If you shoot Iron sights with a fiber optic what's your sight picture / hold

[Climbhard]

[dapribek]

Number 3, because it was easier to switch from iron sights to Carry Optics from match to match. 

[TonytheTiger]

2

[Joe4d]

probably half way between 2 and 3.. Not really that much metal above my FO,,  Also depends on what I am shooting at. I run diamond ghost ring on my Limited gun,, so just kinda get the dot in the sight for most stuff.

[Sinister4]

2 

[Yagi]

2

[dtuns]

2

 

[CC3D]

3 for anything within 20 yards but my fiber sits much higher in my irons than depicted. If I really have to stretch it out there I'll use 2 

[Racinready300ex]

If it's a tough shot I'm doing 2. But for most things it's 3 but with the closer it is the less I care about the rear sight at all. 

[GOF]

I'm a 3 for paper targets, and that's how I zero the gun at 25-yards from a bench. But when shooting Steel Challange I'm a definite 2. That's because when running fast between transitions the front sight can climb under recoil and send a shot over a small plate. There are no scoring rings on a plate. It's a 'pass or fail' exam. Using 2 makes me pass more than fail.

Edited November 9, 2022 by GOF

[Farmer]

2 mostly 

[waterboy]

I like the bullet to hit just above my front sight

[mSNACKS]

Mostly 3 but a lot of people zero their gun like 2 bc it is easier to be accurate at difficult shots ie far distance, partials etc

[jimbullet]

Its 2 but in saying that depending on distance, sometimes I find my shots at 3

[Pmatte1]

2

[TonytheTiger]

On 11/19/2022 at 10:59 PM, mSNACKS said:

Mostly 3 but a lot of people zero their gun like 2 bc it is easier to be accurate at difficult shots ie far distance, partials etc

True story. I saw a lot of 10-12" plates beyond 60 yards in the last season of 3 gun. I hate to think about where I would have to hold if I zeroed with sight picture #1 at close range and #3 would obscure the target completely. 

[IVC]

Long time ago I tried 3, but realized it's a poor choice for accuracy. You lack any precision in alignment and you are forced to use the non-dominant eye for target identification. In fact, you cannot even do properly "focus on front sight with blurred target in the back" because you're covering the target and you have to use input from the other eye, which will drag you towards target focus.  

 

Sight picture 2 is pretty much the only real option for combat shooting and by far the most versatile.

 

For precision shooting at fixed distances and fixed target sizes (precision pistol), sight picture 1 is actually better than 2 because it allows a more precise alignment - guessing where the center of the black is is less precise than setting the flat front sight to be a tangent of the black circle. Some competitors even sight in to add a "sliver of white"  between flat sight and black circle in order to aid alignment. But this only works for fixed distances and fixed sizes of the black circle, so it's a highly specialized hold. The moment you change the apparent target circle radius (either by changing distance or by changing target size) you lost ALL precision because you have to guess how high your gun shoots. 

 

Stick to "2." 

[NetSync]

Mostly 2.   

 

As a bit of a tangent.  At first I found my self switching between aligning the top of the fiber optic with the top of rear sight or aligning the top of the front sight post with the top of the rear sight but I trained my self to almost always line up the top of the front post with the top of the rear sight.   I like to think if the fiber optic came out of the front sight post during a match I could carry on without it and I did practice a bit without the fiber optic in place.   

Edited January 17, 2023 by NetSync

[Shady]

Another vote for 2.  

[nearsightedgunner]

I am a no 3 guy. All my front fiber optic sights are almost at the top edge of the blade. I also favor a narrow blade. That way when I switch to my open gun my hold is just as natural as with my limited gun. I sight in all my guns at 25 yds. Anything farther I compensate by simply raising my hold by a hair. I find it very important to stick to one particular load to be able to predict your bullet drop. So far it works for me.

[Blackstone45]

I zero the gun based on #2, but at the distances of most targets in IPSC, I'm shooting target focused and using the fibre optic almost as a red dot, so #3

 

If you're using #1, that is a precision/bullseye hold, and you shouldn't even be using a front sight with a fibre optic in it!

[IVC]

4 hours ago, nearsightedgunner said:

I sight in all my guns at 25 yds. Anything farther I compensate by simply raising my hold by a hair.

 

The bullet will keep on raising past the 25 yards since at that distance you're zeroing using the first zero. If you're going to compensate, you should keep your aim lower until the distance where your bullet hits the second zero, and only higher from that point on. The location of the second zero will depend on your load and the height of the sights, but it won't be too far behind because pistol rounds are neither fast nor aerodynamic. 

 

I sight in at 25 yards too, and I only compensate at very close distances by aiming slightly high, e.g., the top of the target for the upper A zone. Everything else is pretty much "point blank" because the bullet is raising for the first 25 yards and would be the "height of sights" high at 50 yards if it weren't for the gravity, but gravity nicely cooperates here and pulls the bullet back to keep everything tight. Things quickly deteriorate past 50 yards, but they are pretty good to about 75 (depending on the bullet speed) and past that, if you want to play with long shots, you would have to know your holdovers like a rifle shooter anyways. 

[nearsightedgunner]

I tend to disagree that the bullet will rise past 25 yds. When I sight in my pistol I make sure the height of my muzzle on the bench is the same height of the X on the BC27 target at 25 yds. Basically it is flat or shall we call it 0 MOA. When I shoot PPC at distances of 10, 15, 25 and 50 yds I aim below the letter X at 10 yds as you mentioned to compensate for the height of the front sight and at 50 yds I aim at the chest below the shoulder. Most of my competitors have established the same method in relation to the bullet drop or what is known as the rainbow effect. Its the same effect for rifles. As a retired engineer, I’ve seen my share of surveying results and datas pertaining to earth curvature, ballistic researches on rifling twist, projectile ogive profiles, etc. But one basic rule I find most important, the trigger pull. 
 

in falling plates event with the diameter of 8 inches at distances of 10,15, 20 and 25 yds. my hold is basically the same all through out. As a 73 yr old and long in the tooth shooter I have resorted to arm length prescription on my right dominant eye and distance on my left eye when I shoot iron sights. Obviously the right to see my front sight and the left for the target. For IPSC I use my progressive lens. I developed my two eyes open shooting style when I was 27 and when I shoot at farther distances I squint to narrow my iris the same way camera lenses do at f32. 
 

i gave up bullseye shooting a long time ago when I caught myself dozing off at times.

[IVC]

The bullet travels in an arc. If it weren't for the air resistance, this arc would be a simple parabola. Still, the bullet travels up, reaches maximum height, then falls down. Where the bullet strikes the target is where the arc intersects the target and it's the "point of impact" or POI. The sights define a straight aiming line and where this straight line intersects the target it's the "point of aim" or POA. The arc and the straight line will intersect in two places (theoretically possible to have 0 or 1 intersection, but those are not the case here), one before the apex of the flight and the other after. Those are the first and second zeros where POA matches POI. 

 

The only way to have bullet drop after 25 yards is if it's the *second* zero at 25 yards, which means that the bullet peaked *before* 25 yards and is on its way down, which means that the range of your gun is less than 50 yards. It's actually possible, you'd have to shoot almost vertically into the air, have the bullet peak at about 15 yards but many hundreds of feet high in the air, then come almost vertically down at 25 yards. I'm sure you're not doing this. Any pistol caliber will cause the bullet to peak beyond 25 yards, so sighting in at 25 yards will sight in the first zero and the bullet will be on the way up through it, it will reach the peak somewhere past 25 yards and then come down, intersect the POA for the second time at the second zero, then continue a bit and fall to the ground. 

 

[Blackstone45]

7 hours ago, IVC said:

The bullet travels in an arc. If it weren't for the air resistance, this arc would be a simple parabola. Still, the bullet travels up, reaches maximum height, then falls down. Where the bullet strikes the target is where the arc intersects the target and it's the "point of impact" or POI. The sights define a straight aiming line and where this straight line intersects the target it's the "point of aim" or POA. The arc and the straight line will intersect in two places (theoretically possible to have 0 or 1 intersection, but those are not the case here), one before the apex of the flight and the other after. Those are the first and second zeros where POA matches POI. 

 

The only way to have bullet drop after 25 yards is if it's the *second* zero at 25 yards, which means that the bullet peaked *before* 25 yards and is on its way down, which means that the range of your gun is less than 50 yards. It's actually possible, you'd have to shoot almost vertically into the air, have the bullet peak at about 15 yards but many hundreds of feet high in the air, then come almost vertically down at 25 yards. I'm sure you're not doing this. Any pistol caliber will cause the bullet to peak beyond 25 yards, so sighting in at 25 yards will sight in the first zero and the bullet will be on the way up through it, it will reach the peak somewhere past 25 yards and then come down, intersect the POA for the second time at the second zero, then continue a bit and fall to the ground. 

 

It all depends on your sight height over bore, but yes outside of a perfect setup, the bullet will still be on the way up at 25 yards for a 25yard zero.

 

In @nearsightedgunner's case, the rise after 25 yards is probably very small, but it's definitely there.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Blackstone45