TargetTalk

Hi Guys.
Im considering purchasing a new small bore rifle[prone shooting only]and am interested in peoples advice on rear sight selection.Ive looked at probably all the available options but have only ever had factory sight that have come with the rifle at the time of purchase.
So....

Quality is important.

I have watched many WC matches and note that alot of the guys have a front bubble but not everyone has a canting sight.Is it important to have a canting fuchtion?

Has anyone had any bad experiences with makes that should be avoided?

Any feedback welcomed.Thanks

First, the front sight, some have a bubble outside, some have a bubble on the inside, others have a set of adjustable "whiskers" that form an artificial horizon and I suppose there are a few who don't use any kind of cant indicator but just pick up how some part of the front sight or other bit on the front of the rifle aligns with something down range.

As for rear sights. Is the canting function a requirement?, in a word "no". Plenty of outstanding scores have been fired with both canting and fixed rear sights. Far more important are sights that are repeatable, put ten clicks in and take them out and you are back at the same place.

I have not heard any complaints about any of the recent factory sights, ie Anschutz, Walther, FWB. Centra makes some fine sights if you feel like spending the scratch, the main advantage to some of the Centra sights is a reduced profile which is supposed to make it easier to see the range flags and wind conditions downrange.

I have heard of some of the less expensive sights running out of travel when trying to shoot 100 yards with a bloop tube but that is on a case by case basis.

Now, you say you are looking at a new prone rig. If you have lots of experience under your belt this may be something you want to study and make a decision that meets some need you might have. If you are pretty new to this, don't get too fancy or weirded out regarding which sight to get. Worry more about a quality iris/filter to screw into the rear sight and if you need vision correction, proper adjustable frame shooting glasses with a prescription that allows you to focus on the front sight.

Good Luck
'Dude

Excellant reply and thank you for the time taken to build it.

look at www.hpsight.com

dege41

Dude,

I only compete in SB prone matches a few times a year. Half the matches are indoors (50 ft) because of the cold weather and the other half are outside in the Summer.

My rifle is an Anschutz 1913 with a 12" bloop tube that I have a 30mm Rite site attached. So there are the basics.

Now here is my question. Indoors, the standard Anschutz rear sight is just fine. You are not adjusting the sight for any wind factors.

Outside, that same sight is a pain in the rump because of all the clicks required to more the bullet.

I would be interested to see just how many use a CF rear sight like a PNW, Warner, or such for the outdoor (50 and 100 yd shooting) matches.

It would seem that a sight with adjustments that are not quite so fine would be more of an advantage when shooting outdoors in the wind.

Thoughts?

Bob

Did you look at the hpsight web page?

We also make the HP sight with 1/4 Min clicks

Dan

In thinking about setting up a new rifle for SB prone shooting, don't overlook the 30mm front sights. They offer a great view of the target as well as being very adjustable for the different ranges.

You don't really have to worry about the adjustment range of the rear sight when you use a front sight that has a large range of vertical adj.

Just my thoughts.

Bob

30mm front sight.Flamin heck thats huge!!Are we talking about 50 metere still?

Ive never heard of that before.I use 22mm and I remember when they came out people were in disbelief of how big they were compared with the standard 18mm.lol

'3700

This does raise an interesting point, as the clicks get finer and the bloop tubes get longer you can spend all day turning that knob just to get the bullet to move 1/2 a ring. Part of this is marketing, there are folks out there trying to "buy tens" who are convinced that they need this level of refinement. Damn few of them shoot well enough to be able to say that their zero is truely half a bullet width one way or the other. Then at the World Cup level, those guy and gals know pretty much exactly where their zero is and can use the refinement to get it where it needs to be.

Now the next problem, go back to the part about the bloop tube. Back before bloop tubes when all barrels tended to be within an inch or two of each other in length, a manufacturer could just say that sights were 1/4, 1/6 or 1/8 minute clicks and that was the end of it. Now with bloop tubes you end up looking at the ratio of the new sight radius to the old sight radius to get a multiplier for the new number of clicks to move the same distance. Hence a "1/8 minute" sight with a 12 inch bloop tube on something like your 1913 can be come a "1/11 minute" sight.

If you look carefully, Centra rates their sights in impact change at 10m. My guess is this is because at 10m we still have fixed length barrels and sight systems. You have to do the math for your rig to figure out what is going to happen at 50m. Using a standard barrel length the Centra sights that are rated 0.2mm per click work out to be about 1/15 minute clicks while the 0.25mm per click end up being 1/12 minute clicks.

Windy conditions, yup it is a pain, but consider that on the 50m international target the 10 ring is smaller than the X ring on the American 50 yard (A-23) target. Top shooters do need some pretty extreme refinement to stay on and inside the ten ring, to a much greater degree than American shooters on the American target.

For really crappy wind conditions I do have an old set of Anschutz "L" framed sights with the bar sticking out of the windage knob. On those the clicks are coarser (1/6 minute) and all I had to remember was where the bar was pointed for a particular condition. For me it was the cheap solution as I already had them due to the fact that was pretty much the standard sight a zillion years ago when I started shooting.

For outdoor work, I pretty much concentrate on international prone shooting so I am willing to deal with the finer clicks on my European sights. And yes, for some basic adjustments I will often just automatically take 3 clicks where I used to take one with an old Anschutz sight and no bloop tube. This past summer I was also spending some time working on my shading techniques. After really getting my corrective lens sorted out I can see well enough again to do that.

Is this a good satisfying answer, well, I will have to admit, probably not. But this is one of those situations where you need to pick your poison and drink the one you figure will pain you the least.

Cheers,
'Dude

Wow what an indepth reply.Thank you.

The one thing that I would say re "gimmickry" is that quite simply if the the regulars at WC were using them then they may be worth looking at.

I dont see Eric U or Sergei using anything that sticks out as a new product or a must have.Just totally connected to the job at hand....Hit the middle!

I use the regular old Anschutz 7020 rear sight. Most repeatable clicks I've ever used. Yes, it can be a pain when shooting American prone going from 50 to 100. I don't count clicks for that though...just revolutions. I go up 4-1/2 revolutions from 50 yards to 100 yards. Beats counting out 90 clicks.

I did get a Warner rear sight to try out on those one or two ranges in the world where I need to see the close flags better while looking through the sights. I haven't used it yet, but it is sitting on my workbench ready to go.

Eric U

As with much in life there are two marketing principals:

It's NEW so it must be better.

or

It's OLD so it must be better.

Neither is necessarily true though of course.

I got a 7020 this year and I would concur with Eric that it's clicks are very consistent and repeatable. It makes things much more predictable if you know that (say) 12 clicks will take your POA from a 10.0 on one side to a 10.0 on the other. I could never definitively say that with my old sights...

Being cantable is nice but not a deal breaker - the Hammerli is also a highly regarded rearsight and that isn't.

Reliability is very important in a rearsight. Personally, I'd go for solidity and repeatability over gimmickry.

K.

In the "for what it is worth" department,

I have a set of 20 year old Hammerlis. (one for my AR the other for my prone gun). They are way more repeatable than I am these days.

To pick up on or reiterate things implied by Eric U and KennyB, new is nice but not necessarily better. In this sport, having a reliable piece of equipment that you thoroughly understand and know how it is going to behave or react in various conditions is the key to top performance.

Cheers,
'Dude

Eric U wrote:I use the regular old Anschutz 7020 rear sight. Most repeatable clicks I've ever used. Yes, it can be a pain when shooting American prone going from 50 to 100. I don't count clicks for that though...just revolutions. I go up 4-1/2 revolutions from 50 yards to 100 yards. Beats counting out 90 clicks.

I did get a Warner rear sight to try out on those one or two ranges in the world where I need to see the close flags better while looking through the sights. I haven't used it yet, but it is sitting on my workbench ready to go.

Eric U

Off subject: When are you going to start up your operation again?
Ed

Dude,

Thanks for the reply.

I shoot the SB matches to keep tuned for the MR and LR centerfire matches that are my passion.

My 1913 does have one of the older "L" sights and I find that with the bloop tube, it takes 5 clicks just to move one bullet hole distance. Indoors no problem but outside, what a pain.

Have a Warner rear that I am going to experiment with outside to see how much (if any) better it is shooting in the wind and making adjustments that I can keep track of. We centerfire folks are used to thinking in terms of minutes of correction and knowing what sight correction is on the gun at any given time.

So I am trying to correlate the corrections between the two disciplines.

10-4 on the shading. With the longer sight radius, I found that it was easier and more consistent to shade (in a given wind condition) than to click. It worked very well that day at both 50 and 100 yds.

Bob

I use the 7020 rear sight. I really like it. I enjoy the fine clicks and being able to fine tune it to exactly where I want it. I came from a highpower background, so I have used both coarse and fine clicks. And I much prefer the fine.

Most of the prone shooting I do is in NRA Conventional and Metric prone. Even at 100 Yards the clicks don't bother me. I like being able to get my group exactly where I want it in the X ring.

I don't click for most wind condition changes. I get my condition that I want to shoot in and shoot in that. If it picks up just a little bit, I will shade. If it picks up more, I will wait.
Matt

Man alive you blokes that shade and manage to hit the dot in off wind and flicky rubbish really have my admiration.That is a skill that can have horrific results....lol.
That surely is years of practice.Something I could never get mastered so its clicking for me

Eric U,

You mention the Warner Rear sight, which looks like a excellent piece of gear, with battleship sturdyness.

Do you or anyone you know have any opinion on the Centra Base 10-50? It is a similar style to the Warner but looks nice and short and is perhaps not quite as spendy.

Thanks,
'Dude

Bob3700

I tinker with some big bore service rifles. I am on the other side of the equation, those clicks seem pretty industrial. I am impressed when one of my clubmates pulls out a rifle and a little book, fiddles with the sight for about 15 seconds and is zeroed for the range.

On the flip side with my SB, unless I am in the refinement stages I don't really count clicks, I think more in terms of 1/4 turn or 1/2 on the adjustment turret.. it goes quicker.

There is really no good one size fits all answer.

Cheers,
'Dude

Dude,

I've got a couple of the Centra rear sights that I used for 300m. They worked well but I wanted finer clicks for 50m so I bought another sight to try. There was a manufacturer defect in that sight that I tried to get fixed at the World Championships in Munich last summer. Their fix didn't work so I'm still not able to use the sight. When I go back to Munich again this spring I'll try to get it exchanged.

I was the same as you...the Centra looks like a Warner with direct dovetail mount and is cheaper. Worked fine on my 300m guns. What's not to like? I've had zero problems with my other two Centra sights I have, so the newer one is probably just an anomaly. I bit the bullet on the Warner because they have the reputation as being the best sight on the market. Many guys on both the AMU IR and SR teams use Warner and won't use anything else.

Eric U