Slow is the name of the game here because you cannot replace metal that you remove. Windage adjustments can be made by slightly removing a bit of metal from the rear sight groove with a needle file. The top of the front sight is level with the top of the groove or rear sight.įixed sights on a revolver can be regulated to a certain extent, but it takes a very careful hand to do so. An equal distance between the inside edges of the rear sight centers the front sight for windage. To use the fixed sight, the arm is pointed toward the target with the front sight either in the middle of the target or at the bottom, depending on how it is regulated. Many percussion revolvers had a notch in the hammer’s nose that was to serve as the rear sight. Most shotguns intended as game guns do not have a rear sight the shooter’s eye fulfills that function. Semi-automatic pistols often have a fixed rear sight dovetailed into the slide. A fixed rear sight is often a machined groove in the top strap of a revolver. The front sight may be a half-moon-shaped blade integral to the barrel, or it may be staked or dovetailed to the barrel just before the muzzle. Most rifles have sights that can be adjusted the exception being rifles intended to be used with optical sights only. Typically, they are found on service handguns and shotguns. Let’s take a closer look at these things we call sights and determine the best way to utilize them.įixed sights are sights without mechanisms to allow them to be regulated for a particular load. Rifled arms-both rifle and pistol-featured sighting systems ranging from rudimentary to relatively sophisticated.
By the time of the percussion-ignited musket, adjustable sights-usually with just the rear sight being adjustable-became common. Elevation and windage cover the three planes of a bullet’s path, and sight systems are designed to allow predictable and repeated hits on a target over the effective distance that a firearm can deliver a projectile.Īs projectile, fuel and ignition technology developed and became more sophisticated, so did the sighting systems that enabled shooters to be more accurate with their arm. By adjusting the height of the rear sight, that parabola can be distorted slightly and provide a repeatable position for determining where a ball or charge would land at a given distance. Physicists describe a projectile’s path as roughly half of a parabola. It didn’t take too long to figure out that once a ball or shot charge left the barrel, its velocity would immediately decay until the ball or charge hit the ground or target. Even better, another piece of iron attached toward the rear of the barrel would provide a cross reference and help center the shot, side-to-side, what we now call windage. A piece of iron attached near the muzzle and atop the barrel would provide a repeatable reference point with which to aim the gun. Logic would dictate that sighting along the barrel would increase the chance of a ball or load of projectiles hitting an intended target. The first shoulder-mounted guns were muskets, characterized by an unrifled barrel. Once an iron barrel with a closed breech was developed, the notion of repeatable loads and accuracy gave way to adding a device to make it easier to aim the firearm. Earlier examples of firearms, notably fire lances and hand cannons, lacked the sophistication of repeatable loads and were pointed more like shotguns toward a potential target. The first use of sights on a firearm appears to have been around the time of the muzzleloading musket.
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