Sights for older eyes

Scott Hearn · Aug 11, 2012

I just thought I'd throw this out here to see if there are any older eyed folks running something like an XS Big Dot tritium front site on your USPSA match gun. I've never thought I'd be a fan of them (for USPSA) but I recently shot a little Ruger LCR snubbie with one on it and dayumn! It was really quick and easy to pick up. Hitting with that little sucker was not hard at all. I'm having more and more trouble with the little 1mm FO front on my limited gun and wonder about stepping up to a 1.5 or even 2mm. It sounds like a really swell idea after actually shooting something with one on it. That is until I think about hitting those little steels at 20+ yards. Then I'm not as sure.

Thoughts?

dennishoddy · Aug 11, 2012

My new to me .40 M&P Pro has the hi vis sights. I really like em.

Scott Hearn · Aug 11, 2012

Is the front a great big honkin one like the XS?

My M&P45 has the factory trijicons. I like the front but when the lamps dim out I'm just painting black over the rear two or replacing it with a Dawson or something. I'll replace the lamp in the front. They are awesome when shooting a stage in the dark but just too "busy" with 3 dots to line up.

dennishoddy · Aug 11, 2012

Yeah, bigguns.

I was at the range the other day with a guy that is a danged good shooter, and he told me that he uses the smaller sights, as he could do blah blah..
He wasn't wearing bifocals like me.

drmitchgibson · Aug 11, 2012

I wonder if anyone has tried a larger front sight, and then widening the notch in the rear sight to suit. Just to keep the size ratio the same. When I read about shooters in the 70s and 80s, and early 90s, there is regular talk about widening the notch in the rear sight.

Scott Hearn · Aug 12, 2012

Mitch Gibson said:
I wonder if anyone has tried a larger front sight, and then widening the notch in the rear sight to suit. Just to keep the size ratio the same. When I read about shooters in the 70s and 80s, and early 90s, there is regular talk about widening the notch in the rear sight.

This does seem to be an issue for me. Both of my revos have target sights on them. A tall black partridge front and a really "tight" rear notch. They are great for precision things like bulleye and such, but I know they are costing me mucho time in USPSA. The thing with the XS sights is they don't even have a notch rear, just a short blade with a real shallow vee and a vertical bar centered in it. So you are looking over the rear sight. The snubbie I shot didn't even have that, it had a notch in the frame that the big front just dropped into it naturally. It was also so damn big that it just sat half way into the notch when you had the right sight picture. For 0 to 15 yards you used a 6:00 o'clock hold and past 15 you used a center hold. It sounds like a pain in the ass, but it was a heck of a lot easier to get a sight picture than my 442 or Colt DS and light years ahead of my partridge setups. Getting head shot hits at 10 yards was stupid easy compared to my other snubbies. I'm just wondering what an XS setup would be like on a 5" 625 and if you'd still have enough precision for steels. I'm thinking it would be fine since we never really shoot past 35 yards. I guess if worse comes to worse one could always buy the regular front.

Here it is. See what I'm talking about with the rear sight?

jhjh11 · Aug 12, 2012

I have an xs cert I could sell u so you could get one hell of a deal Or maybe trade hmmm

Jeremy Haynes · Aug 13, 2012

Im only in my mid 30's but i have horrible eyes. I got my left eyeball shot out with a BB gun when i was a kid (yeah yeah...), and now have zero depth perception and the last 5 years or so my right eye is having trouble focusing quickly on smaller things (front sights). 10 years ago i could knock down Rams all day at 200m with a 10" Contender and open sights, now i have trouble even focusing on the front sight.

My solution has been a F/O front sight, the contrast of the FO to the rear does wonders for my eye being able to focus on it. The XS Big Dot would probably work well, but those things really only seem made for SD distances. I think they cover something like 6-8 inches of target at 25 yards,

I would try the F/O front first, and if you still have problems start looking into mini red dots, i have more than a few on my non gaming guns. (I cant afford open division)

Sundance · Aug 30, 2012

dennishoddy said:
Yeah, bigguns.

I was at the range the other day with a guy that is a danged good shooter, and he told me that he uses the smaller sights, as he could do blah blah..
He wasn't wearing bifocals like me.

So do you wear your bi focals when your shooting? Seems like I do better if I take mine off.