Sight Seeing
This post is by request. When it comes to aiming devices you have a few options. First you musts choose your usage. Are you purely defensive? Are you strictly a competitive gamer? Are you a long distance precision freak?
In case you have not a clue as to what I’m referring to, I’m talking about guns, firearms, peashooters, scatterblasters etc.. you know the evil little things that kill people. This is not meant to start a progun/gun control argument, so save your breath for someone who wants to hear it. This is all about what sighting system you should get for your gun.
For arguments sake, we’ll pretend you have a gun and use it for a particular purpose on a regular basis. There are many uses. You may use it for duty, sport, fun, defense or just playtime. If you don’t have one, try one. If you are adamantly opposed to guns and think nobody should own them, go change the law.
There are many types of sighting systems, so we’ll just stick to the three most common - iron sights, dot sights and scopes. The first and most basic are plain old iron sights. Usually a gun comes with iron sights and it’s what most people use. They don’t protrude too much from the basic outline of the firearm, so they work nicely in holsters. Generally, they consist of a rear sight that is a horizontal bar with a notch out of the middle and a front sight that is just a post. To aim, align the front post it appears to sit in the middle of the notch of the rear sight and put the aimpoint of the target of which you are shooting at ever so slightly above the horizontal bar you just formed with the sights. The drawbacks include longer sight acquisition (compared to dot sights) and some are not adjustable for wind and elevation compensation. They are great for closer ranges and don’t have much complexity. First time shooters should use these for learning the basics.
The second type of sight is the dot sight, also called the electronic sight, holographic sight, red dot sight and others. It is a separate unit that mounts to the firearm. You aim it by looking through a tube or lens. Within the lens is a reticule of some shape, most often a dot, but sometimes a circle or triangle as well as other variants. Sighting is simple, position the gun so the dot is on whatever target you want to hit and pull the trigger. Target acquisition is very quick. Drawbacks include bulkiness weight and they are usually not cheap. They are great for sporting games and combat where quick target acquisition is crucial.
The third type of sights is a scope. Scopes are generally used when shooting longer distances or extreme precision and magnification is needed. They are a separate unit and mount to the firearm. Some have adjustable magnifications and an adjustable objective lens, which is used to minimize the parallax seen through the scope. Disadvantages are bulkiness, weight, slower target acquisition and expense, but if you need to shoot long distances, there’s not too many ways around them.
I’ve left out a few, but these are the one most often used. I hope this helped, and happy shooting.
In case you have not a clue as to what I’m referring to, I’m talking about guns, firearms, peashooters, scatterblasters etc.. you know the evil little things that kill people. This is not meant to start a progun/gun control argument, so save your breath for someone who wants to hear it. This is all about what sighting system you should get for your gun.
For arguments sake, we’ll pretend you have a gun and use it for a particular purpose on a regular basis. There are many uses. You may use it for duty, sport, fun, defense or just playtime. If you don’t have one, try one. If you are adamantly opposed to guns and think nobody should own them, go change the law.
There are many types of sighting systems, so we’ll just stick to the three most common - iron sights, dot sights and scopes. The first and most basic are plain old iron sights. Usually a gun comes with iron sights and it’s what most people use. They don’t protrude too much from the basic outline of the firearm, so they work nicely in holsters. Generally, they consist of a rear sight that is a horizontal bar with a notch out of the middle and a front sight that is just a post. To aim, align the front post it appears to sit in the middle of the notch of the rear sight and put the aimpoint of the target of which you are shooting at ever so slightly above the horizontal bar you just formed with the sights. The drawbacks include longer sight acquisition (compared to dot sights) and some are not adjustable for wind and elevation compensation. They are great for closer ranges and don’t have much complexity. First time shooters should use these for learning the basics.
The second type of sight is the dot sight, also called the electronic sight, holographic sight, red dot sight and others. It is a separate unit that mounts to the firearm. You aim it by looking through a tube or lens. Within the lens is a reticule of some shape, most often a dot, but sometimes a circle or triangle as well as other variants. Sighting is simple, position the gun so the dot is on whatever target you want to hit and pull the trigger. Target acquisition is very quick. Drawbacks include bulkiness weight and they are usually not cheap. They are great for sporting games and combat where quick target acquisition is crucial.
The third type of sights is a scope. Scopes are generally used when shooting longer distances or extreme precision and magnification is needed. They are a separate unit and mount to the firearm. Some have adjustable magnifications and an adjustable objective lens, which is used to minimize the parallax seen through the scope. Disadvantages are bulkiness, weight, slower target acquisition and expense, but if you need to shoot long distances, there’s not too many ways around them.
I’ve left out a few, but these are the one most often used. I hope this helped, and happy shooting.
posted by dag at 3/28/2005 05:03:00 PM
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