Talk:Iron sights

Pictures
I have some pictures of iron sights you're welcome to use if you want.

http://www.stampola.com/guns/dsc05129.jpg http://www.stampola.com/guns/dsc05135.jpg http://www.stampola.com/guns/dsc05136.jpg http://www.stampola.com/guns/dsc05132.jpg http://www.stampola.com/guns/dsc05134.jpg

Those are BRNO target sights on a CZ Super BRNO 2500.

Chris Curnutt chris.curnutt at gmail dot com


 * Thanks, there are some good ones there. I'm going to link them as external links for now, and I'll e-mail you about what license you'd like to release the images under.  Once that's worked out, I'll put them in the article.  scot 14:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Scot, I got your email. I am releasing any of these images to Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Chris Curnutt

Interesting story about my last addition to the article--I was watching Band of Brothers last night (got the DVD set for Christmas) and there was a scene, in Bastone as I recall, where one of the men in Easy was smoking his Garand's front sight with a cigarette lighter, so I made a note to add that to the iron sight article today. scot 17:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Concealed carry section
I noticed the article implies that where it is legal to carry a gun, it is required that it be concealed. Generally in the US open carry is legal if concealed carry is legal, and in many places open carry is legal and concealed carry is not. This may not be true in all parts of the world, but the article doesn't even mention where these "laws" are in effect. -Indalcecio 22:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Take a look at concealed carry and open carry. Open carry is generally more allowed (i.e. permits may not be required) but also more restricted (i.e. you can only carry under certain circumstances, such as hunting or target shooting).  The reason for this is that carrying a firearm openly is considered by many to be a confrontational act; see for an example this article.  I'll take a look at the article later and re-word it appropriately.  scot 23:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Not always true; it depends on the state. For example, in Kentucky, open carry is entirely legal, and concealed carry requires a permit.  In contrast, in Florida, open carry is entirely illegal, but concealed carry is legal with a permit, and even with a concealed carry permit, open carry is not legal.  (Kentucky, having originally been a county of Virginia, and still a Commonwealth, has many of the same laws as in Virginia, which was cited above.)  It all depends. Have attempted to clean up the concealed carry section.  Yaf 19:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Big bullet, little hole
"Olympic-class air rifle shooter trying to hit the 10 ring, which is 1 mm in diameter, with a 4.5 mm diameter pellet at 10 meters, an error of 0.2 mm in sight alignment can mean a miss." I think he would miss anyway. I mean, a 4.5 mm pellet in a 1 mm hole? Thats not hard, thats impossible. I don't know how big a "10 ring" is, but can anyone who does please fix this?


 * You score the inside edge of the hole in nearly all shooting disciplines (in fact, all I'm aware of but benchrest, which is concerened with center-to-center measures), not the outside. As long as the pellet cuts the 1mm ring, it's scored as a 10.  Take the .5mm 10 ring radius, add half the pellet diameter of 4.5mm, and that gives you a 2.75mm margin of error for the center of the pellet to still get a 10.  A bigger pellet, if allowed, would give you a larger margin of error; this is why in, say, conventional pistol matches it often makes sense to use the .45 caliber gun for shooting the ".32 caliber or larger centerfire" round; the .45 caliber gives you an extra .065" over the .32 caliber, and .048" over a .357 caliber.  And of course using the .45 in that stage lets you get away with using just 2 guns, a .22 and a .45, vs. 3 guns.  scot 17:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Better Pictures???
The main pictures in the article are the same type of sight, and do not show what alligned sights look like. Here are a few other sights I found online that actually show how to line them up.

http://www.gunpics.net/ironsights/mp40.html

http://www.gunpics.net/ironsights/p38.html

I not sure if they are allowed to be put on Wikipedia or how to do it, but I think they would be a better example of 'typical' iron sights. 71.227.210.125 21:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Dylan Porter


 * First, without getting permission from the copyright owner, they cannot be included. Second, most of those pictures, such as the P-38, suffer from the problem that most "shooter's eye view" pictures of iron sights do--they focus on the biggest object in the frame, which is the receiver and back sight of the firearm.  Focus should be on the front sight, which is very difficult to pull off with a typical point-and-shoot camera.  scot 21:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Revolution in military sights?
It seems like at some point there was a huge turnaround in military rifle sights, from open sights to aperture sights. For example, the Lee-Enfield, Springfield, and Mauser rifles of WWI all had barrel-mounted open sights of some kind. By WWII, the Lee-Enfield and Garand rifles had aperture sights, and in the post-war world seemingly everything has aperture sights. Does anyone know who started this trend? Is it worth mentioning in this article? (Great pictures, BTW.) Boris B (talk) 08:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The AK-47 and derivatives (which, in terms of sheer numbers, makes up the majority of military small arms) still uses open sights, and many militaries are already moving to low or zero magnification optical sights. I suspect you are to some degree correct, however.  I suspect the reasons for this are the move from large bore rifles to small bore, high velocity bullets extended the practical range significantly, and the move away from static trench warfare to the fluid, mobile battlefield, whcih de-emphasised volley fire.  Combined, these can place additional emphasis on individual marksmanship, which can be improved through the use of more precise sights.  I think that if you looked at training, you'd see that the level of marksmanship training and the type of sights are linked, and mutually supporting in most cases.  Whether or not it's worthy of inclusion in the article really depends on whether or not you can find good sources to support the theory.  scot (talk) 15:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, the old large-bore bolt action rifles with open sights are much more accurate. I believe (please note that this s only conjecture) that the move to using apeture sights stems from the advancement in manufacturing techniques. For example, look at many of the older hanguns and rifle. They either don't feature adjustable sights or have limited adjustment (in example, the Moisin-Nagant is only adjustable for elevation) However, I do think that this is an interesting topic to cover. {{User:Dakota159|Dakota the Wolf]] (User talk:Dakota159|Talk]]) 14:41 8 August 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dakota159 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ghost Ring
"The ghost ring is a fairly recent innovation"

its on some models of the m1 carbine, the garand and m14 isnt it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.160.17 (talk) 18:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is on all of those rifles: however, from that time period on would still be considered recent. Dakota the Wolf —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That's POV. If there's an example or year of first usage, the article would be improved by using it, rather than the subjective phrase "fairly recent innovation". --Ds13 (talk) 00:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Want tangent sight pic?
Hey gang I uploaded this image but I'm not very savvy when it comes to inserting one in an article. I'm still trying to figure out placement without honking the text around it. I thought I'd post it here on the talk page and if anyone thinks it's good enough to include go ahead and insert it. Thanks Angry Christian (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Thanks for the image!  scot (talk) 15:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. I'm planning to take some more pictures this weekend, if one of them is better than this one I'll post here again to see if you want to switch them.  BTW, whoever did the graphics in the article is obviously very talented.  Very nice work!  Angry Christian (talk) 16:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, just post here when you've got them and I'll take a look; this page is on my watchlist. I did the original drawings, some of which were later converted from raster to SVG images, using every type of sight I've ever encountered (and I've worked at enough gun shows to encounter a fair number).  I also managed to snap the picture to the right, which, if you view it full size, dramatically illustrates the pros and cons of the big vs. small aperture.  That was a pain to set up--I had to align the sights, get them on target, get the camera lined up, and hold all of that long enough so that the auto-focus would decide the front sight was the desired focal plane.  And I had to do it twice, to get the two images.  But I have never before seen a picture, or even illustration, that that shows the impact aperture has on depth of field.  For that matter, no one ever explained that to me, I discovered it in my college rifle class as I was playing around with rear sight inserts.  scot (talk) 16:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah I saw that the other day when I was reading the article. Very nice photography and nice photoshop putting the two together.  I'm going to be taking some photos this weekend, if I get one that's superior to the one we just added I'll drop by and show it.  Cheers! Midnight Gardener (talk) 02:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger of Peep sight with Iron sight
A peep sight is a type of ironsight, and its article is not likely to become long. 209.244.31.53 (talk) 19:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Done. ENeville (talk) 00:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Too Many Pictures!
There are way too many pictures of the exact same thing here. I'm going to do some thinning, but don't know how to discuss it. I'll thin, if people undo please discuss here. - Davandron | Talk 02:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

== Adjusting an iron sight, missing image

The section on adjusting an iron sight has the following text, referencing an image: "In the illustration at right, the point of impact was LEFT and BELOW the target." No relevant image is in the article, to the right or anywhere else. I'm not sure if it got deleted or was never there, but thought I'd point it out. Someone else may know what's up with it. Jesse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.153.203 (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Leaf sight
I have not found anything to do with Leaf Sights (grenade launcher sights) on Wikipedia yet. Can someone either redirect me to an appropriate page or create a new one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.156.14.203 (talk) 04:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Adjustable iron sights
Anyone want to explain how to use them?99.236.220.155 (talk) 04:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Iron sights, plural
I think the proper locaton for this article would be at iron sights, with the pluralizing s, per WP:NC. The plural form identifies the requisite collective employment of both the front and rear sight, and is the term in general use, TTBMK. ENeville (talk) 00:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

tritium sights pistol
can we get a better pic that isn't all blurry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.232.140 (talk) 22:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

bead sight? also, possible NPOV
The section on shotgun-type bead sights says "While bead sights may be acceptable on sporting shotguns, they are best avoided for use on combat shotguns." This is subjective, I think. If the combat shotgun is loaded with buckshot or flechettes and is shooting a pattern of projectiles rather than a single large projectile, many prefer the bead for its simplicity and speed at the close to moderate ranges at which these ammunition types are most effective. We are in any case well outside the world of verifiable objective fact and into the realm of personal preference and subjective experience here.

A shotgun intended for shooting slug ammunition should have rifle type sights for greater precision, yes, of which the "ghost ring" aperture is a subtype. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.24 (talk) 18:24, 31 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Its in the middle 16 paragraphs of material with no citations. So is it BS? Is it true? Who knows. It along with large sections of this article could simply be deleted (deletion referenced in talk) with little loss, It could stay that way until it can be backed up with referenced. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:20, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Cape Buffalo?
Why is there a reference to Cape Buffalo at the end of Open Sights? It seems a bit off topic. There probably could be better examples, maybe just saying "big game" as before, or something to do with self-defence? Thesandbar (talk) 22:14, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Changed--L1A1 FAL (talk) 21:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Bloop tube
A bloop tube is an extension of the forward iron sight, and so should be covered in this article. However I'm struggling to find a reliable source. Does anyone have a book or magazine that'd qualify which describes them? Rezin (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

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