Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or optics?

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This comes from a email thread that was suggested to be put on the forum for discussion by some of the other folks in the thread. I do not know their forum names so am just going to use their first initial for now.


Cepheus: Opinion question for you guys. If I were to buy a 22 rifle how important do you think it is as a new shooter to have iron sites on the gun? Should I try learning with iron before moving to glass? The traditionalist in me says yes, but I am noticing a lot of guns out there that do not have them any more.

Thoughts?




D: LOL. When I got my BB gun when I was kid, I put a cheap Tasco scope on it as soon I could afford one.

I hate iron sites. Yeah, you have to learn on them. Especially for defensive handgun training. But if you're really into target shooting, you'll be so much happier with a scope.

I have a Marlin Model 39A lever action 22. I put more scope on it than is really necessary.




Cepheus: Ok then. If that is the case what should I be looking for/how much should I budget for a scope?



E:Try the Nikon Prostaff line. Here are a couple:

http://www.nikonhunting.com/products/ri ... oplex/6718
http://www.nikonhunting.com/products/ri ... C_150/6725

Nikon makes great optics that are still affordable.


Cepheus: I am starting to feel the leaking wallet you guys talk about. :P

The reason for the iron sight question was I saw pictures of the CZ 455 and kind of fell in love with both the look and the concept (switchable barrels to make it 22 LR, 17HMR or 22 WMR if I ever get in to hunting.... or the zombie apocalypse really does happen :P). Was trying to see if the Lux, American, or Varmint version was the right way to go. Ideally, I would probably be looking that the Varmint with a scope, but I am not too sure I want to lay down that kind of cash before I KNOW I want to be shooting a lot. Things to consider.....

Several of my friends who shoot live in NH. Will the LGC course qualify me for what ever non-resident licensing they have if I want to take my gun north of the border? Likewise what about Maine (also have friends up that way)?

Thanks for the input,
Cepheus


E: And yes, you MA permit is good to get you a NH nonresident permit. And Maine.

Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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I'm in the iron sight camp. It's probably my Infantry school days showing through but still...

Scopes break. Red dot batteries die. Irons are still there.

Get your first rifle with a good set of peep sight irons and learn to shoot with them. Once you can hit anything you can see with them then you'll be ready to add optics to the mix. They are a great advance but the reality remains that we have not yet gotten to the point where irons can be abandoned. As a result, it's best to learn to use them first.

Your milage will, of course, vary.
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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wlewisiii wrote:I'm in the iron sight camp. It's probably my Infantry school days showing through but still...

Scopes break. Red dot batteries die. Irons are still there.

Get your first rifle with a good set of peep sight irons and learn to shoot with them. Once you can hit anything you can see with them then you'll be ready to add optics to the mix. They are a great advance but the reality remains that we have not yet gotten to the point where irons can be abandoned. As a result, it's best to learn to use them first.

Your milage will, of course, vary.
I agree with the above.

I recommend that a new shooter set out to learn basic competency with all common styles and designs of firearms -- and that would certainly include iron sights on rifles as well as scopes.

Now it doesn't necessarily follow that every rifle you own must have iron sights. While my preference is to have them even on rifles I'm going to scope, I've found that goal is not practical for some modern hunting rifles.
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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I'm a firm believer you should learn iron sites first and you'll be able to appreciate red dot later. All my carbines are with red dot, but mounted in such way to provide co-witnessing with iron sites. On my ARs rear site is Magpul MBUS flip site so it's out of way when using optic, but once during competition i lost red dot for a moment during drill, quick tap and flip site was up and I continued shooting. AKs have Ultimak with micro-dot for co-witnessing.
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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I'm actually going to be the odd man out here.

When learning to shoot a rifle there are numerous other things that you have to learn (stance, hold, breating, etc). These are universal skills that apply to all rifle shooting, regardless of sighting equipment. Adding "sight picture" (which involves tying three different distances together) to the mix doesn't help at all. A scope or red dot it much easier to place on the target, allowing you to work on the other fundamentals. Later, you can use iron sights and practice that technique.

When learning to play a musical instrument, do you begin with the most difficult chords, notes or songs? Or do you work on the universal fundamentals and then build your repertoire?

Frankly, today a person may go through life never even shooting a rifle equipped with iron sights.
Squaring the Circle

Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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Whatever you get, it will most likely come with Iron Sights. Buy the scope too.
Use both. A scope will let you know how much more you are shaking than you
thought you were with Iron.

As Duke said, have both.

I want optics now 'cause I'm old-eyed.

Maybe even for my Lever Marlin :crazy: :no: :crazy: :roll:
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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It depends. How's that for a wishy-washy liberal position?

No one has mentioned that there's more than one type of iron sights. I find a receiver-mounted peep sight very intuitive. For the novice shooter, just have them look through the hole, put the front sight on the bull, and they'll get paper at short distances. Fine-tuning of the sight picture can come later. Traditional barrel-mounted hunting sights, OTOH, have always been a source of frustration for me.

While my aging eyes have come to appreciate magnification, I've also seen shooters struggle with scopes. Getting the right eye position and relief are skills unto themselves.

Probably the most novice-friendly approach is to try a few kinds of sights, use what works best to strengthen their fundamentals, and come back to other types of sights later.

Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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MtnMan wrote: No one has mentioned that there's more than one type of iron sights.
To be honest, I assumed the reference was to open sights because that's what most people mean. Despite the obvious superiority of aperture sights to open sights, the latter remain much more common and receiver sights get more and more rare.

I've been hording Lyman 48s for the last year or so because I'm like that.
Squaring the Circle

Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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Fr. Bill, who taught me how to shoot, started me with a scoped .22 of his when he realized that I wasn't going to hit anything with the iron sights on Grandpa's rifle. However, when I got a scope of my own for Grandpa's rifle, I found learning how to zero the scope was more trouble then learning how to shoot with iron sights. And then I got a Mosin-Nagant, and there's not going to be a scope on it until I can afford a drill press and a mounting rail. So I went back and learned how to use iron sights. I do think that the adjustable leaf on the Mosin-Nagant is vastly superior to the fixed leaf on the Savage 90. I do think that starting with a scope that was already zeroed helped me get the other true basics down without thinking that I couldn't hit anything. OTOH, I think that I'm having more fun and learning more by learning how to use iron sights then I would have if I was still trying to figure out how to zero a scope.
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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I'm with the Appleseed folks on this one. A rifleman is supposed to be able to hit an enemy troop from 500 yards with iron sights. Scopes can and do break when you're out there. Irons are much more durable that way.

It's like learning how to drive. Back in the day, everything was a stick-shift, and unlike in the United States, most cars are still stick-shifts throughout Europe and many other places. I remember seeing BMW 735i's with manual transmissions while stationed in Europe. People learned, and continue to learn, stick-shifts. They can drive any car they get into, unlike most Americans these days. My cameralady a while back had her car go on the fritz. Wouldn't start. I have a pickup truck and a little econobox; both are stick-shift. To borrow my car, I had to teach her how to drive a stick. Now, she can drive anything and is much more prepared for whatever, just in case. That's good.

Same with iron sights. Learn the fundamentals, including what a proper sight picture is, and then you can shoot anything.
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Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or optics?

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NIf I were you I would be efficient with both BUIS & your scope. Always make sure your irons are sighted in properly for technology IE optics can & will fail as I found out personally. My irons are mounted to where I get perfect line of sight through the optic wether its on or not. It took a crazy snafu for me to realize how important BUIS's truly are. I hope you don't learn that lesson in the manner I did. If you are running a basic m4 type front site I suggest you get the Matech rear sight which is a easy sight to adjust with a yardage dial on the side of it or if you want flip ups these Troys are good & here is the Matech & never forget that you get that you get what you pay for especially with AR gear
Last edited by Ftak on Fri Sep 21, 2012 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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I am not a fan of scopes. I have hunted all across the US and I have always managed to get what I was hunting. I have missed some shots but it wasn't the fault of the rifle or the lack of the scope. Every time it was arrogance on my part. I have made many shots with open sights with someone in my ear saying you can't hit that, I can't hit it with a scope.

If you want to practice long distance shooting get 177 cal pellet rifle. You can emulate 500 yard shots in a 50 yard space. The pellet rifle even forces you to adjust for the wind.

I do have fault that is really a gift from god. I have lazy eye. While my vision is poor with my bad eye, I have 20/10 vision in my master eye.

Edit: Peep sights are great for target shooting. Distances are always known and you get a lot of repetition at the known distances at the range. The fault of peep sights is they are difficult to use as a range finder. When I sight a rifle in with blade sights I sight it in dead on at 35 yards. At 100 yards the shot will hit about three inches high and will be dead on again between 250 and 300 yards. You can use the V notch and it's relation to the front sight as a range finder. When I sight in a rifle I position the front sight at the very bottom of the V notch. When I am shooting at long distances I can simply raise the front sight to the to the top of the rear blade sight. These techniques will allow you to make accurate shots at 500 yards with a 30/06.

If the OP is completely new to shooting a rifle Appleseed is the best source of training. Plus you will get a very interesting history lesson that will help you remember all this when you are shooting in the field. To find an Appleseed seminar near you visit this site: http://appleseedinfo.org/
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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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If you are a novice, you should learn the craft from the ground up. Get a bolt action.22 rifle with iron sights and learn how to shoot it well at various ranges. Spend the time on that .22 and study and learn. It will pay you back over the years, and it is great fun.

I learned to shoot using several Mossberg and Marlin bolt action .22's. I still have a bolt action Marlin Model 36, with an adult size stock. It's not as accurate as the Anshutz ASavage I used to target shoot back in the 1960's, but it was about 1/10th the price and it's not really that far off.

I could still spend an afternoon with my .22 and a few dollars worth of ammo and have a great time...In fact I will do that next week.

I learned to shoot in Cub Scouts when I was 10, 55 years ago. FWIW, in the Army, I could keep my old style M16 on target at 300 meters all day as a result...we used iron sights back then, too.

I still have 2 centerfire rifles without scopes, and have no plans to install on on either of them.

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Re: Should a new rifle shooter start with iron sites or opti

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Hello,

One should start with iron sights. This is one of the old-time ideas that I find still holds true.

I started with irons, got good enough with them, and wanted more precision so my dad, an engineer, found a way to mount a BB gun scope to my Daisy :D

Same with my first .22. I used the irons and then slapped a 'scope on it.

I follow the idea that most rifles should have irons on them as a backup to your 'scope. I have one rifle that does not have irons, and it's a specialized heavy-barrel .22LR I use for long-range (around 100 yards) squirrel hunting.

It's a bitch to carry in the woods, however, and I'm looking for another .22 for that purpose. Thinking an old Steven's Favorite would be about right. Iron sights work magnificently for up-close squirrel and bunny busting, pot shooting is what I mean to say.

If you'll notice, on WWII and previous snipers' rifles, the majority maintained backup iron sights that were easily accessible.

One of the few exceptions was the US M1904a4 sniper's rifle. I was going to also say the K98 ZF-41, but closer inspection of this relatively rare rifle shows the backup irons are still accessible.

Seems the US learned their lessons well with optics, and went back to using BUIS on the Garand snipers' versions.

Next time in history I see snipers' rifles without BUIS were on the specialized Remington 700 rifles used in Vietnam.

Now, lots more troops are running optics. This was the idea behind the German ZF-41 in WWII, but only recently have optics become good enough to run like this. BUIS are still run on the average infantry rifle equipped with optics, however.

One should probably learn to use the iron sights...

Josh
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