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Guys: since many haven't figured this out I'm going to tell you when you need Rifle Sights on your Shotgun.
In many situations a Shotgun becomes a "Combat Shotgun." If you intend to shoot at people, you need a Proper Combat Shotgun. Sure any shotgun can be shot at anything but since you decided that was the primary use the gun needs to be set up properly for the purpose.
A Combat Shotgun needs Rifle sights because it will be asked to fire several different types of Ammo, including Slugs and Buckshot. You need the sights so you can precisely aim slugs, but also for buckshot which shoots a tighter pattern than birdshot, and Rifle Sights can extend the viable range of buckshot..
With a field shotgun, sights are not needed and most would say are a hindrance simply because you are shooting into an Area. That area is generally around 30" in diameter so as long as your front bead is within that general vacinity you are going to connect with your target.
However regular birdshot is not really lethal on anything bigger than a Pheasant beyond 30 yards and certainly not lethal on a person beyond about 15 yards.
So the next step up is Buckshot, and within 15 or so yards you can hit a man sized target easily with just a bead front sight. but as you get farther out the POI versus the POA of your shot pattern comes into play.
A Bead Sight is not adjustable. You must pattern your gun using slugs and find out exactly where the Point Of Impact is in relation to your Point Of Aim and compensate for it. Also there is no Rear Sight so that introduces another variable into the mix as it will be difficult to get a repeatable Sight Picture with no rear reference point. Trap Guns sometimes have another smaller bead half way up the rib that acts as secondary alignment point. Short Barreled HD guns don't. I have seen shotguns that patterned so far from the POA that you couldn't even hit a target at 20 yards. My Ithaca M37's barrel was bent up so far that it shot 2-3 feet high at 20-25 yards 3/25 at a skeet shoot was embarrassing! This is not uncommon!
And there in lies the problem. You must use Kentucky Windage to compensate for the difference between POI and POA. But first you must remember where that is during a gunfight where you may be being shot at. This is obviously problematic!
So the solution is to have Rifle Sights on your shotgun that you can adjust so you can actually sight the gun in!
This is NOT a New thing! Hunters have been shooting Shotguns with Rifle Sights for decades. In many places you can't hunt deer with anything but a Shotgun, so those guns have evolved to give the Hunter the best chance of success. That first came in the from of Open Rifle Sights on the barrel and then evolved to Optics mounted on the gun. As Combat Shotguns advanced in design they became standard on them as well and since the Primary Sighting System on Military Rifles is an Aperture Rear Sight, that was also integrated into the shotgun. Example: Mossberg 590A1
Realistically a Combat Shotgun or Dedicated Slug Gun should be looked at as a .73 Caliber Rifle. It is essentially a modernized Brown Bess Musket which served the British Military from 1720 to 1830! so It must have worked well. The fact that it has a non rifled barrel doesn't discount the fact that it can still deliver a single projectile accurately out to 50-75 yards. However with simple Open Sights on the barrel or a Ghost Ring Rear Sight on the receiver that distance can easily be extended to 100 yards and farther. And with a Rifled Barrel and Select Slugs you can extend that even farther, and 150 yard shots are more than possible.
With certain Barrel Modifications (Vang Comp) which I have mentioned many times on this forum, the barrel becomes more accurate due to the choked effect it has on the payload. In the 1960's, Ithaca figured out that having a slight amount of choke in the barrel(.715 or IC Choke) increased accuracy of their Deer Slayer Shotguns with slugs significantly. Browning followed suit on their Buck Special Barrels which have a .715 choke, and all of those specialized slug barrels came with Open Rifle Sights to take advantage of the increased accuracy available.
These barrels also yield tighter Buck Shot patterns. A typical Cylinder Bore Shotgun will pattern 00 buckshot into 15" at 15 yards. A Vang Comped Barrel will pattern 00 buckshot into 7" at 25 yards!
This makes 00 Buckshot viable out to 50 yards. However relying on Kentucky Windage to correct a bead front sight's POI, kind of takes the fun out of it. Rifle Sights make it so you can accurately place the Buckshot Pattern at 50 yards. The advantage of this should be obvious.
The main, and totally invalid argument, against sights on a shotgun is the speed of target acquisition. People say the bead is much faster, and I say BS!
When you learn to concentrate on the Front Sight and get over studying the sights which is NOT concentrating on the Front Sight, and then learn to pull the trigger as soon as that Front Sight is in the general vacinity of the target your target engagement speed increases dramatically. You kind of need to remember that you are shooting a shotgun and not a rifle. If your front sight is anywhere on the target,,, he's done! It is hard to miss this in direct sunlight, or with a light on the gun at night!
Just like shooting a gun with a Red Dot Sight the sequence becomes Dot,Bang, Dot Bang, Dot Bang! Or with a Pump Gun, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, etc.
NOT ! Dot on target,,, wait to confirm sight alignment,,, concentrate on trigger control,,, await recoil !
Part of the Front Sight Shotgun Skills Test is a Drill where you shot 2 targets in 1.7 seconds, 3 targets in 2.1 seconds,and 4 targets in 2.7 seconds. It is hard to do this with a pump action Shotgun. I can get 3 every time but 4 has eluded me, close but not quite. Now with my A5 I can get all of them every time with time to spare.
Now, if you just get drilled on this stuff you will quickly learn that just about anyone can run a Combat Shotgun as fast or faster than a field shotgun. You just have to work at it, and once you pop a man sized target with a slug at 100 yards you'll see the value of having rifle sights on your shotgun.
Hope this helps with the general understanding of why you need them.
Randy
In many situations a Shotgun becomes a "Combat Shotgun." If you intend to shoot at people, you need a Proper Combat Shotgun. Sure any shotgun can be shot at anything but since you decided that was the primary use the gun needs to be set up properly for the purpose.
A Combat Shotgun needs Rifle sights because it will be asked to fire several different types of Ammo, including Slugs and Buckshot. You need the sights so you can precisely aim slugs, but also for buckshot which shoots a tighter pattern than birdshot, and Rifle Sights can extend the viable range of buckshot..
With a field shotgun, sights are not needed and most would say are a hindrance simply because you are shooting into an Area. That area is generally around 30" in diameter so as long as your front bead is within that general vacinity you are going to connect with your target.
However regular birdshot is not really lethal on anything bigger than a Pheasant beyond 30 yards and certainly not lethal on a person beyond about 15 yards.
So the next step up is Buckshot, and within 15 or so yards you can hit a man sized target easily with just a bead front sight. but as you get farther out the POI versus the POA of your shot pattern comes into play.
A Bead Sight is not adjustable. You must pattern your gun using slugs and find out exactly where the Point Of Impact is in relation to your Point Of Aim and compensate for it. Also there is no Rear Sight so that introduces another variable into the mix as it will be difficult to get a repeatable Sight Picture with no rear reference point. Trap Guns sometimes have another smaller bead half way up the rib that acts as secondary alignment point. Short Barreled HD guns don't. I have seen shotguns that patterned so far from the POA that you couldn't even hit a target at 20 yards. My Ithaca M37's barrel was bent up so far that it shot 2-3 feet high at 20-25 yards 3/25 at a skeet shoot was embarrassing! This is not uncommon!
And there in lies the problem. You must use Kentucky Windage to compensate for the difference between POI and POA. But first you must remember where that is during a gunfight where you may be being shot at. This is obviously problematic!
So the solution is to have Rifle Sights on your shotgun that you can adjust so you can actually sight the gun in!
This is NOT a New thing! Hunters have been shooting Shotguns with Rifle Sights for decades. In many places you can't hunt deer with anything but a Shotgun, so those guns have evolved to give the Hunter the best chance of success. That first came in the from of Open Rifle Sights on the barrel and then evolved to Optics mounted on the gun. As Combat Shotguns advanced in design they became standard on them as well and since the Primary Sighting System on Military Rifles is an Aperture Rear Sight, that was also integrated into the shotgun. Example: Mossberg 590A1
Realistically a Combat Shotgun or Dedicated Slug Gun should be looked at as a .73 Caliber Rifle. It is essentially a modernized Brown Bess Musket which served the British Military from 1720 to 1830! so It must have worked well. The fact that it has a non rifled barrel doesn't discount the fact that it can still deliver a single projectile accurately out to 50-75 yards. However with simple Open Sights on the barrel or a Ghost Ring Rear Sight on the receiver that distance can easily be extended to 100 yards and farther. And with a Rifled Barrel and Select Slugs you can extend that even farther, and 150 yard shots are more than possible.
With certain Barrel Modifications (Vang Comp) which I have mentioned many times on this forum, the barrel becomes more accurate due to the choked effect it has on the payload. In the 1960's, Ithaca figured out that having a slight amount of choke in the barrel(.715 or IC Choke) increased accuracy of their Deer Slayer Shotguns with slugs significantly. Browning followed suit on their Buck Special Barrels which have a .715 choke, and all of those specialized slug barrels came with Open Rifle Sights to take advantage of the increased accuracy available.
These barrels also yield tighter Buck Shot patterns. A typical Cylinder Bore Shotgun will pattern 00 buckshot into 15" at 15 yards. A Vang Comped Barrel will pattern 00 buckshot into 7" at 25 yards!
This makes 00 Buckshot viable out to 50 yards. However relying on Kentucky Windage to correct a bead front sight's POI, kind of takes the fun out of it. Rifle Sights make it so you can accurately place the Buckshot Pattern at 50 yards. The advantage of this should be obvious.
The main, and totally invalid argument, against sights on a shotgun is the speed of target acquisition. People say the bead is much faster, and I say BS!
When you learn to concentrate on the Front Sight and get over studying the sights which is NOT concentrating on the Front Sight, and then learn to pull the trigger as soon as that Front Sight is in the general vacinity of the target your target engagement speed increases dramatically. You kind of need to remember that you are shooting a shotgun and not a rifle. If your front sight is anywhere on the target,,, he's done! It is hard to miss this in direct sunlight, or with a light on the gun at night!
Just like shooting a gun with a Red Dot Sight the sequence becomes Dot,Bang, Dot Bang, Dot Bang! Or with a Pump Gun, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, Front Sight, Bang, Rack, etc.
NOT ! Dot on target,,, wait to confirm sight alignment,,, concentrate on trigger control,,, await recoil !
Part of the Front Sight Shotgun Skills Test is a Drill where you shot 2 targets in 1.7 seconds, 3 targets in 2.1 seconds,and 4 targets in 2.7 seconds. It is hard to do this with a pump action Shotgun. I can get 3 every time but 4 has eluded me, close but not quite. Now with my A5 I can get all of them every time with time to spare.
Now, if you just get drilled on this stuff you will quickly learn that just about anyone can run a Combat Shotgun as fast or faster than a field shotgun. You just have to work at it, and once you pop a man sized target with a slug at 100 yards you'll see the value of having rifle sights on your shotgun.
Hope this helps with the general understanding of why you need them.
Randy
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