the fuzzy sights and old eyes

[east texas]

hey everybody ive got that shortarm disease that comes with the over 50 club and dont have enough income to spring for the laser work .so the sights are pretty fuzzy! i have a couple of long rifels cause i thought the length would help.not enough!! ive read about the electrical tape trick but wondered if any of the other geezers might have a trick or 2 they might share? what i have done so far is use a chansaw file on the rear sight to open it up and replaced the blade front with a small machine screw with a round head .the screw is much more visible thru the (hole) rear now as i couldnt even see the blade sight i dont do re-enacting so i dont have that is it correct problem i put meat on the table! is there maybe a color i could put on the front to help or any other advice yall could give to help an old blind guy tighten up the groups? im able to put 5 in the size of my fist at 50 yards but would like to do a little better. oh and i noticed ,you ask one too many questions on here you lose your pilgrim status!! i was kinda liking that ! thanx in advance mike

 

[Otter]

BTDT. I've had to move the rear sight down the barrel a bit on a couple of long rifles. Take the one mounted now out of the dovetail (assuming that's how the current one is fixed to the barrel) and tape it on and shoulder it. Redo as necessary until you find "the spot". Mark the location and put a new dovetail at that place. Make a steel piece to plug the old dovetail, shape and finish. I have seen several originals in museums with several sets of old dovetails that showed up as the owner "gained more life experience".

 

[Homesteader]

Laser jobs don't work for old man's eyes, for what it's worth. The inability to focus close is due to a hardening of the eye's proteins, which they can't fix yet. (As I understand it.)

I had PRK done a few years ago, and I can now see very well at distance but the rear sight on my rifles "ghost" out on me. I've personally gotten to know how to set the front blade in the faded out rear sight on my flintlock rifle, and use a peep sight on my percussion. It seems to be one of those things we just have to deal with as we age.

Personally, I find I shoot my smoothies more often these days. No rear sight to worry about, and in these eastern woods 50 or 60 yards is about it anyway.

 

[east texas]

well..... i guess its good to know that the lasics wouldnt work anyway what eastern woods are ya in? i dont often get a long shot here in the pineywoods either but sometimes when the acorns hit the ground theres oak trees tn the middle of pastures thats 100 yds or a little better and i have to let some shots go cause i cant see the sights and the deer at the same time! reading glasses will let me see the sights but not the critter! frustrating adjusting to getting long in the tooth!!

 

[Snow on the Roof]

Laser jobs don't work for old man's eyes, for what it's worth. The inability to focus close is due to a hardening of the eye's proteins, which they can't fix yet. (As I understand it.)

I had PRK done a few years ago, and I can now see very well at distance but the rear sight on my rifles "ghost" out on me. I've personally gotten to know how to set the front blade in the faded out rear sight on my flintlock rifle, and use a peep sight on my percussion. It seems to be one of those things we just have to deal with as we age.

Personally, I find I shoot my smoothies more often these days. No rear sight to worry about, and in these eastern woods 50 or 60 yards is about it anyway.

Homesteader is dead on. I had lasik at 45, the first thing the surgeon said was "I can fix your long vision but I can't change the fact you're 45.." Today I can see the Born to Fly tatoo on a 'skeeter's rump at 100 yards but I can't read a newspaper, at least with the left eye I'm nearly blind in the right. Any way I found that a cheap pair of "cheaters" ie: dime store reading glasses work well to clear up the rearsight. I found 150's worked for me but, to quote Roundball, " your milage may vary"...

 

[majg1234]

find an optometrist that will work with you,and not just flip through the lenses on his machine asking "IS THIS BETTER OR IS THIS" the guy I went to see happened to like ML and even wanted to see my flinter he did some measurement on site radius etc and made a set of glasses which work very well the rear site is much clearer than before and I see well @ a distance with them (I do have astigmatisim and some "short arm" reading problems of course this may not work for every one

 

[east texas]

yeah im using 3.00 to read my distance vision is great but anything within four feet needs a little help

 

[cgg]

Same here. I had laser surgery at about 42 for my distance vision and that has been great. Went from over 20/200 in both eyes to 20/30 left and 20/20 right, but as I got older I still needed reading glasses. Now, at 50, I have bifocal shooting glasses that help with reading (and seeing my lock and priming, etc.) and give me 20/15 distance vision, but open sights are still tough to see.

It has helped me to move my rear sights out to 10 or 11" from the breech end and open the rear sight notches wider. I have also come to like longer and longer barrels--I can see the front sight if I get it far enough away :shake: :haha:

 

[ohio ramrod]

My solutions so far have been 1. An Ivory insert front sight. 2. Moving the rear sight further out the barrel. 3. And for personal shooting and hunting, adding a third flip up peep to focus the rear and front sights. While the peep isn't allowed in competition it really helps put the open sights into focus. :hmm:

 

The simplest solution is to get a vernier tang rear peep sight. I learned to love the things long before I got old. Looking through the peep brings the front sight into sharp focus for me. Another option is to get a little device used by some benchrest shooters. It's a little disk of metal with a peep in it that clips on to your glasses. The disk can be swung down in front of your eye when needed and up out of the way otherwise. This is the same thing as the hole in the electrical tape except that the disk can be moved and you don't have to clean sticky tape residue off your glasses at the end of the day.

If you don't care how authentic your rifle looks, take a gander at Williams Fire Sights. They make models to fit muzzleloaders. The front and rear sights have fiber optic tubes that gather and intensify light so that they appear to glow. You will see a bright dot in each side of the rear sight notch and a single dot in the front. Makes sight alignment much easier for old eyes. The only drawback is that the darker the day gets the less the sights appear to glow.

As others have noted, you can move the rear sight forward on the barrel and get a rifle with a really long barrel. Just as a side note, nobody can see the rear sight, front sight, and the target in focus at the same time regardless of how young or old they may be. Your eye can only focus on one at a time. Back when you thought you were seeing all three in focus your eye was actually shifting focus rapidly from one to the other. Shooting instructors tell you to focus on the front sight only. Center it in the blurry rear notch and align it on the slightly blurry target.

I'm giving serious thought to getting a smooth bore. I don't think I ever shot a deer much over 70 yards back when I was young and had 20/15 vision anyway. Setting a new limit of 50 yards for myself isn't that big a deal. My limit with a traditional bow is 20 yards.

John

 

[bobman]

I read with number 3 reading glasses but find a pair of number 1's give me a perfect sight picture and allow me to see off in the distance without distortion.

you might try that first

 

[necchi]

Good advise here with peeps, and I've heard from fellers that use the "ghost rings" find an advantage also.
FWIW, I where glasses and have for 40yrs but my eyes still digress.
Last year I was really beginning to notice the tuff time trying to line everything up. A topic here posed nearly the same question as this and the helpfull rule was to just focus on the front blade and target, that helped. Still tuff at the 100yrd range though.

I just got a new script for my spec's (tri-focals) and talked with the doc about shooting glasses, he gave me another script that's basically a .5 or half magnification of the normal script across the entire lense. Don't know if I'll need'm yet but the script is there.

Point is, .5 magnification is whats recomended by my shooting Optomitrist doctor, so maybe if you can find readers in 1/2 mag they'll help. anything more and distance focus is gone.

 

[ohio ramrod]

If you are considering getting "shooting glasses" I usually wear trifocals but for trap shooting I had a pair of glasses made with just the longer range lenses and find that it helps my rifle shooting as well. Loading is touchy but the shooting is nice! :idunno:

 

[larry wv]

.5 may be the way to go. With number 1s I can see the sights real well but after 25 yds things get bad fast. If the .5s work it will be a way for me to go. Larry

 

[Pete Gaimari]

You really should try the tape with a hole in it on your glasses. You'll be amazed how it brings both sights and the target in focus.

It worked great for me until this last operation. Blind in one eye and now my good eye is trash.

I've had to do something I swore i'd never do. I do it or give up hunting. That's not an option for me. My eye doctor has filled out a form, and the DOW has issued me a special permit to use a scope during ML season. I hate it, but it's much more humane for the game. I'm using a fixed 4x scope now.

Anyway, try the tape. It works!

 

[larry wv]

Don't blame you Capper better than sittin on a couch and getting old. Around here Doctors are handing out a few crossbow permits to people who don't have a valid reason for not being able to draw a regular bow. If a person loves to hunt and the rules can be legally and honestly bent a bit I say good deal. Larry Wv

 

[BruceB]

There used to be a barrel mounted peep sight that had an old time look to it, but a quick look in both the DGW and TotW catalogs don't show it anymore. It had a long spring base to it. I was going to see about putting one on my Mowrey .45. but like a lot of things I've waited too long to get one!

 

[mocons]

+1 for the reading glasses, and the peep sight too. The reading glasses have been the fix for me though you may have to try different focal lengths to find the right mix of "a little blurry out there and OK up close". I find the 1.25's work great for me.

 

[Pete Gaimari]

Well, as blind as I am. I can't bring myself to use a scope.

I'll just have to get real close, or no meat in the freezer. :idunno:

 

[DanC]

I gotta agree with ya Pete. I've had very few rifles of any kind that had scopes. So, even tho I'm not very PC minded, there's just no way I could put a scope on a sidelock.

Dan