. The Merit works fine for target shooting but is not helpful in the woods.
If a shooter hasn't gone through this passage, he will.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

I've been experimenting with a FarrSight as of late and it is incredible in bringing the sights into clearer focus for aging eyes ...

As you can see, it has adjustable apertures which helps you adjust for the best "depth of field", just like cameras do when adjusting the F-stop.

 

[Melton Kidd]

If you don't care about being HC, look at www.hivizsights.com. They work very well on my .22 pistol. Thats all I have used them on, but they have ML sights.

 

[ohio ramrod]

I solved (As best as I can ) the problem of old eyes and iron sights by making a fold down "third peep" sight. It works on the same principle as a merit disk in that it simply brings the origional sights into focus. Since it is a focusing aid and not an actual sight it can be removed for competition and replace with out worry about precise alignment . The second thing I did was make an Ivory blade insert for my front sight out of a piece of pianio key (real Ivory) :idunno: :idunno: