Cannot see properly in bright sunlight

JiriK · Post by **JiriK** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 10:29 am

I bought a smallbore rifle late last year and have trained mostly indoors.
Our indoors arena is sufficiently lit (enough to see sights and targets) but it is dark there compared to mid-summer sunlight outdoors.

I have been in three competitions that were held in outdoors ranges.
First one was late spring, cloudy sky, light rain. Shot my competition record there. Second and third were at different range just yesterday and a week ago. Bright sun, not much clouds in the sky. Shot bad. Could not see front sight and/or target well enough.

My rifle is equipped with fixed rear aperture, approx. 1mm in diameter.
There are adjustable rear sights (aperture size, filters) and also models with selectable color filters.

I use shooting glasses in both pistol- and rifle shooting. Both lenses have +3 correction. With pistol I use iris. Should I try iris with rifle too? Or maybe some kind of filter to increase contrast? If filter, what color?
Buying an adjustable rear sight with filters might be one way to go, but is there some cheap way to test first if filters help?

Tim S · Post by **Tim S** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 11:30 am

Jiri,

before you buy anything, do you have a hat? If you don't have one, get one. The hat will shade your eyes and the rearsight.

An iris eyepiece is very useful so you can keep the brightness of the sight picture constant; make the iris larger in low light, and reduce slightly in very bright light.

svensta · Post by **svensta** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 12:05 pm

I know this issue. When shooting on a bright sunny day with bright light on the target do not look up at all while shooting. So aim, shoot. Then look through your spotting scope looking directly from your aim point. Basically as you shoot do not look up or look at the target over the sights not even a glance. There should be 3 things you shift your eyes between.

- Aiming and taking the shot
- Spotting the shot
- Loading ammo

Do not look in the direction of the target unless it's through your sights and keep your eyes pointed down. You will find the foresight will look sharp and the black dot will look less distorted. Bright sunny and outdoor means keep your eyes off the target unless aiming.
Don't look at the landscape in front of you. Shooting with a cap that suits you is also not
a bad suggestion.

ABoyd57946 · Post by **ABoyd57946** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 7:04 pm

Hello, here is something I have done with sights that may help you. First acquire a rear adjustable iris with color filters. Second after attaching to your rear sight go to your practice session, and at 50m hang a target. Then close the rear iris as much as possible. Third with your rifle pointing at your target slowly open the closed rear iris until the front sight appears sharp. Last step try switching between different color filters to see if the sight picture can be improved and the black bull is crisp and stands out. As light conditions change repeat and refine as necessary. Hope this helps. I have used this in many outdoor matches in smallbore rifle prone with success. Kind regards, Tony.

higginsdj · Post by **higginsdj** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 9:15 pm

As a fullbore shooter this is a common problem. Is the problem reflected light in the front tunnel or is it that the target itself is so bright it is 'swamping' the front ring or something else?

Personally I prefer to use a polariser rather than a coloured filter to control the amount of light getting to my eye. Its also means I don't have to muck about with my rear aperture diameter - unless things get real dark.

(Are polarisers allowed in ISSF events?)

Cheers

David

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 1:50 am

First one was late spring, cloudy sky, light rain. Shot my competition record there. Second and third were at different range just yesterday and a week ago. Bright sun, not much clouds in the sky. Shot bad. Could not see front sight and/or target well enough.

In addition to the above replies, I'd ask what you mean by 'can't see the sights well enough' ? Do you just mean too bright, or does the sight picture appear different ? For me in bright light, I get the latter, which is why I bought an adjustable rearight iris (I already had adjustable foresight). It also depends on where the light is coming from, i.e. sun in your face (or slightly), or from behind you lighting up the target.

A cheap way to investigate filters would be to get one (or a few different colours) that clips onto your shooting glasses.

higginsdj wrote: (Are polarisers allowed in ISSF events?)

Cheers

David

Yes they are. It's only magnifying lenses that aren't allowed.

Rob

RossM · Post by **RossM** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 4:57 am

Here is my pennies worth. My experience is that the eyes cannot accommodate the very large contrast between white and black of the target. Black is black. No matter how many filters you put in, it remains black. However, with white, any filter drops the brightness. My mantra is use the filters to decrease the contrast. The grey filters are suitable and easy to flick over. In daylight you will be stunned how much filtering you can out in.

A few numbers. You shoot indoor. Light levels are around 1000 - 1500 lux. Now daylight with full sun is 100,000 lux. So you can see that 1% of daylight is sufficient to shoot very effectively. Filtering - even with the dark gray in will only drop the light down to an equivalent of 10,000 to 30,000+ lux.

If you have the sun right behind you and the target in full sunlight, then feel free to utilise the polariser. One of them. Put in the grey if necessary and then rotate one polariser while looking for the sharpest, cleanest sight picture. You might be surprised.

We don't get the "continental" lighting conditions down here in Noo Zeeland and I got caught at my first World Cup in Munich. The sun would come out and the group opened up so big I thought my toy had had a hemorrhage. Next WC in Milan I used the filters. The difference was amazing. But I still shot like shit!! I wish I had discovered it before the Munich match.

The beauty of using filters rather than using only the aperture, is that the aperture can remain the same size for all conditions. Yes, the bright light changes the size of the iris and restricts the view through the aperture, but using the filters takes away another factor to worry about.

BTW. My belief is that using the aperture to adjust light intensity was used before filters were invented. Once filters came along, it was only the oldies who seemed to me to still use the aperture option.

So the choice should be filters first, apertures if nothing else is available.

JiriK · Post by **JiriK** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 1:08 pm

Thank you all!

Now that I think about it, I bought a set of cheap photography strobe filters from some chinese online store maybe 18 months ago. Tried to calm down the sight picture of air pistol in our indoors shooting range but those filters were too dark for that.

Tim S, I´ll try a hat too.