sights are square why

Bob Pickup · Post by **Bob Pickup** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:18 am

I have just bought my first pistol for 10mtr (IZH46M) but there doesn't seem to be any decent air pistol clubs in the South Yorkshire area of England, I've been to 3 rifle/pistol clubs but they were all miserable and dark and smoky and mainly frequented by rifle shooters, maybe I am expecting too much, luckily I can shoot at home but its not as much fun as it would be at a dedicated club, how do others find this situation where you live, but anyway here my question. Why are the sights on 10mtr pistols the shape they are instead of like a rifle or in fact like other non target guns on the market. I have a 40 plus year old Diana "model 2" .177 with normal sights which seems so much easier to sight. I am using genuine 10mtr targets and I appreciate that the front sight is designed to cover the width of the black on the target. Has anyone gone against tradition and converted to normal sights with their 10mtr pistol, were you laughed at frowned upon, black balled from the club? I'd be interested to know.
PS How do I change my username on this site.

David Levene · Post by **David Levene** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:24 pm

oscar wrote:I have just bought my first pistol for 10mtr (IZH46M) but there doesn't seem to be any decent air pistol clubs in the South Yorkshire area of England,

I don't know how far it is from you but there is a very nice airgun range in the old laundry at Wakefield hospital. From memory it is about 15 firing points, all with returning targets apart from 1 or 2 with Suis Ascor. Reasonably lit, comfortable club-room, good kitchen and decently heated.

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:37 pm

Please say what you mean by "normal sights"? Are you talking about aperture sights like on a target rifle? If so, the reason that these are not used is because for international competitions and most other target shooting they are against the rules.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:18 am

I don't quite follow the problem you apprear to have with the sights. I assume you are sighting below the black (approx in the 6 ring), as is recommended. You should then have the foresight (which you focus on) in the middle of the rear sight notch and the target nicely blurred in the distance. I suspect the old sights you refer to are the V type and and a smaller foresight element (?) - there are limits to what you can have as a set of sights if you want to enter competitions.

As for clubs try the club finder facility on the NSRA website http://www.nsra.co.uk/

Apologies if I sound patronising, I don't know how familiar you are with pistol shooting.

Rob.

Bob Pickup · Post by **Bob Pickup** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:11 pm

David, which hospital is the club in at Wakefield as its only 30 min away from me do you have a contact no for the club. Are you local to that area, I am at jct 36 M1 what do you shoot.
Rob, no offence taken I am a total novice but I just wondered why air rifles, rimfire rifles, pistols, and just about everything else other than 10 mtr pistols seem to have adopted a different sighting method (v at rear with a thin sight at the front end) is it simply because the front sight on a 10mtr pistol appears the same width as the black on the target when viewed from the correct 10 mtr distance.

David Levene · Post by **David Levene** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:16 pm

It's at the old hospital closest to the Bishopsgarth Police Training Centre, on the same road as the Prison. PM me your email address and I will try to get you a contact name (may take a couple of days). I am a couple of hundred miles south of Wakefield but would love to have a local club with the same airgun facilities.

No disrespect but you obviously have not seen many ISSF rifles or pistols, air or cartridge. Rifles have aperture sights and pistols, with a miniscule number of exceptions, have square sights.

Bob Pickup · Post by **Bob Pickup** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:23 pm

I seem to be digging myself into a deep hole here,
It was only a simple question/observation. I'm not doubting ISSF rules here of which I know virtually zero, simply asking why 10mtr pistols have square sights and most non-ISSF guns ie air rifles (without scopes mounted) have v-sights that includes my old Diana air pistol 1940's vintage my friends webley pistol from way back in my youth, rimfire rifles I have seen at clubs, cowboy's colts etc don't they all have v-sights. The question I suppose I am asking goes back to the early days when 10 mtr was invented, did they decide to make the front sight width equal to the black part of the 10 mtr target. Does this make it easier to sight than if you shot with a v sight.
Shovel at the ready guys

David Levene · Post by **David Levene** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:32 pm

You are allowed to use a V rear sight with a thin front sight in ISSF pistol shooting, but it is a LOT less accurate then square block type sights.

The same applies to aperture sights on ISSF rifles, they are just more accurate.

Richard Newman · Post by **Richard Newman** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:42 pm

Oscar,
Square notch rear sights for competition (and other) handguns have been the rule in the US at least since WWII. S&W, Colt and Hi Standard have been using them that long - or longer. My old S&W 41s (circa 1957) have them. In Europe there has been some use of U shaped notches, but I don't know if any one still uses them. No one I know of uses V notch rear sights. Why? Precision. THe square notch helps precision alignment of front blade and rear notch far better than the U or V notch. That's precision - accuracy is up to you. As for why you find them on your old Diana, its a matter of age and cost. Good adjustable rear sights are more costly than the non-adjustable or marginally adjustable rear sights on less expensive hunting and plinking rifles and handguns. Whether you use a center hold, six oclock hold or a sub-six (white line) hold your eye and brain must learn to recognize proper sight alignment, and it seems easier with the square notch. Its pretty much the standard for handgun iron sights nowadays.
Richard Newman

Mike Taylor · Post by **Mike Taylor** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:24 pm

OK Oscar,
I'll have a go at it:
First, by ISSF rules for all pistol disciplines, the sights must be open. That is, no peep-sights, no hooded sights. Also, no optical sights, such as dots and scopes.
Second, sight alignment is critical to accurate pistol shooting. It is also critical to be able to align the sights exactly the same for succesive shots.
The Patridge (not partridge) sights (rectangular front sight post, square or rectangular notch rear sight - as seen by the shooter looking at the front sight through the rear sight notch - are widely accepted by bullseye shooters as being the easiest to align exactly the same - time after time. Typically, the shooter aligns the top of the front sight post level with the top of the rear sight blade (this establishes the vertical alignment) and aligns the sights laterally so that there is an equal amount of light appearing on each side of the front sight post (as seen through the rear sight notch). Misalignment is readily apparent. With a V-notch rear sight and a narrow blade front sight, it is much more difficult to get a repeatable alignment - not impossible, just more difficult.
As to the width of the front sight post, that is more of a shooter preference. With a "centre-hold" sight picture (that is, with the aligned sights held so the top centre of the front sight is held on the centre of the bullseye), some shooters like the width of the front sight to be the same as the apparent diameter of the bullseye, others prefer it to be wider, and still others prefer it to be narrower. Some target pistols have sights that can be adjusted in width. Even the amount of light appearing on either side of the front sight is subject to shooter preference.
Now just to add a bit more confusion, many bullseye shooters prefer to take a sight picture (that is, where they hold the aligned sights on the target) that is below the bullseye, either a "six o'clock" hold or a "sub-six" hold. Even in this case, the width of the front sight (and the rear notch) is subject to shooter preference.
The fore-going is applicable to all the ISSF pistol events, be they 10-metre, 25-metre, or 50-metre. Of course, not all target pistols have readily changeable sights. You may have to accept what comes on the gun, or enlist the services of a gunsmith to get what you want (or, if you are handy with tools, modify them yourself).
While you may have seen exclusively, or almost exclusively, V-notch sights, there are a variety of open sight configurations on the market - 3-dot, post and dot, U-notch and bead, pyramidal, ....(you name it). Some are purported to offer quicker sight alignment in a defensive shooting situation (not applicable to our ISSF target game). Why do some guns have a V-notch rear sight? I can't give a definitive answer. Perhaps someone else can offer enlightenment?

Bob Pickup · Post by **Bob Pickup** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:19 am

Thanks for all the info re sights and the club at wakefield hospital, hope to find a club in my vicinity soon.

Bob Pickup · Post by **Bob Pickup** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:46 am

David, did you find any contact details for the old Wakefield hospital?
Regards Bob

mikeschroeder · Post by **mikeschroeder** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 9:36 am

Mike Taylor wrote: The Patridge (not partridge) sights (rectangular front sight post, square or rectangular notch rear sight - as seen by the shooter looking at the front sight through the rear sight notch - are widely accepted by bullseye shooters as being the easiest to align exactly the same - time after time.

Hi

Is Patridge some guy's name that invented them? I always wondered why the sights were named after an animal that you don't shoot with a rifle (or Pistol) anyway.

Mike
Wichita KS

Mark Briggs · Post by **Mark Briggs** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:04 am

Mike,

In northern Ontario the partridges are kinda easy targets and our hunting regulations allow the use of rifles for harvesting them. They normally sit still and let you walk up to within a reasonable range before getting a shot off. One of my favourite memories was watching a moose hunting buddy shooting partridge with his .30-06. He would intentionally aim just slightly high or wide of the head. The shock wave caused by bullet passage would knock the bird off its feet and stun it. Never so much as ruffled a feather - perfect meat every time.

But I, too, never knew the origin of the name for those sights. We can always count on Mike Taylor to dig up very interesting and relevant trivia!

Mark.

Mike McDaniel · Post by **Mike McDaniel** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:03 pm

Yup, Patridge invented the sights that bear his name.

When you shoot black powder as much as I do, you wind up getting to work with a very broad range of sights. Bead and conical front sights, round-top blade front and even rear sights, U and V-notched rear sights. You can do pretty good work with any of these, IF there is enough light. A lot of the U-notches are deep enough to effectively be square - it's the top edge that you are looking at, not the bottom.

The biggest problem that I've run into - and I've run into it with modern guns, too - is that the rear sight notch width is frequently too narrow. Take a look at a good ISSF gun, then compare it to the mid-range of American-made "target" guns. The match-grade sights are big, honking things, while the mid-grade guns have tiny sights you need a microscope to see. It makes a difference.

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