A sight for sore eyes
By Dave Bates
For the Observer-Reporter
With each passing year my hearing troubles me a little more. Knees and back ache a little worse than they did the passing year and another knuckle takes on that gnarled arthritic profile. Mind you, I’m noticing, not complaining.
Seemingly, the most frustrating aspect of aging might just be diminishing eyesight. It is a cruel joke that the shooting gods play on us. When we are young and possess lightning-like reflexes, we mostly find ourselves strapped for cash. When we arrive in our twilight years we earn a bit more money but the eyes, as they say, are the first to go. Unfortunately, this is not a situation that we can buy ourselves out of. Sure, there is laser surgery, but that is only a partial fix and it still leaves us searching for our cheater readers for up-close work.
When our vision is corrected for distance, it often worsens our finer vision. You know, the kind of vision needed for seeing the front sight of a pistol at 18 inches or so? The kind of vision needed for tying on a fishing hook with monofilament fishing line. What’s a guy to do? For those who haven’t lost a clear front sight yet, it will probably happen at some point. It is a frustrating crossroads.
Well, I can’t fix all of your sporting related vision problems but I might be able to offer a new set of sights that help. Over the last dozen years, I have spent time learning to shoot a little better. Once I began to apply some of this knowledge at the shooting range and on combat-style courses and shoot houses, I began to pay more attention to my fuzzy vision, especially in relation to my front sight.
Question: How do I keep my front sight in focus and not lose focus on the target? Answer: You don’t. You either attempt to see your front sight as clearly as possible and allow the target to blur or one deals with a fuzzy front sight so we can keep our target in sharper focus. Alas, there is no perfect solution. Usually we settle on the front sight.
While I am speaking from my own, limited experience, I have found that I shoot better with my glasses, which correct nearsightedness (can’t see far away). My bottoms are clear glass bifocals and allow me to see the front sight reasonably well since my up-close vision is still pretty good, uncorrected. By adjusting a little head tilt to my shooting stance, I can manage to see the front sight reasonably well. Now, throw in the addition of contact lenses (which correct my distance vision but throws my up-close vision all out of whack). This causes me to wear sunglasses or shooting glasses with diopters, which corrects my correction. Think this sounds funny? You should try hitting a moving target at speed using this setup. I have adjusted fairly well to the challenges.
Now, for the answer to your problems, for those with failing vision … Several sight makers have attempted to help us old guys by creating sights that are 1. bigger, 2. brighter and 3. faster. The idea being that a larger front sight is easier to focus upon and more forgiving. I have to agree with the manufacturers that my visual acuity has come a long way with the enlarged front sight concept. Throw in the additional handicap of experiencing moderate color blindness and I become a nearly hopeless case. However, when I put a big optic-yellow, optic-green or bright white ball on the end of my pistol, magical things begin to happen. I can see – the front sight that is. Orange and red don’t do the trick for me but might work wonders for you.
XS sights makes a “Big Dot” front sight that is placed in a shallow V dovetail rear sight. A vertical line at the bottom of the V rear sight becomes “the stick” and the “Big Dot” becomes the lollipop. Put the lollipop on the stick and voila! Fast and accurate sighting, even at distance. It takes a bit of practice but the learning curve was acceptably short.
Ameriglo has created a snowman or figure-8 sight called the I-Dot of the same concept by placing a dot front sight and a dot in the middle of the rear sight. Simply stack the dots, one on top of the other (creating a snowman/figure 8) and a quick and clear sight picture is presented.
Both sets of sights are fast. Very fast. For combat shooting these sights work much better, in my humble opinion, for old eyes. Heck, they would have probably worked better when I had good vision. I have shot both sets of sights out to 25 yards and have no complaints with either set up. The Big Dot is a tad quicker at combat distances. The I-Dot allows me a slightly finer sight picture for 25-yard line work such as police qualifications. I feel no handicap with either style of sights.
While I tend not to dispense shooting advice freely, I am sold on these sights and hope you find some solace in them.
Dave Bates writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at alphaomegashootingsolutions@gmail.com