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Sight Options/Bad eyes

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All of the replies here demonstrate a great principal. That when it comes to eyesight and shooting there are lot of variations available for folks to get the best sight picture for them. For me the peep sight has given me back great confidence in sighting. The front sight is unconventional and ends with an epoxied on 1.5 mm fiber optic on 32 in barrel. The long story is below in "similar threads". Hope you find a combo that works for you.
 
Precision target shooters shooting small bore typically use the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 ratio. 1/3 white, 1/3 black (bull) and 1/3 white again, or something close to it. You can certainly tighten things up on the white space, but it can also lead to eye fatigue, particularly in a long match. It's much easier to open things up than it is to close them up though, which is why most shoot variable apertures.
 
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I'll be experimenting with these same sights. I ordered several from TOW for my Kibler Colonial. I need a wider rear notch to see more light around the front blade. You could start out by just filing open the rear a little bit and see if that helps. A dab of white or neon colored paint on the front blade might help you as well. I like the color on pistol sights, but doesn't make a difference for me on rifles. Aging eyes...sure can make what was once easy, much harder.

Does anyone sell a narrow enough file to slightly widen the notch on a rear sight?
 
So the Johnson peep sights I ordered from ML builders supply came in today. Definitely a cool little sight. I went with iron. I squared the base up, and its now ready to mount to the barrel. They were out of the sight apertures, so went to el internet and found some on Numrich's site for $7.32 each, showing to fit a Savage model 175 peep sight. They are the correct thread size, which is 7/32 x 40, also 12-40. The aperture hole is .055". I picked up 5 of them to experiment with larger holes to be drilled. Now to do @The Appalachian 's front sight trick and start zeroing back in.
 
Does anyone sell a narrow enough file to slightly widen the notch on a rear sight?
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I'm new to muzzleloading - actually, I don't even do muzzle loading. I'm a Service Rifle shooter, retired mechanical engineer who studied optics at MIT, photographer, and I'm old enough my near vision went, so I studied the optics of the human eye and developed the solution for shooters. I have been doing corrective lenses for shooters for 10 years, and was recently told at Camp Perry that I need to talk to the muzzle loading community, especially since I live in Cincinnati, right next to Friendship. So ...

Definition 1: Depth of Field (DoF). Your eye only has one theoretical focal point at any particular moment, however if the width of the blur line of an 'out of focus' object is smaller than the distance between two photoreceptors on your retina, you cannot see it. Hence the theoretical focal 'point' is actually a range including some distances closer than the focal point, and some distances further than the focal point. How big your DoF is, is determined by the size of the aperture you are looking through.

Definition 2: Aperture. The smallest opening in your optical path. Within reason, does not matter where it is. It might be your pupil, it might be an aperture sight on the rifle, or it could be a sticker with a small hole drilled in it that you have stuck onto your eyeglasses. When people find that they can focus better with more light, it is not actually because of the light, it is because the increased light makes the pupil in your eye constrict, improving your eye's natural depth of field.

A sight picture needs two things: for your eye to have a good depth of field, and your point of focus must be at a distance so the depth of field is centered between your sights and the target (referred to as the hyperfocal distance in photography). Ideally, your depth of field is big enough that the sights are in the near edge of your depth of field, at the same time as your target is in the far edge of your depth of field.

The relaxed human eye focuses at infinity. You exert the ciliary muscle in your eye to squeeze the lens, which brings your focal point closer. You relax the muscle, and the lens' elasticity restores focus to infinity. At around age 40, the lens loses it's elasticity, and the muscle has to struggle harder to focus up close. For really close, you cannot do it, for medium close, you can do it for a few seconds, and the muscle tires and fades. Another way to bring your focus in closer is to add a positive diopter lens in front of your eye, aka reading glasses or a bifocal if you have distance correction. Lens power relates to focal distance, reading glasses are MUCH too strong to shoot with.

Seeing the front sight is a 'middle distance' where shooters struggle. With a rear aperture, the correct answer on a rifle is to add +0.50 diopters of lens. Weaker than reading glasses. With pistol, where the sights are closer, you want to add +0.75 to +1.00 (depending on how blurry you like the target. I have never experimented with buckhorn sights, but imagine it will be at least +1.00. If someone can tell me the distance from your eye to the buckhorn, I can run the math and give a quick estimate.

Bottom line, to see your sights like you did when you were 18, you need to use a +0.50 lens, and an aperture sight, or put a sticker with a small hole on your glasses (like eye pal, or make it yourself).

Art
 
My eyes are not great and I have this sight you're considering on my TVM lancaster . . . It does fine . . .. and I don't see buckhorns well either . . . I have a fairly wide gap in the sight . . . where you place the rear sight matters a lot too.
 
I'm new to muzzleloading - actually, I don't even do muzzle loading. I'm a Service Rifle shooter, retired mechanical engineer who studied optics at MIT, photographer, and I'm old enough my near vision went, so I studied the optics of the human eye and developed the solution for shooters. I have been doing corrective lenses for shooters for 10 years, and was recently told at Camp Perry that I need to talk to the muzzle loading community, especially since I live in Cincinnati, right next to Friendship. So ...

Definition 1: Depth of Field (DoF). Your eye only has one theoretical focal point at any particular moment, however if the width of the blur line of an 'out of focus' object is smaller than the distance between two photoreceptors on your retina, you cannot see it. Hence the theoretical focal 'point' is actually a range including some distances closer than the focal point, and some distances further than the focal point. How big your DoF is, is determined by the size of the aperture you are looking through.

Definition 2: Aperture. The smallest opening in your optical path. Within reason, does not matter where it is. It might be your pupil, it might be an aperture sight on the rifle, or it could be a sticker with a small hole drilled in it that you have stuck onto your eyeglasses. When people find that they can focus better with more light, it is not actually because of the light, it is because the increased light makes the pupil in your eye constrict, improving your eye's natural depth of field.

A sight picture needs two things: for your eye to have a good depth of field, and your point of focus must be at a distance so the depth of field is centered between your sights and the target (referred to as the hyperfocal distance in photography). Ideally, your depth of field is big enough that the sights are in the near edge of your depth of field, at the same time as your target is in the far edge of your depth of field.

The relaxed human eye focuses at infinity. You exert the ciliary muscle in your eye to squeeze the lens, which brings your focal point closer. You relax the muscle, and the lens' elasticity restores focus to infinity. At around age 40, the lens loses it's elasticity, and the muscle has to struggle harder to focus up close. For really close, you cannot do it, for medium close, you can do it for a few seconds, and the muscle tires and fades. Another way to bring your focus in closer is to add a positive diopter lens in front of your eye, aka reading glasses or a bifocal if you have distance correction. Lens power relates to focal distance, reading glasses are MUCH too strong to shoot with.

Seeing the front sight is a 'middle distance' where shooters struggle. With a rear aperture, the correct answer on a rifle is to add +0.50 diopters of lens. Weaker than reading glasses. With pistol, where the sights are closer, you want to add +0.75 to +1.00 (depending on how blurry you like the target. I have never experimented with buckhorn sights, but imagine it will be at least +1.00. If someone can tell me the distance from your eye to the buckhorn, I can run the math and give a quick estimate.

Bottom line, to see your sights like you did when you were 18, you need to use a +0.50 lens, and an aperture sight, or put a sticker with a small hole on your glasses (like eye pal, or make it yourself).

Art

Thats very helpful.

Thank you so much.

:thumb:
 
bldtrailer, I realize your peep sight post is 5 years old but I just joined the website and discovered it, I have a Pedersoli Frontier rifle that I am struggling with seeing the rear sight.Can you make me a peep sight? Tell me what you need,
 

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