[Matchman14]

I'm 51 and ware bi-focals
I noticed without my glasses my front sight appears bent. Red dot sights an oval blob. With glasses red dot is round. I understand not being able to focus but why the other issues?
Thanks

 

[ShootingSight]

You have an astigmatism.

With an astigmatism, blur is not even in all directions, so a dot does not blur to a round ball, but will blur to an oval, depending on teh axis of your astigmatism. Front sight might blur from 1 oclock to 7 oclock, which makes it look like it is leaning.

For red dots, you want to wear your glasses. For iron sights, you want your glasses, but with only a little power added to crisp up the sight - your bifocal is much too strong and will blur the target.

 

[Matchman14]

Thanks for the detailed response!

 

[dwight55]

You have an astigmatism.

With an astigmatism, blur is not even in all directions, so a dot does not blur to a round ball, but will blur to an oval, depending on teh axis of your astigmatism. Front sight might blur from 1 oclock to 7 oclock, which makes it look like it is leaning.

For red dots, you want to wear your glasses. For iron sights, you want your glasses, but with only a little power added to crisp up the sight - your bifocal is much too strong and will blur the target.

Just a "double down" on what ShootingSight said.

Mine is not bad enough to mess with my irons, . . . but any red dot will normally look like a spear head pointed at about 7 o'clock. Aggravating too, because I thought I had a defective red dot, . . . advertised it as such, . . . took a $$$ beating on it, . . . then found out it was me and not it.

But like said, . . . your glasses should take care of that problem.

May God bless,
Dwight

 

[Hummer]

M14 Front Sight to the rescue

I will be 72 in November and have 20/15 corrected but I ran into a situation I needed a M14 sight to correct.

I fell into a 1870/87 Italian Vetterli a couple years back that needed TLC.

First off someone had tried to do a trigger job and it would sear off before bolt would close on EMPTY CHAMBER so I had to get the sear surface on the striker built up and I ground it down and initially left lots of engagement to insure safety.

Front sight was way to small and way to low to achieve POA/POI at 100 yards and it was designed with a 275 Meter battle sight and 300+ grain bullets.

M14 Front sights can be attached to other rifles and I have done this on a No 4 Enfield I rebarreled.

So I fabricated a front sight block for the Vetterli barrel to incorporate the M14 front sight.

Note the M14 sight is mounted a tad left of the original front sight which is obviously right of bore center line. I milled off the top of the post to lower it to where it needed to be.

How M14 sights looks on a 33" barrel

Group I shot yesterday. It should be noted this young lady printed acceptance group for M1 Garand (5" at 100), exceeded the M14 Requirement 5.5" at 100 but many waivered to accept them at 6". Just a half inch over M16 variants acceptance (4.5" at 100). All of them were accepted with FMJ ammo and this is with a Lyman 257 gr. cast bullet ! ! ! !

And she is now celebrating her 144th birthday this year and can stay with the big kids (half her age) and by the way the sight picture with the M14 sight is much better than it was with original sight! ! ! ! !

The moral of this story is lay in M14 sights as they might come in handy down the road on something else. I have a handful.

At one time I had a Mod 70 Winchester sporter fielded with a M14 flash suppressor and sight about 37 years ago.

In my opinion the M14 front sight is the finest front sight we ever fielded and should have been used on the M16 variants.