TargetTalk

Thank you Gerard for taking time for such a long and explicit explanation. It all sounds very logic.
Guy

Extending the rear sight might bring another disadvantage - if it gets way behind the hand, it will oscillate more than when it's right above the turning point of the hand. So you'd have the front sight moving down, and the rear sight going up at the same time - double the movement - not good for your psyche. I'd guess that's why the Koreans kept the rear sight where it was, right above the hand.

Personally, I find that the "wobble frequency" is much more important in the short vs. long discussion than the sight radius. A shot that looks good with my LP50E Compact is a sure 10, so I really don't see where a mile long sight radius might bring an advantage.

Indeed Tycho, moving the rear sight too far back can create a problem. I've never liked guns with the rear sight way back on the hand. In my opinion the rear sight shouldn't be more back than about the knuckles on the hand. But as many state on the forum, what works for you is the best solution. I remember having read an article in 'Les Cahiers du Carabinier et Pistolier' (being located in Switzerland, you 'll probably know this, now obsolete French, magazine) about the perfect placement of the rear sight. They came to the same conclusion. (Sorry that I'm not able to reproduce the article).
Regards,
Guy

Tycho wrote:..... so I really don't see where a mile long sight radius might bring an advantage.

I suppose it really depends whether you have the training / fitness / ability to hold the extended sights locked together.

A 10 is a 10 - and as Nestruev once said, it's pretty big in AP... :-D

Tycho wrote:
..... so I really don't see where a mile long sight radius might bring an advantage.

I don't want a mile-long. Just long enough that I can touch the target with the muzzle ;-)

Tycho wrote:A 10 is a 10 - and as Nestruev once said, it's pretty big in AP... :-D

Sorry, I keep forgetting about all of the 600s and 709s that have been shot ;-)

Hi all,
I personally keep the sight radius low. I bring back the front site to reduce the sight length to the minimum both on my AP and FP. Both are Hämmerlis, AP40 and FP60 and they have the longest barrels in their respective categories; 250mm for the AP40 and 320mm for the FP60. I also use the widest front sight blade. That way, I have the perception of a bigger, clearer and more stable sight alignment image and have more confidence in squeezing the trigger. The results are more or less satisfactory at my level.
regards
tirpassion

https://www.issf-sports.org/media/foto/ ... 014_FP.jpg

https://www.issf-sports.org/media/foto/ ... 013_FP.jpg

Giuseppe Giordano, ISSF World Cup, MIlano, May 2012

And he took 3rd... and the match winner in 50m pistol, Mikec, seems also to have been using a much-extended front sight:

But Matsuda and all the Chinese I can find are using the standard length Morini, so... ;-)

I've been using the extended foresight for about 6 weeks now I think, and so far it's not bothered me in any way. Guess I might be taking slightly greater care with handling the gun, like being fussy how I put it down so as not to bump the projecting metal piece, but that's not a down-side as one should be handling these tools gently anyway. I shot at the BC provincial championship a couple of weeks ago, still in the Expert category, and finished second in that class, tied for fourth overall with a shooter in the 'marksman' category. Mostly off my best because of a bad back spasm - suffered a couple per year for the last 40 years - preventing me shooting for 8 days during the couple of weeks before the match. Still, though the first half was a 259, the second set of 30 scoring 281 was a decent recovery so not a complete write-off experience.

I'm more or less back on track now and doing a lot of weights, soft yoga (got out of the habit for decades but I'm enjoying doing it again and will try to stick with that), and running. So my training sessions tend to show sloppy results as upper body muscles are building up and the pistol shaking quite badly. Shot one target this morning after a bunch of hill running and a moderate weight session with 10 and 35 pound dumbbells, scoring 92 which is about my average this week. Some of my holds are too long, but my analysis of the psychology there is that this has more to do with worrying about scores than it does any shaking in the longer sight radius. I don't actually perceive any change in sight stability, because I'm still focusing on the target, staring hard at the centre of the 10, and that seems to work better for me. Will persist with the longer sight and building strength towards the next match - the national pistol championships which I'm still hoping to fit into an ever-busier summer... though I just got word of another doublebass commission to start next month so not certain about that trip.

I think the focus issue is probably the main reason. A longer distance between the sights will inevitably make small errors in sight alignment easier to pick up. Assuming that you have the nerve to keep pressure building on the trigger, it should produce better results.

However, it also puts the eye under considerably more stress due to focusing. But this increases with decreasing distance - the difference in focus between objects one and two feet away is more than the difference between objects two and three feet away. Which means that moving the rear sight closer is not as good as moving the front sight farther out.

Depending on your age, the further apart the sights get, the more probability that one of them will be blurry. If you have middle age vision, and the rear sight is closer to your eye because you move it back, it will likely be really blurry. I have a set of shooting glasses that no longer work for me because they make the front sight look VERY blurry.
All of us older shooters should probably think about going to an eye doctor and having him/her determine an optimum front and rear sight placement and the best distance between them. A shorter sight radius may be a better solution for many people than a bobbing (or blurry) longer sight radius.

Isabel1130 wrote: If you have middle age vision, and the rear sight is closer to your eye because you move it back, it will likely be really blurry.

Some years ago, a U.S. competitor in what was (is?) known as Hunter Pistol went to a major NRA match with a solution that, in practice, worked quite well for him. At the time, the rules allowed for the replacement of sights and mounting the sights in non-stock locations as long as the sight radius wasn't increased from stock.

He had entered the "My arms aren't long enough to hold the paper far enough from my eyes for me to read" phase of life, so he complied with the letter of the rules. He machined an extended platform that attached to the top of the pistol, allowing him to mount the rear sight at the normal position of the front sight...and the front sight nearly a foot ahead of the muzzle.

At the match, there was some official muttering about "the spirit of the rules" and he wasn't allowed to use the pistol the way he had it set up. He wasn't really surprised and used a back-up.

I re-learned two lessons from his experience. First, growing old sucks. Second, never be more clever than the people who write the rule book. They *really* don't like that. :-)

I agree Ben, and in my experience, the international refs have even less of a sense of humor than the NRA ones.
I think a long sight radius probably gives the shooter more cues as to when he has held too long. A short sight radius looks stable about three seconds longer than it actually is stable, but if you have a good consistent shot process, and know when your window is, you should be able to shoot similar slow fire scores with just about any gun with good balance and a decent trigger.