SKS Iron Sights as a rangefinder

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stokka

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To Moderators. Ignore it if the below is a common knowledge, otherwise you might want to pin the thread

OK, a crush course on Soviet iron sights :D

The whole horizon (360 degrees) is split in appr. 6000 sectors. Every part is called "one six thousand's" or on a military slang "thousand's".

The idea is to tie, as so to speak, an angle to a metric system. To illustrate it - on a distance of 100 Meters 0.1 meter will take exactly one thousand's. On a distance of 200 meters 0.2 meter will be the same one thousand's. On a distance of 500 you will see 0.5 meter still as one thousand's.

How does it help us? Let's get back to guns.

Iron sights on Mosin, SKS, AK and variations have the following size (in thousand's)

The width of the front sight pole is 2 thousdand's
The width of the rear sight cut is 6 thousand's
The depth of the rear sight cut is 3 thousand's

We know that average person has shoulders of 0.5M (I am sure that some forum members have way broader shoulders). On average a person is 1.7 meters tall. Somebody who is running crouching is 1.5 Meters tall and so on based on common sense.

Simple formula where
Distance to an object= D
Size of that object in metric system = S
Size of the same object in thousand's = A

D=(S*1000)/A

is used to calculate the distance.

So if your target is 50 centimeters wide (0.5 meters in metric) and it appears to be of the same width with the front sight pole, then the distance is 250 Meters. If it is half of the pole size, then it is 500 meters. Quick and dirty, but better then un-educated guess.

Please take the above characteristics of the factory sights into consideration, when thinking to replace them with aftermarket stuff. Some functionality might be lost.
 
This has largely become obsolete with introduction of optics, but this is still good to know. I did not have a clue. Thanks for bringing this up.
To be completely honest, I must admit that the vast majority of russian soldiers during WW1 and WW2, who used Mosin and could have been taught that concept, were actually shooting in the blue. Very few bullets reached the intended targets. If every russian soldier killed at least one german during WW2, it would have been over real quick.
 
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SVT-40

I hear what you say, but I also have to add that taking a good aim is not enough to win a war. Huge losses in the Soviet Army in the beginning of the war are also caused by many other factors.

While it is a vey interesting subject for discussion (to me anyway), it is also a bit off-topic.

Besides, I do not think optics on SKS is a good idea, but it is, probably, just me.
 
Good info, and on par with what I have read before, IMHO it would be a good sticky, as it is just that kind of knowledge that gets lost over time, and we all loose out from the loss of it.

It took me months to finally find info on how to use the cleaning kits the SKS's come with, and now I would never get rid of the little thing.

As far as optics are concerned I have full faith in the use and mounting of 'soviet equipment' on these rifles as an option...not so much on the after market stuff, but one does what they can with what they can afford or find.

Thanx again stokka for the sight info. :)
 
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