Why start new shooters with irons?

When is the last time you had the experience of iron sights fogging up or covered in
wet snow, mush et all?
For the hundred yard dash, would my eyes allow me, iron sights it would be.
 
I agree with those who said to start with irons, peep or open doesn't matter.

Its like knowing your math tables (add, subtract, multiply, divide manually as well). You can fall back on your irons if the scope fails.
 
As a high school shop teacher, it seems that the students we are getting as of late are unable to handle anything that requires finesse. In the past we taught the use of hand tools, not today, no need to use a hammer we have air nailers, no need to teach hand planes, got a jointer. So many new and young shooters are no doubt the same, just not interested in learning the details of mechanics.
 
Juster said:
In the British army they transitioned Infantry to 4x optics on the SA80 and scores improved.
New recruits got the same scores whether trained on irons or optics.
So learn good habits with irons, which will pay dividends when you get the luxury of optics.

Irons punish mistakes more severely than glass, encouraging good habits.
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Why work harder to achieve the same result? The conclusion I draw from this is that optics make it easier for everybody to make hits. The system that makes it easier to get good hits is the one that is most likely to encourage the beginner. While it certainly is a good thing to be able to use irons effectively, I'm not convinced that they must be mastered first.

Some more discussion can be found here:
http://mail.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=86301
 
tjhaile said:
Why work harder to achieve the same result? The conclusion I draw from this is that optics make it easier for everybody to make hits.
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The point was supposed to be that the best shots were trained on irons first.
Nowadays it is cheaper to hand out optics than to train people extensively. Around WW1 Infantry had fewer skills to master, so there was more time for the art of the rifle.

Nothing against glass of course.
 
Iron sights is what i prefer, i started hunting with a peep sight rifle, when my friends come hunting with me they laugh beacuse i have a cheap under 200$ rifle while they have rifles over 800$. The funny thing is that i showed them up. I shot a bear at 145 yards with peeps and he missed another bear at 125 yards with a huge scope.

I prefer open sights and will teach my children to use open sight first.
 
Juster said:
The point was supposed to be that the best shots were trained on irons first.
Nowadays it is cheaper to hand out optics than to train people extensively. Around WW1 Infantry had fewer skills to master, so there was more time for the art of the rifle.

Nothing against glass of course.
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I don't follow your logic. Even if scores were unchanged among new recruits, that scores went up overall suggests that they were eventually mastering a better standard of marksmanship. I would be interested to know if there was any change in time/round count required to attain a given standard. It shouldn't be a surprise that experienced users would have immediately improved results compared with someone who has never fired a rifle before.

Given limited training resources, it makes sense to expend the most effort to train with a setup that corresponds what you will actually be using. This applies for civilian, military, or law enforcement equally. If your main shooting interests call for scoped rifles, then you logically should emphasize optics in your practice. Likewise, if you wanted to shoot something like ISSF type competition or BPCR, you would need to shoot with iron sights.
 
Juster said:
The point was supposed to be that the best shots were trained on irons first.
Nowadays it is cheaper to hand out optics than to train people extensively. Around WW1 Infantry had fewer skills to master, so there was more time for the art of the rifle.

Nothing against glass of course.
Click to expand...


Agreed. Love my scoped guns, but enjoy getting good groupings with Irons.

It is a different skill set to acquire for sure. For quick and easy learning curve, a scope is like velcro runners.

But shoelaces TEACH you something. And that is invaluable.
 
It seems most guys here are assuming it's one or the other. It's not it's both. When I set out to teach my boys I wanted to do it the best way possible and the fastest way. It was easiest to teach them with a red dot, as we could focus on position stance hold trigger pull and breathing. We didn't have to fight with lining up 3 aiming points , just put the red dot on The target, this allowed them to focus on what I thought was important, the fundamentals of shooting. Once they became proficient at shooting I then removed the scope and introduced them to irons, which they mastered quickly. Because they were very good shots using a scope they were determined to improve with the irons as they were not quite as accurate. They knew what to correct and how to correct it without my help and became very good with irons Here we are three years later and they can outshoot me. Our experience was it was much easier for me the teahcer to tech them to shoot well by starting out with a scope then switching to irons rather than the other way around like my friends have done. I would never ever teach a beginner to shoot without a scope if I had a choice. All scopes and sights are, are aiming devices, why not make it easy when learning and use the easiest first working up to the harder later?

These are my thoughts and experiences just wondering what the general consensus was.
 
I started my kids shooting a pellet rifle in the basement using iron sights. Not sure if it helped or not as they didn`t develop the love of shooting that i have. It can be difficult to some younger kids to understand the need of lining up the sights properly but once the understand the concept do well. I have been teaching firearem safty since 76 and have started a lot on the way. I think i even allowed sksavenger to pass his saftey training way back when.:D
 
dizzy said:
It seems most guys here are assuming it's one or the other. It's not it's both. When I set out to teach my boys I wanted to do it the best way possible and the fastest way. It was easiest to teach them with a red dot, as we could focus on position stance hold trigger pull and breathing. We didn't have to fight with lining up 3 aiming points , just put the red dot on The target, this allowed them to focus on what I thought was important, the fundamentals of shooting.
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I am just starting out myself....I had not really considered the red-dot method until you explained here what you did.....I can see where you are interested in focusing on stance, trigger pull and the way it should feel when you are lining up a shot. THEN add the added problem of the iron sight after your body has figured out what a proper stance 'feels' like.

I had been going with the iron sight method but I think I will try this.

Thanks.
 
dizzy said:
It seems most guys here are assuming it's one or the other. It's not it's both. When I set out to teach my boys I wanted to do it the best way possible and the fastest way. It was easiest to teach them with a red dot, as we could focus on position stance hold trigger pull and breathing. We didn't have to fight with lining up 3 aiming points , just put the red dot on The target, this allowed them to focus on what I thought was important, the fundamentals of shooting. Once they became proficient at shooting I then removed the scope and introduced them to irons, which they mastered quickly. Because they were very good shots using a scope they were determined to improve with the irons as they were not quite as accurate. They knew what to correct and how to correct it without my help and became very good with irons Here we are three years later and they can outshoot me. Our experience was it was much easier for me the teahcer to tech them to shoot well by starting out with a scope then switching to irons rather than the other way around like my friends have done. I would never ever teach a beginner to shoot without a scope if I had a choice. All scopes and sights are, are aiming devices, why not make it easy when learning and use the easiest first working up to the harder later?

These are my thoughts and experiences just wondering what the general consensus was.
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Time for a Car Analogy :)

It's like teaching your kid to learn how to drive on a manual transmission first instead of an automatic. If you learn on an auto, it lets you focus on the task of actually driving, instead of being distracted by the mechanics of shifting.

The less variables you introduce to the task, the easier it is to learn.

That said while I prefer driving a manual, and shooting with optics.
 
Irons or scope get you shooting, I believe the scope gets new shooters to the end result faster than staring of with irons. End result being consistent accurate shooting
 
It is funny how many people have trouble with scopes, they either crowd the lens or do not instinctively know to center their eye in it because they haven't the feel for placing their head in the right position that they would were they already iron sight shooters.

If I had to make a beginner an effective rifleman to defend my Kibbutz in the next 5 minutes, I would pray for a red dot, or a halo.

As far as starting beginners out correctly, I don't know that it really maters what they start with. It does mater whether it is good quality, and a good fit, and appropriate to what they are interested in. A good trigger and fitting stock is a lot more important than the type of sights.

It is one of those funny things the media plays up. The shooter with the scope sights, who as a result is able to hold like a granite table, and make shots at all distances.
 
Iron sights encourage the development of better shooting form (requiring proper trigger control, the importance of holding a sight picture, etc.)

Novice shooters using scopes often learn to jerk the trigger when they think they're on target. Also, unlike irons, a scope magnifies the new shooter's movement/"wobbling", encouraging the shooter to jerk the trigger instead of squeezing off the shot.

Once the basics of good shooting form are mastered, the skills will transfer nicely to a rifle fitted with optics.

"learn 'em right..."
 
I am a big fan of iron sights for beginners.

The only issue I have with irons, is that people with vision challenges will not be able to shoot irons well. They may be young or old. They may get discouraged if they miss more than they hit so for these people, scopes will get them shooting accurately.

I am not talking about difficulty with scope technique, but vision problems like astigmatism/near and/or farsightedness, etc.

Speaking for myself, due to age-related issues, I can only see targets to 25 meters, if that:(. So a couple of my rifles have see-through scope mounts so I can enjoy shooting irons at short distances as well.
 
in the end I am not a fan of irons. They are old technology but good technology. Years ago no other sighting device was available. Over time things change. as for developing bad shooting habits, squeezing the trigger or jerking the trigger, those can be developed with either irons or scopes. The red dot scopes with no magnification have the same wobble rate that irons have, sure higher magnification scopes magnify the wobble. for me I don't believe that by making things more complicated you actually make them better, and this is one of those times where irons are a bit more complicated for a new shooter than a scope is. Just my thoughts, since this is all opinion anyhow as no-one is either right or wrong on the subject.
 
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