dotting the sights/improving target sighting

[fastarget]

Both my wife and I have noticed that target aquisition is slower with the all black adustable sights. We have been thinking of painting/placing a red dot on the front sight and maybe outlining the rear with a white line....
Could suggestions be made on alternatives or other solutions to this.
We are trying not to change our current sights, but try and modify them somehow....thank you.

[Gammon]

Both my wife and I have noticed that target aquisition is slower with the all black adustable sights. We have been thinking of painting/placing a red dot on the front sight and maybe outlining the rear with a white line....
Could suggestions be made on alternatives or other solutions to this.
We are trying not to change our current sights, but try and modify them somehow....thank you.

When I first began Practical Shooting about 30 years ago, I had target acqusition problems. I tried everything; colored sights, taller sights, and a wider notch in the rear sight. Nothing worked. I finally discovered that I couldn't find my front sight because it wasn't there! my sight acqusition was taking too long because my draw was inconsistent and the front sight wasn't where it should have been. Thousands of repititions (or was it hundreds of thousands?) gave me the consistency I needed and the front sight was easy to acquire quicly. For most of my shooting career I have preferred black on black sights, and have no use for white dots or outlines.
Old age, however, has caught up with my vision and I must now wear special glasses to focus on my front sight. My sight picture is now somewhat of a compromise and I have had some difficulty focising on the front sight. I have recently experimented with a fiber optic front sight that really stands out and makes the front sight easy to acquire and focus on. This sight is much more effective than painted dots which have never worked for me. The only down side is that the round fiber optic dot doesn't give you the crisp, square front sight picture that a square steel front post will, and I find that accuracy suffers a little at longer distances, which is not a problem in Practical Shooting matches.
If my vision was adequate for the task at hand, I would concentrate on practice to speed up sight acquisition. If you think that you need to change your front sight, I would go with a fiber optic model. A good idea would be to have a dove tail cut in the front of your slide so that you can change the sights yourself, allowing you to experiment. This is an easy mod that can be done for $60 or less by any of the better shops, EGW, Dawson, Novak, etc.

[Blasterboy]

fastarget,
If you have eye sight problems...then maybe a simple set of 275 power reading glasses ($10.00) will improve your speed in picking up your front sight more rapidly. It will also make the image of the front sight 100% more clear.
As for colors, optics, dots, notches, outlines, posts and etc.,get rid of them and stay with the simple black outline image of your front sight (no white dot) framed in the fuzzy image of your rear sight. The problem with presenting your firing side eye with about four images to acquire rapidly is......that while it tries to do that, it slows down sight and target acquisition...!! Too much to look at..!! That simple black outline will line up much faster than all that other unnecessary sight adornment. The "operator" is what makes the weapon work...not all the unnecessary and expensive accessories available on the market. Now, the thing that will let this work for you and the Mrs. is many hours of DRY PRACTICE.....give it a try.....Good luck..

[wichaka]

I prefer my rear sight black, and I paint my front sight white. It helps with faster pick up. I just don't want anythging drawing my eye to the rear sight.

Hey there Blasterboy, how's the range endeavor coming?

[Blasterboy]

Wichaka,
Good to see your name in print again....I have been laying low, as it where, to let the dust settle on that last debacle. The range and school is in the hopefully last stages of negotiations. A final offer is being tendered. We hope it is accepted. If it is, we start the ID's IMMEDIATELY in hopes of a partial opening in Sept......do a rain dance or whatever it takes to get this thing off the ground. I still have you in mind for the school. All the best, my friend....

[fastarget]

Hi there ,
Thank you all for your inputs, and tremendous experience, I have been working on dry firing ,and try and practice live once or twice a week, not optimal but days are short on time. I guess to explain things better, when I practice and make the time I can group 2 inches at 10-15 yards consistently. At matches with the timer, it seems like it takes longer to align the sights left right up and down to hit the center or the head,
and I thought color or something would speed up the two axis alignment, I am glad I asked before I did something stupid. I will keep practicing with the black sights and see what happens..............thanks again

[Blasterboy]

FT,
Good....work on two things...first, as you are presenting your weapon to the target...start focusing in on your front sight with your firing side eye....With practice, you should be able to pick up your front sight BEFORE you reach your full shooting position (extension)...align the sights and place the clear front sight on COM. Work on it at a slow pace, at first. Do not sweat the time. The technique is the important thing for now. As you become more comfortable and are able to consistently pick up your front sight, then go ahead and pick up your pace a bit. Soon you will find that it will become reflexive and ingrained and a rapid deployment of your weapon and two quick hits will become the order of the day......Good luck.....Remember..."shooting is bad for shooting"...Limit your live fire for now ...Dry Parctice..Dry Practice..Dry Practice.

[fastarget]

Blasterboy, thanks, I will practice it "dry", sounds like you have lots of experience, on another topic, how do you handle your 1911 for getting the 2 holes close together on the target double tapping, mine seem 8-10 inches apart. Is there a technique that will help improve "accurate double tapping"? what do you shoot? we are in Grand Junction, the club is picking up here, how is it in Conifer?

[wichaka]

I have been laying low, as it where, to let the dust settle on that last debacle.

Hmmmmm can't remember any debacle per se..........thought that last subject went pretty well.

Oh well........take care, hope to meet up with you soonly!

[Gammon]

Blasterboy, thanks, I will practice it "dry", sounds like you have lots of experience, on another topic, how do you handle your 1911 for getting the 2 holes close together on the target double tapping, mine seem 8-10 inches apart. Is there a technique that will help improve "accurate double tapping"? what do you shoot? we are in Grand Junction, the club is picking up here, how is it in Conifer?

Just remember that a double tap is two aimed shots, not one aimed shot and a "Hail Mary". Constantly track your front sight when firing, watch it rise and fall; it should only move up and down, any movement to either is side is evidence of poor control; slow down until the sight tracks properly. One way to improve is to practice triple taps; making sure all three shots are close together. Another form of practice is the "Bill Drill" (named after Bill Wilson) where the shooter puts six shots as fast as possible in the "A" zone of an IPSC target at 15 or 25 yards. Use the same sight tracking technique.
Dry fire is very productive at your stage of development and should be practiced as much as possible until you get your draw down to the point that the front sight is there every time. A small black circle makes a good aiming point. Draw, get your sight picture and break the shot; over and over again. I
prefer a room in my cellar where no ammo is present. The concrete walls make an excellent backstop just in case I screw up.
There are some excellent books and videos on the market; I am partial to Brian Enos' book. Dillon has a good selection.

[fastarget]

Thank you very much for all your input and good luck with the range and school deal.
Sounds interesting if like valhalla.........

[wichaka]

Try taking 2 targets........1 at 7 yards, and the other at 5 yards........place them about 1-2 yards apart. Now practice your double taps.

They should not be bang-bang.........bang-bang..........they should be an even bang-bang-bang-bang. Be smooth and fluid. If you're like my first example, your shots will be jerky and usually spread out. Use the second method, you'll have surprising results.

[Tap]

If you cant get used to the black on black sights, best thing to do would be just paint the front sight only and just use normal acrylic craft paint, if you dont like how it look its not hard to get off and I prefer neon orange, white and yellow are hard to see on some targets, red or blue seem to dull and become hard to see too fast for me, never tried any greens.

[Blasterboy]

Wichaka,
The "debacle" that I had reference to was not the discourse you and I were having over malfunctions, but rather the "brewhaha" that erupted over that avatar with the gun pointing at the person who logged on the that "persons" post....Remember..?? All is fine now....

[Blasterboy]

FT,
Both Wichaka's and Gammon's comments and suggestions are excellent and at the risk of appearring to pile on too much information here for you, the two shots that are taken with actually three distinct sight pictures are called a "controlled pair". It goes like this. Point in, focus on front sight, sight picture. slack out, press (slowly and evenly to the rear)....Bang...maintain front sight contact, ride out recoil, back on COM, start the same process over again....Bang...ride out recoil, back on COM with the final sight picture. This is called "follow through". Come down to the ready or transition to another target. I bring up the trigger and "slack" issue up because your question was about keeping the two shots close together (2") and the trigger speed and smoothness of pressure have a definite effect on where that bullet will impact on the target. Think on what I have said here, FT and get back to me with any questions. I believe between the three of us you have an awful lot to digest and you are right in the heart of the essense of markmanship... I hope to have news on the school shortly...It will not be the "second coming" of Valhalla, but rather a Defensive Handgun shooting type school. I hope Wichaka will join us.....

P.S. It will be located in Park County, near Fairplay...

[fastarget]

Thanks, I am printing this whole thread, and bought pvc to build target holders.....
will be practicing....keep us posted about the school... the interest is there....good luck

[Blasterboy]

FT,
One last suggestion....Take your time with the dry practice sessions...do not be in a hurry. Getting these techniques ingrained in your gunhandling skills will take many months. Actually, the rest of your life...!!!! THIS IS A JOURNEY.....AND THERE IS NO DESTINATION...!!! Dry practice about 20 minutes per session about 3 times per week. Work on one and only one technique at a time until you are comfortable that you have it ingrained and doing it perfectly. The live fire will come later........All the best......

[Gammon]

FT,
Both Wichaka's and Gammon's comments and suggestions are excellent and at the risk of appearring to pile on too much information here for you, the two shots that are taken with actually three distinct sight pictures are called a "controlled pair". It goes like this. Point in, focus on front sight, sight picture. slack out, press (slowly and evenly to the rear)....Bang...maintain front sight contact, ride out recoil, back on COM, start the same process over again....Bang...ride out recoil, back on COM with the final sight picture. This is called "follow through". Come down to the ready or transition to another target. I bring up the trigger and "slack" issue up because your question was about keeping the two shots close together (2") and the trigger speed and smoothness of pressure have a definite effect on where that bullet will impact on the target. Think on what I have said here, FT and get back to me with any questions. I believe between the three of us you have an awful lot to digest and you are right in the heart of the essense of markmanship... I hope to have news on the school shortly...It will not be the "second coming" of Valhalla, but rather a Defensive Handgun shooting type school. I hope Wichaka will join us.....

P.S. It will be located in Park County, near Fairplay...

You mention taking up the slack in the trigger for the first shot, breaking the shot, and then repeating the process. You don't actually repeat the entire process; you take up the slack in the trigger on the first shot of a string only. On successive shots you release the trigger only far enough to allow the disconnector to reset itself, so there is no slack to take up in follow-up shots. This technique is called "prepping the trigger" and will allow faster shooting with less chance of trigger jerk.
On painted sights. I have tried all sorts of colors, even the chemicals from a cyalaume stick to make night sights, with poor results. The only thing that has worked for me is a fiber optic front sight.

[Blasterboy]

Gammon,
I stand corrected...mine was an "error of omission". In describing the process, I neglected to consider what I call "resetting the trigger" for faster and subsequent shots on multiple target drills. In fact, I have a trigger reset drill for the 2 and 4 day classes. Thank you for keeping me honest....

P.S. Are you originally from the Boston area..??? My Dad was born in Medford.... I was born and raised in Winchester...

[Tom]

Both my wife and I have noticed that target aquisition is slower with the all black adustable sights. We have been thinking of painting/placing a red dot on the front sight and maybe outlining the rear with a white line....
Could suggestions be made on alternatives or other solutions to this.
We are trying not to change our current sights, but try and modify them somehow....thank you.

My Springfield Mil-Spec came with white three-dot sights, but they were very dingy. So I used a bottle of Testors fluorescent yellow model paint and touched up all three using a toothpick, which has helped a lot. I also used from fluorescent orange on just the front sight on my daughter's Ruger 22.45. I scraped away the black paint on the rear face and applied the orange paint. My daughter has said that has made a big difference in her sight picture.

[wichaka]

I use a night sight just on the front only, with a solid black on the rear.

I paint around the glow tube with white model paint, this helps pick up the front sight when its not dark enough for the tube to show up bright enough, yet it's a bit too dark to find a black sight.

Walk around your house, and you'll see what I mean.........