Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009 - 62

but they may offer the kind of sighting system more familiar to deer hunters. The Ashley Aperture Ghostring Hunting Sight matches most existing mounting holes and offers adjustability for windage, elevation and a visible front post inside the wider black front sight. This is a good choice for deer hunting applications. Open Iron Sights Another problem for the over-50 crowd is the ability to see their open sights clearly. What does that mean for a shooter, though? It means that it’s time to make some changes. The rear sight that is standard equipment on muzzleloading rifles, either open iron, aperture or fiber optic, is placed in its position for the average 20/20 eyesight capable hunter. When farsighted individuals look through these sights at a distant target, the rear sight becomes fuzzy to the point of uselessness. Why put up with this? You or a gunsmith can make your rifle a “farsighted wonder” by simply moving the rear sight forward. This cleans up the sight picture and does not make the rifle less accurate. A fuzzy sight picture does that. Sure, someone might joke about the cosmetics of your tinkering, but there is nothing like success to silence critics. A great compromise for those who demand the accurate sighting system provided by metallic sights is found in a small bottle of model paint. Blue and yellow colors stimulate the cones inside the retina, resulting in a dramatic sight picture that will literally make the dead center hold leap into your eyes. Put a stroke of blue on the front sight as it is a color not found in the forest, field or coat of a deer. The stripe of blue, particularly on a background of snow, when iron sights are more difficult to see, will improve your chances of a successful shot. A thin swipe of yellow along the top of the rear sight will help your eyes center the front blade in the rear notch, and the discrimination of the edges will be vastly improved. Fiber Optic Sights The telecommunications industry was the first to profit from the light transmitting properties of bundles of tiny plastic fibers. Fiber optic beads gather ambient light and transmit it to the end of the sight, creating a startling bright dot that looks almost battery-powered. There is no contest in aiming a fiber optic sight compared to an open iron set, as the fiber optics are much easier to discriminate in low light. There are problems with fiber optics, though. Target shooters know that the fiber optic sights do not provide the minute-ofangle accuracy that open iron sights do. This is particularly true when shooting in the bright daylight, where the edges of the green and red fibers are more difficult to discriminate. In strong daylight, the top of the fiber optic is difficult to judge, many times resulting in a shot to go low and under the intended target. In the subdued light of the forest, and particularly in hunting conditions, however, fiber optic sights are definitely an advantage. Fiber optic sights absorb the low light of dawn and dusk and create a more visible sight profile than iron. Today, there are many after market brands of sights that will fit a dovetailed sight to your octagon barrel, or bolt fast to your rounded barrel. HI VIZ Shooting Systems, TRUGLO, Williams Fire Sight, and RMC AIMRIGHT are some of the popular aftermarket brands available to hunters. If you are not ready to change the original condition of that deer getter, but still want to improve your sight picture, try paint. Many of us already do this with White-Out, or model paint, but there are easy to apply phosphorescent paints that greatly enhance sights. The bottom line: You can’t shoot what you can’t see! These sights are a definite advantage in low light conditions, but they won’t give the precise sight picture of the iron sights. While precise sight pictures are necessary for 10x competition, it could be argued that GAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009