Why do we have the sights we have?

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

CHA-LEE recently shared some iron-sight discoveries he'd made the hard way, and Brian mentioned his own findings on sight blade width, which referenced some old Russian research republished in A. L. Yur'yev's Competitive Shooting. My question is, how did we end up with notch-and-post sights? Are they really the best non-optic sights for practical shooting?

As far as I can tell, no one's really studying the issue, and most guns come with whatever sights seemed like a good idea at the time. Glock sights, for instance, have that silly "cup" on the rear sight, and the front sight fills the entire notch. Other manufacturers seem to think that dots on the rear sights help. (No, they don't, most of us here would say.)

When I was new to shooting, I found that the sights blocked way more of the target than I was comfortable with. Now I'm used to it, but it still seems like an obvious spot for improvement. (That's one of the many advantages of a dot, right?) Also, notch-and-post sights convey left-right windage well enough -- especially when the front post isn't enormous -- but they don't seem to convey up-down elevation that well. And, really, windage would be much clearer with, say, a bright triangle or diamond on the front sight, rather than a dot, wouldn't it? So you could instantly see exactly where the center of your front sight was?

Anyway, I'd love to hear what has been tried, why it didn't catch on, and why we're using what we're using.

[SlowShooter]

Iron sights are only a temporary inconvenience until we can get electronic aiming integrated into a digital overlay on our glasses

[Bill40718]

Matt,

First, I'm an old guy with so-so eyes. A fiber optic rod on the front is required.

Rear notches, as you say, do block a lot of the field of view and, leave some room for error regarding windage.

A while back I had a little S&W 60 carry gun with a .100 fiber optic on the front and an adjustable rear with a wide shallow v notch. Sighted it in, with the fiber dot resting in the bottom of the shallow v, to hit where the dot rested. It worked great for me.

Maybe not good for bullseye but plenty good for carry or IPSC targets out to 30 - 35 yards. With the dot resting in the bottom of the v, elevation and windage are established and nothing blocks the field of view.

I'm going to duplicate the setup on a new revolver that I just purchased for ICORE and see how it works in competition.

Absolutely nothing scientific and/or studied in any of this. Just my positive experience in a single instance.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

A while back I had a little S&W 60 carry gun with a .100 fiber optic on the front and an adjustable rear with a wide shallow v notch. Sighted it in, with the fiber dot resting in the bottom of the shallow v, to hit where the dot rested. It worked great for me.

Interesting idea, Bill.

I'm still surprised that typical sights block so much of the target and are so two-dimensional. I'd think you'd want something that immediately told you where your front sight, if it was off to either side, and made it really clear whether your sight was a bit high or low.

[Bill40718]

Matt,

The shallow V notch and fiber optic front sight does exactly what you want a sight to do. At least in my opinion.

1. It obscures the minimum amount of target.

2. When the dot is at the bottom of the V, your elevation and windage are set.

3. It's pretty quick to get the sight picture. I think a dot in the V is kind of like centering a dot in a circle. Your eye just makes it go there.

4. With old eyes, it is easier to focus on the dot in the front sight rather than the top edge of the sight. Especially on a dark or black target.

Again, just my .02 worth. YMMV

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

The new Caracal pistol does offer something new:

The Arabian-German partnership sells the C model with their Quick Acquisition Sight (QAS) System. It’s a big deal. A fixed, white dot front sight sits at the business end of muzzle. The rear sight is way up in front of the ejection port. Caracal’s added a set of squared-off pussycat ears built into the slide; those ears are part of the rear sight.

To channel the shooter’s vision, there’s a deep trough leading from the ears to the front sight. The channel flares trumpet-like toward the muzzle end, letting in plenty of light and adding to a terrific sight picture.

The diminutive sight radius keeps the front and rear sights on the same focal plane, allowing even the most ancient eyeballs to focus on both sights at the same time.

[SlowShooter]

The custom-built ASP Pistol had an interesting "gutter" sighting system for fast acquisition:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASP_pistol

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

The custom-built ASP Pistol had an interesting "gutter" sighting system for fast acquisition:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASP_pistol

Ah, yes, I remember reading about the ASP. Here's that guttersnipe sight:

[CHA-LEE]

I think the main challenge with changing the standard Post & Notch Iron Sight setup is finding an alternative that allows you to quickly process and call a sight picture that is misaligned. Our brain continually strives to align the post within the notch properly every time, but as the gun is bouncing around during recoil a "Perfect" sight alignment is usually not a reality when shooting fast. With a wide and deep notch you can have a front post that is floating around within the notch, which allows you to quickly observe and process where the post is within the notch as the shot breaks so the shot can instantly be called good/marginal/bad.

Most of the alternative sight setups that are not based on a Post & Notch setup look good when the sights are properly aligned, but make it very hard to accurately judge how misaligned they are when they are not properly aligned. Not being able to properly judge how misaligned the sights are is a significant disadvantage in my mind.

A good example is the "Gutter" style sight setup that was posted previously. That looks good when aligned but being able to judge how misaligned the sights are if the front sight was high, left or right would be pretty difficult while shooting fast. You go from no light gap around the front sight to some varying level of light gap. That type of sight picture is not an easy thing to quickly process and call properly when shooting .20 or faster splits.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

I think the main challenge with changing the standard Post & Notch Iron Sight setup is finding an alternative that allows you to quickly process and call a sight picture that is misaligned.

Agreed. We want a sight that's at least as quick to read as a good post-and-notch sight.

With a wide and deep notch you can have a front post that is floating around within the notch, which allows you to quickly observe and process where the post is within the notch as the shot breaks so the shot can instantly be called good/marginal/bad.

Agreed. So, why do so many pistols come with bad post-and-notch sights, with a wide post and a narrow and shallow notch?

Most of the alternative sight setups that are not based on a Post & Notch setup look good when the sights are

A good example is the "Gutter" style sight setup that was posted previously. That looks good when aligned but being able to judge how misaligned the sights are if the front sight was high, left or right would be pretty difficult while shooting fast.

I haven't shot a guttersnipe-sighted pistol, and I'm sure it would take some getting used to after spending so much time with post-and-notch sights, but it doesn't seem like it would be hard to read quickly. As I understand it, the sight was designed specifically for quick shooting, rather than precision shooting.

[CHA-LEE]

I think the main challenge with changing the standard Post & Notch Iron Sight setup is finding an alternative that allows you to quickly process and call a sight picture that is misaligned.

Agreed. We want a sight that's at least as quick to read as a good post-and-notch sight.

With a wide and deep notch you can have a front post that is floating around within the notch, which allows you to quickly observe and process where the post is within the notch as the shot breaks so the shot can instantly be called good/marginal/bad.

Agreed. So, why do so many pistols come with bad post-and-notch sights, with a wide post and a narrow and shallow notch?

Most of the alternative sight setups that are not based on a Post & Notch setup look good when the sights are

A good example is the "Gutter" style sight setup that was posted previously. That looks good when aligned but being able to judge how misaligned the sights are if the front sight was high, left or right would be pretty difficult while shooting fast.

I haven't shot a guttersnipe-sighted pistol, and I'm sure it would take some getting used to after spending so much time with post-and-notch sights, but it doesn't seem like it would be hard to read quickly. As I understand it, the sight was designed specifically for quick shooting, rather than precision shooting.

Why do most factory pistols come with crappy wide front sights and narrow rear notches? I have no idea. I think we need a manufacture to step in and answer that one.

On the Gutter sight, In my own testing I have found that any time the front sight post passes beyond the "U" notch edges it becomes vastly harder to determine the magnitude of how misaligned the sights are. This is for two reasons. First you train your brain into seeing "Light Bars" on both sides of the front post and judging the width of the light bars to determine how deviated the sight alignment is. Seeing light bars on both sides of the front sight is "Normal". Once your front sight passes beyond the left or right edge of the rear notch you now only have one really wide light bar to work with to judge the front sight deviation. When this happens you usually switch your focus from the front sight to the back sight to get a good understanding of how deviated the front sight is. Any time you have to switch your focus from front to back wastes time and distracts you from keeping a solid front sight focus. To properly leverage the Gutter sight you would continually have to switch your focus back and forth between the front and rear sight to get a popper understanding of what the sight alignment is.

[CHA-LEE]

I think that a better solution would be a peep sight or ghost ring type of sight where you had a round bead for a front sight then a ghost ring around it for a rear sight. That would allow the bead to swim around within the ring allowing you to quickly determine how deviated the front sight is from being centered in the ring.

The one down fall I see with using a unique sighting system is that once you jump off the "Post & Notch" band wagon it makes picking up just about any other iron sight gun a challenge. Sure I have modified my Post & Notch sight setup to optimize it to what I need, but I can still pick up any off the shelf gun with post and notch sights and shoot it effectively if needed.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

In my own testing I have found that any time the front sight post passes beyond the "U" notch edges it becomes vastly harder to determine the magnitude of how misaligned the sights are.

Absolutely -- which is why we want a narrow front sight and a wide, deep rear sight.

To properly leverage the Gutter sight you would continually have to switch your focus back and forth between the front and rear sight to get a popper understanding of what the sight alignment is.

I don't think you'd have to switch your focus on the guttersnipe sight any more than on a post-and-notch sight, but a narrow, shallow gutter would cause all the same problem as a narrow, shallow notch. Imagine a gutter covering the entire top of the slide -- or just the rear half, in place of an ordinary notch, with an ordinary post in the front.

I feel like there should be some way to constructively use the third dimension to improve pistol sights.

[PistoleroJesse]

I'm no expert but I prefer the 10-8 U-Notch with a brass bead.Almost as good as a ghost ring at speed with all the benefits of a notch and post for smaller targets.

I shoot a Glock, but it's a similar sight picture to this one.

[repins1911]

Steyr came out with the triangle/trapezoid combination several years ago. I have shot a Steyr with these sights and they are pretty fast, but never seemed to have caught on in the main stream markets. The triangle actually fills out more of the trapezoid than in the picture on their website. It is not significantly different than the notch and post, but they do allow for quick sight alignment and the top of the triangle is narrow enough for some precision.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

Steyr came out with the triangle/trapezoid combination several years ago. I have shot a Steyr with these sights and they are pretty fast, but never seemed to have caught on in the main stream markets. The triangle actually fills out more of the trapezoid than in the picture on their website. It is not significantly different than the notch and post, but they do allow for quick sight alignment and the top of the triangle is narrow enough for some precision.

That's an excellent example, repins1911. Here's what the M-series pistol sights look like for anyone trying to visualize them from the description:

Edited May 29, 2012 by Not-So-Mad Matt

[a matt]

Crazy cool sight !?!

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

The other unusual sight I've read about is the SureSight:

I'm sure you could get decent alignment quickly enough with that system, but I have my doubts about getting any precision for tighter shots. You'll also note that the animation shows no vertical movement, which is where I think it would give you the most trouble.

[PaperScraper]

Um, I guess that they could allow CT Grips in comp's though I doubt it would happen anytime soon.

[ben b.]

I have a bundle of Steyr MA1s in 9mm & .40, have traded out the tri-traps on all to either tritium or skinny FO Dawson front sights & black rear. I can shoot the tri-trap sights fine but seemed to do better, or at least prefer, the std notch & post. It seemed as if I shot longer shots (25 yds & more) better with the notch & post.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

Has anyone here shot a pistol with ghost ring sights on it?

[P.E. Kelley]

Decided not to add to this thread

Edited July 15, 2012 by P.E. Kelley

[ben b.]

Has anyone here shot a pistol with ghost ring sights on it?

I had ghost ring rear on a Ruger MkII with FO front. It was fun & novel, seemed to do fine for steel matches.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

I stumbled across one more unusual sight design, the TAS fiber optic sight, which seems to place the fiber optic in a deep tube, so that the bright dot only appears when the sight is lined up.

[Alaskapopo]

The new Caracal pistol does offer something new:

The Arabian-German partnership sells the C model with their Quick Acquisition Sight (QAS) System. It’s a big deal. A fixed, white dot front sight sits at the business end of muzzle. The rear sight is way up in front of the ejection port. Caracal’s added a set of squared-off pussycat ears built into the slide; those ears are part of the rear sight.

To channel the shooter’s vision, there’s a deep trough leading from the ears to the front sight. The channel flares trumpet-like toward the muzzle end, letting in plenty of light and adding to a terrific sight picture.

The diminutive sight radius keeps the front and rear sights on the same focal plane, allowing even the most ancient eyeballs to focus on both sights at the same time.

The problem with short sight radius is accuracy diminishes. The whole point of using your sights is to be able to shoot accurately. These types of compromises only seem to be usefull at the ranges where you can index shoot without sights.

Pat