Rear sight placement on traditional long rifles????
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The usual rear sight is that far forward because it can still be within an acceptable degree of focus. If it were closer to your eye when you focus on the front blade or pip the rear would be hopelessly fuzzy and useless.
You can try this easily enough for yourself. With one of your iron sight guns shift your head well forward so your eye is right by the rear of the action. Even being that extra 6 inches forward will cause the rear notch to go fuzzier enough that it's nearly impossible to use it accurately.
The real solution if you want a longer baseline AND still maintain good optical clarity is a peep sight mounted on the rear of the action instead of usual notched blade that has to be up somewhere in the middle of the barrel. Even with a larger size hole as needed for use in lower light levels the rear peep sight offers both a faster sight picture acquisition and similar or better accuracy potential. And if the rear peep uses a smaller size hole it can be as accurate as a scope for closer to moderate distances.
Now obviously we aren't going to mount rear peep sights on a cap or flint lock long gun. But for such firearms as old lever rifles a rear tang mounted sight or an old period correct receiver mounted rear peep can be an option. For example there was a very effective side mount rear peep sight setup that was available for a Winchester 1886 lever rifle that mounted to the left side of the receiver that was sold back in that time period.
You can try this easily enough for yourself. With one of your iron sight guns shift your head well forward so your eye is right by the rear of the action. Even being that extra 6 inches forward will cause the rear notch to go fuzzier enough that it's nearly impossible to use it accurately.
The real solution if you want a longer baseline AND still maintain good optical clarity is a peep sight mounted on the rear of the action instead of usual notched blade that has to be up somewhere in the middle of the barrel. Even with a larger size hole as needed for use in lower light levels the rear peep sight offers both a faster sight picture acquisition and similar or better accuracy potential. And if the rear peep uses a smaller size hole it can be as accurate as a scope for closer to moderate distances.
Now obviously we aren't going to mount rear peep sights on a cap or flint lock long gun. But for such firearms as old lever rifles a rear tang mounted sight or an old period correct receiver mounted rear peep can be an option. For example there was a very effective side mount rear peep sight setup that was available for a Winchester 1886 lever rifle that mounted to the left side of the receiver that was sold back in that time period.
As you get older, your eyes are less able to focus on both sights and the target. Moving the rear sight forward brings all items closer to being the same focal distance and your rear sight becomes less fuzzy. I think the rear sight on several of my guns is around 14" forward of the breach end of the barrel. Prior to lens replacement surgery, I also used "reading" glasses that focussed at about 3 feet for me. That gave me a clear sight picture and at 100 yards I could see about 90% of the target
cheers mooncoon
cheers mooncoon
It is common practice when building a custom longrifle to install the front sight and slide the rear sight along the barrel while shouldering the gun to find the most rearward location where both sights are in focus. It is not uncommon to find an old original longrifle with a filled dovetail and the rear sight moved forward - most likely to accomodate deteriorating eyesight. In my experience, the rear sight usually ends up a little behind the lower thimble, although it has been creeping forward as my eyesight deteriorates.
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Some time back I restored 2 matchlocks of Persian origin-circa 1640. They both had peep sights as part of the base of the breech plug. Made for a vey long sight line and perhaps the source of their legendary accuracy. Also have a flinter original with the filled dovetail and sight moved about 2 inches forward- turned out that the barrel had been shortened from the breech end perhaps because of burn out over years of shooting and the touch hole area was too far gone. Rest of the piece was in good shape and it is now a fine shooter. Again as mooncoon opined- as eyesight wanes the further forward position helps us older folks out.
Of course the eye can only focus on ONE item at a time. The idea is to set the spacing so that the target and rear sights are not sharply in focus but are at an ACCEPTABLE degree of fuzziness that allows them to be used well when the front sight is sharply in focus.
For those that have played with the more serious photography as a hobby it's the same as discussing "depth of field" where the parts of the picture not actually at the focused distance will at least have a low enough softness of focus that they are acceptable.
On brighter sunny days we can gain some depth of field by using tricks such as the stick on peep apertures on our shooting glasses to trick our eyes into thinking it has a smaller iris opening. We lose a little brightness at the gain of an increase in our depth of field.
For those that have played with the more serious photography as a hobby it's the same as discussing "depth of field" where the parts of the picture not actually at the focused distance will at least have a low enough softness of focus that they are acceptable.
On brighter sunny days we can gain some depth of field by using tricks such as the stick on peep apertures on our shooting glasses to trick our eyes into thinking it has a smaller iris opening. We lose a little brightness at the gain of an increase in our depth of field.
