noob open/iron sight question

[aethyr]

So far all iron sights, lining the front and rear sights up perfectly makes a huge difference. If you're off by even a slight amount, it makes a large difference at the target.

My question is, why is there such a huge gap between the front sight and the rear sight, which leaves a large margin of error? Why isn't the opening of the rear sight much more narrow, so that the front sight just barely fits and thus removes all the "play" you can have?

And for that matter, shouldn't there be something for the "up/down" alignment as well? Yet all these sights depend on the eye to line the tops of the front and rear sight together perfectly and there aren't other markers (dots, lines, whatever) help line them up.

[G-forceJunkie]

It might help if we knew what sites you are talking about. But your right, the smaller the rear site aperature, typically the easier to make precise alignment. Iron target sites have a .050" hole for the rear, less than 1/16" of an inch! If you talking about a larger "ghost ring" type site like on the 0-2 leaf of an A2 AR-15, they are larger for speed. Faster to aquire and you have a larger field of view. As for alignment, the human eye likes symmetry and tend to naturally want to align things.

[aethyr]

It might help if we knew what sites you are talking about. But your right, the smaller the rear site aperature, typically the easier to make precise alignment. Iron target sites have a .050" hole for the rear, less than 1/16" of an inch! If you talking about a larger "ghost ring" type site like on the 0-2 leaf of an A2 AR-15, they are larger for speed. Faster to aquire and you have a larger field of view. As for alignment, the human eye likes symmetry and tend to naturally want to align things.

Hmmm, I don't know why the image link didn't work.

[CSACANNONEER]

There are lots of different types of iron sights. Some have adjustments for windage and elevation. Some have adjustments for just one or the other and some are completely fixed. Some are made for precision shooting and some are made for field use. Most, if not all iron sights which are made for field use have larger rear sights which allow the shooter to correct for windage and elevation while still being able to see their target.