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open sights..................


Guest long-tail

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Guest long-tail

thing of the past it seems yes i know kit gets better as the years go by but had many a good day out as a lad with an old bsa mercury with open sights didnt seem to stop us taking regular bags of bunnies and pigeons.

ok prob not suitable for the more serious air-gunners amongst you,or is it ? some the kit you lads use, mil dot scopes,range finders night vision and video recording equip would be lost on me with the tech talk that goes with it all as well,

as it happens i gave up carp fishing down to the fact of relying on electronic bite alarms,sounder boxes and the never ending kit you can spend your cash on,bait boats fish finders etc kit getting heavier by the week enabling longer and longer sessions on the bank, gone are the days it seems of staring at a starlight all night :D

so my question,is all the high tech gear you can get your hands on now days really worth the money for the results your achieving im going to get rid of the scope on my rifle lot quicker for me to find the target with open sights especialy in woodland but thats just a personal thing,do any of you still use an open sight on your rifle and fill the game bag regularly,only came about as chatting to my lad about the old days as it were and he like to know your thoughts.

he will read through it later as he lying on the sofa at the moment shooting into the garden zeroing in his hawke 4x32 sport HD scope fitted to his smk15 at the moment :laugh: well he is only 11 and they got start somewhere :thumbs:

Edited by long-tail
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Open sight's, ahh the good ol' days :yes:

 

I don't mind open sights at closer range ( I have a couple of rifles that I use irons on) I would use them in certain situations, but the scope allows very accurate pellet placement (my eyes need all the help they can get!).

 

I shoot irons on a version of bell target as well :D

 

Tony

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i used to have hight scope mounts on my old hw35 so i could use both open and scope i could get a extra half an hour or more shooting time in as the scopes faild in the ever decreasing light and that was normaly the most productive half hour of the day.

 

kanny

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truth of the matter is how good are your eyes..

 

and, the closer to the barrel the sight the morre suited for closer shooting, e.g. a barrel mounted lazer on the tip is like 2 yards to 20 yards, dot on the head and hey presto, doesnt matter if its at the side eather, as long as its not too far out..near as poss.

open sights with good eyes..30-40 yards easy with them HW lollpop n back V.. exselent. but, near too deadly. as is the 4x20 scope out to 40 yards if you can get the velosity without going over the limit.. again the 4x20 is a good ratter..its low on the barrel, good near to.

 

4x32's wer used a lot for the extra light gathering and they are still quite low, but good to the 40 mark np's.

 

4x40's..rabbitting distances out to 50. and not too bad on the near too climb on the ret untill you get down to the 8 or 6 yard stuff..then its fairly steep.

 

all in all, good lenses will mean later shooting into the twighlight, and a 4x56 or there abouts has quite a lotta front lense for light gathering, but its starting to get hi, comes into its own at the 20-50 mark.

 

higher up the further away the ideal 'mid' zenith zero..(having the cross hair set so 20-50 is mostly around the cross hair..if you know what i mean.some above some below).

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To be honest i have not shot with open sights since i was a kid back in late 70's early 80's with my dads old Diana 45 that was until few weeks ago when i got Webley Tempest...i have to admit im finding it a struggle....got to used to scopes i feel will have to do some more with open sites

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Guest long-tail

few good points made as i said i just find it quicker to be on target especialy when in woodland,good point about using in low light as well as i have also struggled at times when its getting dark with a scope,but then prob down to the scope quality.......maybe,

shot placement seems to be more of an important issue than ever now days,not that id want any quarry suffering but a head shot always seemed suffice rather than trying to pin point an exact part of the brain to hit,although saying that if your that competant why not i guess,more so with when i see your vids of rabbit shooting with shot placement directly behind the eye.

as youngters we did have that definate thump of a hit on a head shot at times only to see the bunny run off although never had that ricochet sound that went with it you commonly hear in the westerns :laugh:

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few good points made as i said i just find it quicker to be on target especialy when in woodland,good point about using in low light as well as i have also struggled at times when its getting dark with a scope,but then prob down to the scope quality.......maybe,

shot placement seems to be more of an important issue than ever now days,not that id want any quarry suffering but a head shot always seemed suffice rather than trying to pin point an exact part of the brain to hit,although saying that if your that competant why not i guess,more so with when i see your vids of rabbit shooting with shot placement directly behind the eye.

as youngters we did have that definate thump of a hit on a head shot at times only to see the bunny run off although never had that ricochet sound that went with it you commonly hear in the westerns :laugh:

The Jaw area and nose area make up a suprising amount of the head on a rabbit, I've seen one person shoot and it went through the nose with a bizmag, in one side out the other, not much energy transfer at all. Bunny began to run, paused just as my partner for the shoot had a follow up shot almost immediately to the cranium, and lights out!

Later that day, I hit a bunny, fairly young one, the pellet was carried a couple of mm's to the right, bunny went down a second or two later it started kicking and I knew that wasn't normal (they usually kick when they land) as I legged it over the darn thing got up and began ro run in a figure of 8! Led me a right little dance for a few seconds (seemed like an eternity) until I chucked my scrim face veil over it and grabbed it to pull its neck :(

Autopsy (you can learn so much from doing them) showed the pellet had gone in one eye, and with the young bunny the bone between the eyes had not fully formed yet so the pellet went through it.

I have also withnessed a shot that went through the lower jawbone, it was non fatal and I would hate to think of the amount of suffereing my mate would have caused that one if we had only the one gun. As it was I dropped it after it paused with a clean headshot.

 

There are two parts to the brain (disregarding the little extension that goes over the top of the eye into the nasal passages).

The largest part of the brain runs from behind the eye to behind the ear, so a shot there will have the desired effect :yes:

The other part is much smaller and lower and dependig on the amount of fur (winter coat/summer coat) is a little harder to get perfectly. If you hit it throught that then bugs just rolls over, not even a wave goodbye!

So thats why we all aim to achieve a shot in the brain to produce the most humane switch off. Aim to place the pellet in the line from behind the eye to the ear :victory:

 

If you can pinpoint the heart and lungs of a bunny, it will take a few seconds for the bunny to die, usually a rabbit can make a good few yards with the adrenaline pumping making the heart bleed out or the lungs fill with blood or collaps totally, but it's far better than a fluffed head shot in my opinion.

 

Regarding the ricochet sound, when I used to shoot on the zero range at H&DFTC there was one target that leaned back at about 45-60 degree and every time you hit the plate it was "Pheh-ting" as the pellet went off to the safe backstop :laugh:

 

 

Tony

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To be honest i have not shot with open sights since i was a kid back in late 70's early 80's with my dads old Diana 45 that was until few weeks ago when i got Webley Tempest...i have to admit im finding it a struggle....got to used to scopes i feel will have to do some more with open sites

 

opens are a three point visual thing.. look at the target then bring into veiw the nipple and V all in one, its weird at first (coming from a one point veiw in comparison) but after you suss that it's just a look at target.(a couple three days shooting..)

 

 

''few good points made as i said i just find it quicker to be on target especialy when in woodland,good point about using in low light as well as i have also struggled at times when its getting dark with a scope,but then prob down to the scope quality''

 

yes it's down to the glass quolity.. i bought one of the 'jap crap' scopes in the 80's, the ones every one pritty much crapped out with out trying them, it was the, i mean THE best scope i'd ever bought, rings included £22.50.... what i couldnt see in the twighlite i could see clearly through the scope, on 4 mag too. pitty really, because most the scopes were build by the japanese then rebadged as tasco etc...oh and grade B and C glass...low end crap basically.

on a limited glass note, chinese glass seems a little grey and dim compaired to the japanese stuff (in the english and yank scopes lol)...just a thought.

 

as for requision of target, the opens you have a full eye veiw, then bring the barrel up into that full veiw, lookinto a scope theres just the curcle of vision there so yes initialy, but, once youve reflexed bring the gun up bang on target, doesnt matter what sight, it's over already lol.

 

i'd say a big yes to opens for a beginer, because it sets your mind up right, then i'd say spend 6 weeks worth of shooting on a red dot just to sort your head posision out on the 'scope/sight', after that onto a scope for sure, the red dot sight is a reflex shot, reflex that on auto through a scope and yup yup...gets yu really hot on.

the reason for this proses is the opens you 'find' the pellet with other than your yes, you know where it is, the relex/red dot sight gives you a perfic head posion, and you know where the pellet is..then through a scope you add the distance on with the reflex and you know whre the pellet is..do you see how it builds?

 

worth a go any way.

Edited by ghillies
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sound like some of you are ruddy good with open sights i must admit i used my open sights the other day plinking in the garden

COULDNT HIT A B---DY thing used a trillion pellets and wore me shoes out walking to the B---dy target, after the slight breeze had blown them over.

Im afraid its a TELLYs for me LOL

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Iron sights need Zeroing just like a scope does for it to be of any use :yes:

Some of the older models of Iron's had a stepped slide that had the range marked on it so you just had to alter to your chosen range (others had a rotating screw on the top) and then adjust the windage left or right, the key to using irons is that your eyes can only foruc at one point in space, so the trick is to focus on the post, both the target and the notch should be slightly out of focus.

You need the same amount of light/space at either side of the post and the top of the post should be level with the blade of the rear sight unit. When zero'd correctly, the bull of the target should be sat on top of the post, not as a lot of newbies (myself included in the pre-scope era) thought the post should not cover the target.

 

The good thing about a scope that has been tuned to your eyesight, is that everything is focused together :)

 

Tony

 

 

Tony

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