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Sight question for older shooters

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No firearm alteration peep sight option !

Below is photo of the eyeglass frame clip-on DEADEYE peep-sight I designed 55+ years ago to resolve my blurry vision open-sight issues in competition & hunting.

This setup will provide you with a clear picture of front & rear sights & your target.
Back in my younger competition days I provided several of my fellow competitor friends with these & always received grins with the results.
This peep sight can be made for less than $12.00. The jewelers loupe can be purchased from Harbor Frt. for about $5.00 or ordered off Amazon for about $10.00.
For the black optics disc I've always used the bottom of a 35m film canister & use the removed glass lense as your pattern. Start with drilling a .040 dia. hole in the center for your aperture for clarity, I use .060 in mine.
The arm can be tweaked to conform to your eyeglass needs & nice benefit is the eyepiece swivels out of your line of vision when not needed between matches.

As usual there are always forum naysayers to this option but it sure beats sticking a piece of gooey tape on your lense & altering your upper barrel flat with holes & dovetails.
Relic shooter

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Besides age, I've got the problem of the loss of my right eye. With only one eye, my sighting alternatives are more limited.
 
I have an unmentionable with a peep sight that folds down into the tang area. I am more accurate with that sight than any other. I was a RH shooter for 50 years, but ARMD has made me into a southpaw. NOT an easy transition.
I went the opposite way from southpaw to RH shooter after a pacemaker implant. I still shoot handguns southpaw. Sometimes I think I should have changed years earlier. It would have given me a wider assortment of guns to buy!
 
@Crow#21957, what we are talking about is a diopter attachment to fit on your prescription or shooting glasses. These operate on the function of a pinhole lense to greatly increase the depth of field to provide a great range of the sighting field to be in focus. This is much like peep sight. It's enough of an advantage that it is not allowed in some matches.

Here is a simple diopter that uses a suction cup to attach the diopter to the glasses.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1015159971
 
I lost my right eye, started shooting left hand, then cateract surgery in both eyes in the last few months sealed the deal. I can't see either sight well enough. So I gave up and bought a NW trade gun with a 26" barrel, and a big, thick front sight.😏
 
I find a set of reading glasses that let me focus on the front sight and I am fine (as good as its gonna get). I can put a piece of skotch tape over my right lens about halfway across the right side of the lens or block that field of view that my right eye would see if I looked at the sight and target. This lets me keep both eyes open and I don't get confused at my sight picture.
At the range I just use a weak pair of reading glasses and I am good. I read with 3X but shoot with 1/5X or 1.75X.
 
Aperture sights on the tang are the way to go with aging eyes and open sights because you have one less focal plane for your eyes to focus on. With an aperture rear one looks through and ignores any notion of centering from the rear as your eye will do it naturally and only focus on the front blade and target. Also rear apertures are easily opened for more light to come through without much if any loss of aim accuracy.
The other thing is to make a much wider front blade sight which will give far better definition against targer or game than will the traditional fine blade front. A wide front blade shows better definition both in windage and elevation than does a thin front blade and is easier for ageing eyes to focus on . Next stop will be scope sights.
Agreed for the most part. However, a peep is not only for aging eyes. It also enhances accuracy on younger people as well. One needs to look no further than the military and how the standard sights for their rifles were peep sights. I doubt there were many real old soldiers, eh?

Also, even when my vision was better when I was younger, my accuracy increased by installing a larger peep with a smaller front bead. It most definitely helped for longer distance shooting.

After installing a peep and finer front bead on my Crockett rifle my success rate on squirrels went from 50% to 95% +. In short, I miss much less.

Indeed, individual vision is a factor. However, for most folks it is common knowledge that the closer to the eye a peep is, the better one can see and shoot.

A proper size peep mounted closer to the eye and a proper size front bead is key. After reading some replies and posts from some folks on forums relating to peeps, its to my belief that one of the main reasons people try to deny a peep is by not finding the right combination and simply refusing to give them an honest chance.
 
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I did set my rear sight further out in the last guns I built for myself. It does help.
However, you can also gain a lot by widening the notch in the rear sight, and putting a front sight with a wider blade on. I did that to a couple rifles, and after getting cataracts removed, have welded the rear notches up a bit to narrow them again.
 
I find a set of reading glasses that let me focus on the front sight and I am fine (as good as its gonna get). I can put a piece of skotch tape over my right lens about halfway across the right side of the lens or block that field of view that my right eye would see if I looked at the sight and target. This lets me keep both eyes open and I don't get confused at my sight picture.
At the range I just use a weak pair of reading glasses and I am good. I read with 3X but shoot with 1/5X or 1.75X.
I found that readers in the 0.5 or 0.75 diopter range were the best to put the front sight in focus. These low power readers were promoted for use at a computer terminal. The only ones I found were very cheap and scratched easily. They also don't offer the protection of even cheap safety glasses, but they do work to get that front sight in focus and the target is only slightly blurred with the rear sight clear enough to center the front sight. I had to look on E-Bay or Amazon to find the readers. I did get the cataract surgery and now I don't need the readers. I feel better using my quality safety glasses.
 
At the range I just use a weak pair of reading glasses and I am good. I read with 3X but shoot with 1/5X or 1.75X.
Tried the reading glasses thing 1.5 and it worked good. Three shots touching at 25y and evil Roy dead center at 50y. Also easy target made from you wives shepherd hook plant hangers and a little welding, had the steel from cowboy action shooting.
 

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I find the peep sights work fine at the range but not so much hunting in evening low light. I have a lyman 57 on one of my GPRs and even removing the rear aperture completely, I loose the most important 10 min of the day.
 
I find the peep sights work fine at the range but not so much hunting in evening low light. I have a lyman 57 on one of my GPRs and even removing the rear aperture completely, I loose the most important 10 min of the day.
No disrespect intended here, and I do not know your particular vision issues, but the facts are it works just the opposite. The smaller the sight(s) the more difficult they are to see in poor light conditions. A ghost ring or large aperture will gain you precious minutes of hunting in early morning/late evening, not lose.

Again, there's a darn good reason why militaries used peeps for so many years. Soldiers had to shoot in all the different light conditions to survive.
 
We see about 10% of original American long rifles were smooth rifles and made that way
The advantage of shot or ball makes sense, and even out on the frontier shot was sold in large amounts, so we can be sure a lot of less economical shots were being taken
I THINK guys bought smooth rifles because a rifle had become the mythic gun by the dawn of the nineteenth century for an American.
However uncorrected vision that even young folks often have trouble with just didn’t make rifle shooting needed. So a man got a smoothie that could kill a deer or red/coat/skin as needed or small game too, and yet look like ‘everyone else’s’ rifle gun.
 
I replaced my rear sight with one that has a much taller blade. I drilled a hole in it at the height of the original sight and made a "peep" sight replacing the original rear sight. I then filed it a bit to shape it like one that fits the period of the rifle.
It works great but it might shave off a couple of minutes of hunting time early and late in the day due to the light factor but it puts me on target and keeps me hunting.
 
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