Help Wanted Focus through Peep Sights

[sfurby]

Hi,

After starting shooting again after many years, I am having problems using peep sight at 25 yards. Full bore at longer range is OK with iron sights. I wear varifocals lenses day to day and use single vision for the small bore stuff, i also use a club rifle and intermittently cannot focus on the target. So I following questions:

If and when I purchase a rifle and it is set up for me will this help ?
How do other people cope with this and should I purchase a pair of shooting specs ?


Stephen

[demonloop]

If you wear glasses, you would need a set of shooting frames with a lens inserted for your prescription. It's best to seek an optician with a knowledge of shooting who will understand the focal length needed.

Do you release your shots focused on the target/foresight; from reading your post it would seem target?

[martini1215]

I use and AHG lensholder which I got from Bedfordshootingsupplies it attaches to the rearsight and you put a prescription lens into the holder,all the parts needed apart from the lens are int he pack when you get it
https://www.bedfordtargetsupplies.co...dex.shopscript if you look in product overview rearsight accessories its the first thing which pops up,I use this at 25,50 and 100 yards the webpage has a good picture of how it attaches

[BigAl]

You will never be able to foucus properly on both the front sight ring and the target. If you are still quite young (in your early 20's usually) you may have enough accmodation so that it apperas that both are in focus, but this can lead to eye strain after a while. You should be aiming (no pun intended) to keep the front sight ring in sharp focus, allowing the aiming mark to blur slightly (or a lot as you get older). That is why it is important for you to speak to an optician who knows about target shooting. Either that or take your rifle sights with you when you go to see your optician and discuss your needs. You really need a lens that will enable you to comfortably focus at about 6 feet. The other thing that is important is to tell your optician that it is very important for you to have even very minor Astigmatism corrected in your shooting lens.
I have always suffered from an Astigmatism inmy aiming eye, the problem being that it becomes worse as I use the eye for aiming. At the start of a shoot the target appears round by the end of about 30 shots the target (and fore sight ring) starts to look like an apostophe! Very difficult to get properly corrected.

Alan

[AD_K]

Absolutely no offence meant... everything written above is great advice.

However... if you are getting on a bit in years.. Then perhaps consider moving towards another solution. Try out a telescopic sight and see if it works for you.

A lot of the more senior gentlemen in our club have moved away from peep sights to low mag / high mag scopes.

HTH

AD_K

[demonloop]

I use and AHG lensholder which I got from Bedfordshootingsupplies it attaches to the rearsight and you put a prescription lens into the holder,all the parts needed apart from the lens are int he pack when you get it
https://www.bedfordtargetsupplies.co...dex.shopscript if you look in product overview rearsight accessories its the first thing which pops up,I use this at 25,50 and 100 yards the webpage has a good picture of how it attaches

Great bit of kit, but remember its illegal in comps playing to ISSF rules, if thats relevant.

[BigAl]

AD_K that is a good solution to the problem as long as you are not trying to shoot NSRA prone competitions. The NSRA rules only allow the use of telescopic sights in a few any sights matches, otherwise it is iorn sights only.
Actually the distance to the target when using apeture sights should make no difference to the sight picture if the angular size of the aiming mark is constant. I know the NRA aiming marks though are generally a bit smaller than the NSRA ones. You should though be focusing on the foresight at all times. That actually applies when using Apeture or Open sights.

Alan

[RobinC]

Hi Stephen
The simple answer is yes, get shooting glasses and then visit a shooting experienced optician, that is the difficult bit, you will probably need to go to Bisley for that, but there are some other ones out there. If you use a regular optician there is very good guidance on the Knobloch Schiessbrillen web site which you can direct them too. The guidance is roughly that for rifle shooting the lens should be at long distance prescription, but you do need good focus on the foresight.
My wife was very short sighted and shot at international level with shooting glasses set to marginally short of long prescription. She recently had cataract ops in both eyes and wishing to restart shooting she had a long discussion with the consultant on lens selection for the right eye. She now has 20/20 long vision in both eyes, and requires only subtle reading glasses, and shooting? He used a slightly different lens for the right eye which has maintained 20/20 long vision but it has given her a perfect sight picture focusing on the foresight, is that dedication to a sport!
Have you tried using a larger foresight? In fullbore there is just one diagram so people are inclined to set element size on what gives the best picture, at 25 yds the picture can break into the other diagrams but I would try experimenting with element size and using a much larger element, also peepsight rear aperture size adjustment.
Best regards
Robin

[wonky donky]

It always a good idea to use shooting glasses if you have defective vision, even if it's so slight your optician would not normally advise correcting it.

Slight astigmatism is a defect not normally corrected, especially if you have no other vision defect, but it is important to correct for shooting.

Even if you have the correct shooting lens there is no guarantee you will not still have the same problem. A blurred sight picture can be the result of many things other than defective vision;- lighting, tiredness, problems with the extended sightline just to 3!

[BigAl]

Even if you have the correct shooting lens there is no guarantee you will not still have the same problem. A blurred sight picture can be the result of many things other than defective vision;- lighting, tiredness, problems with the extended sightline just to 3!

And not just using apeture sights either! I was shooting benchrest this morning (actually yesterday morning now!) and for some reason every now and again it appered as if the target was vibrating radpidly trough about an inch. The retiucle though appared to be staionary. This lasted for a second or so each time, very odd. Whats worse I am now using a quality scope, instead of my old Deben Target 10-40×50, so everything is in sharp focus and crystal clear. Maybe I should try using my shooting glasses with the scope to correct the little bit of astigmatisim I have. I suppose that I would also have to reset the eyepice focus as well though.

Alan

[Jus]

Using an iris with iron sights will greatly sharpen up the sight picture by controlling how much light is let in and out, taking a fuzzy picture to a crystal clear black, the ones I have also come with coloured filters depending on lighting conditions at different venues.

[wonky donky]

Using an iris with iron sights will greatly sharpen up the sight picture by controlling how much light is let in and out, taking a fuzzy picture to a crystal clear black, the ones I have also come with coloured filters depending on lighting conditions at different venues.

Iron sights are a "V" back sight and blade or bead foresight as fitted to most sporting guns & pistols!

Metal foresight elements are just that..Metal elements as opposed to plastic or some other material.

A rear sight with a hole in it which you aim through, no matter if the hole is "variable" or fixed is a diopter sight named so because of the "pin hole" camera affect giving greater depth of field.

If the aiming mark is a crystal clear black, then the foresight must be out of focus as the eye is unable to focus on two points at different distances at the same time.

It's a common misconception that the eye muscles are unable to shift focus back & forth quick enough, if at all, to give the impression of both aiming mark & foresight being are in focus. What really happens is the lens in your eye hardens & so is not flexible enough put very simply. Hence the need for lens's as we get older.

[wonky donky]

And not just using apeture sights either! I was shooting benchrest this morning (actually yesterday morning now!) and for some reason every now and again it appered as if the target was vibrating radpidly trough about an inch. The retiucle though appared to be staionary. This lasted for a second or so each time, very odd. Whats worse I am now using a quality scope, instead of my old Deben Target 10-40×50, so everything is in sharp focus and crystal clear. Maybe I should try using my shooting glasses with the scope to correct the little bit of astigmatisim I have. I suppose that I would also have to reset the eyepice focus as well though.

Alan

Alan, were you shooting air or cartridge? irrespective, this may well be mirage!

I would not use your shooting glasses with a scope. Astigmatism will only be noticeable when trying to align circles in shooting, so will make them look oval or elliptical.

[BigAl]

I was shooting my Anschutz 1813 which I now use for 50m & 25x benchrest, now that I can no longer shoot either 3P or even prone. I have been shooting smallbore now for about 30 years and fullbore for not much less. What I experianced was definatly not mirage. For a start it both started and stoped far too quickly. Last week while shooting in the snow just as the light was fading, there was a quite strong mirage boiling up (no wind). This was what appeared to be a very fast vibration that the target did. I did not reallay notice what the reticule was doing, but it did not seem to be moving. The new Sightron 36×42BRD that I now have on the rifle has an incrdibly fine reticule that I may well have not noticed any apparent movement, it probably would have just looked a little wider to me anyway. I am quite sure in my own mind that what I "saw" was due to my eyes playing tricks and not an external effect.

Alan

[wonky donky]

What I experianced was definatly not mirage. For a start it both started and stoped far too quickly. Last week while shooting in the snow just as the light was fading, there was a quite strong mirage boiling up (no wind). This was what appeared to be a very fast vibration that the target did. I did not reallay notice what the reticule was doing, but it did not seem to be moving. The new Sightron 36×42BRD that I now have on the rifle has an incrdibly fine reticule that I may well have not noticed any apparent movement, it probably would have just looked a little wider to me anyway. I am quite sure in my own mind that what I "saw" was due to my eyes playing tricks and not an external effect.

Alan

Hi Alan,

How strange eh! You could be correct, do you think it may have been fatigue?

Apologies to Stephen for going away from his personal sighting problem.