Sight picture and sight alignment: how to aim with iron sights

• Sight alignment: the front sight centred in the rear notch and level with its top, with equal light on each side.
• Sight picture: the aligned sights on your aiming point, under the black or on it with open sights, the black centred in the ring with an aperture sight.
• Focus on the front sight; let the target go soft.
• Use one hold for every shot, and set the sights for it.
• Keep the sights aligned while they wander: a sight out of line costs more than a wobble.

Sight alignment is how the front and rear sights line up with each other, before the target comes into it. The pistol guide of the US Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) puts the front sight in the middle of the rear sight’s notch, with an equal space of light on each side, and the flat top of the front sight level with the top of the notch. The CMP’s guide to junior pistol shooting describes the same, and so does the NRA’s Shooting Sports USA for a rifle with open sights.

Your eye judges the two strips of light, so they must be wide enough to compare. Some match pistols let you change them: Feinwerkbau’s manual for its P8X air pistol gives a notch adjustable from about 2.2 to 7.5 mm wide, and front sights from 3.6 to 5.1 mm wide. Change one thing at a time, and give it a few sessions.

Sight picture is the aligned sights placed on the target: in Shooting Sports USA’s words, the relationship between the aligned sights and the aiming bull.

It never stands still. The CMP’s rimfire guide says no one, not even a champion, can hold the aligned sights perfectly still; its junior pistol guide has the sights moving over a hold area, and both have you centre that movement over the aiming point. That is why the USAMU’s guide speaks of an aiming area, not a point.

So look for aligned sights moving around the right spot, not a moment of stillness. When to let the shot go inside that movement is trigger control.

Your eye cannot see things at different distances sharply at the same time, the USAMU’s guide explains, so the sights and the target cannot both be sharp at once. It keeps the focus on the front sight through the aiming and the shot: if the target comes sharp as the shot goes, it says, a controlled shot is impossible. The CMP’s junior pistol guide agrees: focus mainly on the sights, and only secondarily on the target.

On a rifle with open sights, the rear sight may stay a little soft, as the CMP’s rimfire guide allows. And with the eye on the front sight, the USAMU’s guide notes, your movement looks smaller than it does with the target sharp.

Do not stare. The USAMU’s guide says the eye stops noticing some aiming errors after 12 to 16 seconds, and keeps the aiming itself within 6 to 8; Shooting Sports USA gives rifle shooters 8 to 10 seconds at most. If the shot has not gone by then, lower the gun, muzzle downrange, look into the distance for a moment, and start again.

With a post or a pistol’s front sight, you choose where the aligned sights sit against the black:

• 6 o’clock hold: the sights just under the black, where the white meets its bottom edge, like the 6 on a clock face.
• Sub-6, as shooters call it: the sights lower, with a strip of white between the front sight and the black.
• Centre hold: the top of the front sight in the middle of the black.

Holding under the black lets you see all of it. In NRA Family, Jeff Johnston explains that a handgun’s sights, aimed dead centre, hide at least the bottom half of the bull, so the aim is a guess; most competitive shooters, he writes, hold at 6 o’clock and set their sights to hit a little higher. Many handguns whose sights cannot be adjusted for height are regulated at the factory to hit where the front sight sits, he notes, so many of their shooters use a centre hold.

For precision pistol, the CMP’s junior guide recommends the sub-6 picture, though it calls it six o’clock: the aligned sights below the black with a gap of white, the gap set by how steadily you hold. A beginner’s movement is typically as large as the white from the black to the bottom of the target, it says, so a beginner aims in the middle of that white and a trained shooter closer to the black. The black’s size is on your card’s page, such as the ISSF 10 m air pistol target or the NRA B-6 50-yard pistol target.

With a post on a rifle, Shooting Sports USA holds it just below the bull, a line of white between them, and the CMP’s rimfire guide starts beginners at 6 o’clock. Whichever hold you choose, keep it for every shot and set the sights so the group lands in the middle; Reading your shot groups shows how.

A target rifle’s sights are a small hole close to your eye and, usually, a ring at the muzzle. Shooting Sports USA describes alignment with them as seeing the front sight in the centre of the rear sight, and the sight picture as the aiming bull centred in the ring. It puts the ideal rear hole at 1.1 to 1.3 mm, and the best ring at one that looks 1.5 to 2 times as big as the black through the sights.

The small rear hole deepens the focus: a narrower pupil does that, the USAMU’s guide explains, and a small peephole works as an artificial pupil. Even so, Anschütz explains, the sharpest focus through a rear iris lies somewhere between the front ring and the black, so neither looks particularly sharp; you open or close the iris until the ring looks sharp and the black slightly soft.

Judge the picture by the band of white around the black: even all round means centred. The sights themselves and the ISSF’s sight rules for air rifle are in Air rifle equipment; the size of the black is on the ISSF 10 m air rifle target page.

Alignment. The USAMU’s guide names the two errors: an angular shift error, a front sight off centre in the notch, sends the shot the way the front sight sits; a parallel shift error, aligned sights wandering over the aiming area, costs less. So sight alignment is the more critical, it concludes: holding the pistol perfectly still is desirable, but not mandatory. The CMP’s junior pistol guide agrees that pistol accuracy depends more on alignment than on where the sights sit against the black.

The USAMU’s guide draws the geometry: shift the aligned pistol sideways and the shot moves about as far as the pistol did; put the front sight out of line and the shot leaves at an angle, so the miss grows with the distance. Its example: a hundredth of an inch out of line, a quarter of a millimetre, puts a shot about 3 inches, some 76 mm, from the centre at 50 yards. As an estimate for 10 m: Feinwerkbau gives its P8X air pistol a sight line of about 330 to 400 mm; at 360 mm, a front sight 0.1 mm off centre moves the shot about 2.8 mm (0.1 × 10,000 ÷ 360), as much as shifting the whole aligned pistol 2.8 mm sideways.

Call each shot as it breaks: the CMP’s junior pistol guide has you take a mental snapshot of where the sights were, aligned or not, high, low, left or right. A scan of the card in Shooter shows where every shot landed, to set beside your calls. Where a shot lands is a clue, not a verdict, as the pistol correction chart explains.

Shooting Sports USA tells you to keep both eyes open: you see better, and without strain. The USAMU’s guide adds that squinting one eye strains it and makes the open eye see less sharply, and prefers an opaque disc in front of the other eye that still lets the same light reach it. The CMP suggests a strip of cardboard or translucent plastic in a cap band or headband; the ISSF’s rules for blinders are in Air rifle equipment. Which eye to aim with, and what to do if it is the other one: eye dominance in shooting.

Eyes change with age. The National Eye Institute says everyone gets presbyopia as they get older, usually after 45: the lens in the eye grows harder and less flexible, and nearby objects look blurry. An eye doctor can check for it in a comprehensive eye exam.

A smaller hole helps: on a target rifle the rear aperture does that job, and for a pistol the USAMU’s guide suggests an artificial pupil, an adjustable eye disc on the shooting glasses. The ISSF lets pistol shooters wear corrective glasses, but no corrective lens or filter may be attached to the pistol (Rule 8.4.1.2).

Ask an optician about shooting glasses for the distance from your eye to your front sight, measured in your shooting position. Glasses chosen in an optometrist’s office alone do not fully suit a shooter, the USAMU’s guide says: check them on the range, to be sure you see the sights well at arm’s length.

Tired eyes see less sharply too: rest them between shots on something distant and dull in colour, the USAMU’s guide says, not by closing them, and do not look at bright light just before or while you aim.

What is the difference between sight alignment and sight picture?

Sight alignment is the front and rear sights lined up with each other: the front sight centred in the notch and level with its top. Sight picture is those aligned sights placed on the target. You can have perfect alignment pointing at the wrong place, or the right place with the sights out of line.

Should the front sight or the target be sharp?

With open sights, the front sight. The eye sharpens only one distance at a time, and the USAMU and the CMP both put the focus on the front sight, with the target soft. With an aperture sight the small rear hole deepens the focus, and Anschütz has you set the rear iris so the front ring is sharp and the black only slightly soft.

Should I use a 6 o’clock hold or a centre hold?

With a post or a pistol’s front sight and sights you can adjust, try a 6 o’clock hold or one a little lower, with the sights set for it: you see the whole black, and the CMP recommends a gap of white under it for precision pistol. With fixed sights that hit where the front sight sits, a centre hold is the simple choice. With a ring front sight, centre the black in the ring. Whichever you use, hold the same way for every shot.