TargetTalk

First, thanks to everyone for helping with my recent question about eye dominance.

Okay, so here you go. My pistol has a basic black notched rear sight. The other day I tired someone's pistol on which they drilled the tiniest holes every in the rear sight and inserted a small loop of fiber optic thread he purchased at an archery shop. It looked great and worked! I can't see how my tiny rear notch could be drilled, but can anyone suggest a way to 'attach' a fiber optic thread like that? On his pistol it really helped me to keep the front black blade sight centered. ALSO, wonder how to attach a tiny fiber optic thread piece on top of the front blade. I guess super glue???? Thanks. Paula

IMHO fiber optics are for picking up sights in low light conditions, not helping you align your sights for 10 meter air pistol. A gun set up for hunting, defense or speed shooting is worlds away from 10 meter needs.
Black sights on a well lit target shooting a sub six hold should be able to net you all your pellets inside the 10 ring off the bench, try it and see. If you can shoot 10s off the bench, then you know it is all up to you, your hold, and trigger squeeze to shoot them unsupported.

There is one thing you should know before drilling those holes . Fiber optic sights are not allowed in ISSF or Olimpic shooting.

rmca wrote:There is one thing you should know before drilling those holes . Fiber optic sights are not allowed in ISSF or Olimpic shooting.

As I understand it, and I could be wrong , these pieces of fibre optic are either side of the rear sight notch to just give the appearance of two bright dots. You are not looking through the fibre optic.

If my understanding of what we are talking about is correct then there is no problem using them in ISSF matches. I would doubt that there is much (if any) benefit in using them.

These "easy way to easy points" ideas come up quite often, just like coloured sights. At the top level it would be very unusual to find anyone using anything other than plain black, square notched sights. If you are doing your job right then that's all you need.

shooting a sub six hold should be able to net you all your pellets inside the 10 ring off the bench

Brent375hh, does this mean resting the pistol on the bench?

Thanks for clarification

TommyH

TommyH wrote:

shooting a sub six hold should be able to net you all your pellets inside the 10 ring off the bench

Brent375hh, does this mean resting the pistol on the bench?

Thanks for clarification

TommyH

Yes. Bench, or some other solid object. Maybe a sturdy chair with sandbags or a rest, you get the idea. Once you find out that you can put 10 shots in the 10 ring, you can work on how to do it holding with one hand standing up.

Fiber optic sights and apertures are both forbidden by ISSF. If you drill any holes they may be taken to be apertures (especially on the front sight). The safe thing to do is to imagine if your modifications would pass the strictest possible interpretation of the rules. Eventually you will run into an official that takes things too seriously, and where does that leave you?

David

"8.4.1.3 Sights: see the PISTOL SPECIFICATION TABLE.
 Only open sights are allowed. Optical, mirror, telescope, laser-beam, electronically projected dot sights etc., are prohibited;
 Any aiming device programmed to activate the firing mechanism is prohibited;
 No protective covering is permitted on front or rear open sights;
 Correcting lenses and/or filters must not be attached to the pistol; and
 Corrective lenses or eyeglasses and/or filters or tinted lenses may be worn by the athlete."

I believe this is one of those cases where although it isn't written in black and white, it falls under the "etc." part of the rule.

As fiber optics doesn't have any advantages to ISSF style shooting, and depending on the EQ officer, it may be illegal (and in my view it is), I would suggest to citygirlinthesouth to leave her sights alone.

I am going to go out on a limb here with these observations:

It is not an optical sight - no lens involved
It is not a mirror sight - no mirrors involved
It is not a telescope - no lens or magnification involved
It is not a laser beam - no light projected, no laser
It is not an electronically projected dot sight etc. - no electronics

So I would say it is OK. In fact there is at least one SSP that has fiber optics on it, the Weihrauch HW40 PCA . It is a good starter gun IMHO at $220 aprox.

As far as I'm concerned, if you can look through the fibre optic in your normal shooting position and see the target then it is a covered optical sight.

If you can't, which is how I understand it, then it isn't.

I have fibre optics on the rear and front sight of my Weihrauch HW45 and I can tell you, they do absolutely zilch, if anything, a little distracting.

TommyH

Thanks to all for this great info. Can I simply paint my front black blade sight bright green like I have done on some of my .357 magnum revolvers? Is THAT permissible in a competition? The green works for me against dark paper targets.

citygirlinthesouth wrote:Thanks to all for this great info. Can I simply paint my front black blade sight bright green like I have done on some of my .357 magnum revolvers? Is THAT permissible in a competition? The green works for me against dark paper targets.

No problem at all under ISSF rules Paula.

Out of interest, unless you are talking about the ISSF 25m Rapid Fire target, most people will be area aiming in the white below the black aiming mark.

Black sights against black/grey/dark targets is not therefore an issue.

Even for the Rapid Fire target it's not normally a problem.