Originally Posted by Pond, James Pond
Can anyone explain to me the basic characteristics of what makes a target sight set-up, or hunting sights, or "combat sights" and what it is about those characteristics that fit their purpose?
OK, here's an answer, but it may sound snarky. Nothing personal, its just my way...
The basic characteristic is, you look through them. The rest are all degrees of evolved adaptation to better suite the desired objective and provide better results.
And, its all rather relative with a lot of overlap, until you get to either end of the spectrum.
What makes a target sight set up??
the ability of being more precise, AND repeatable with the sight picture. How long it takes you to achieve the perfect sight picture is not a major concern.
This is why peep sights dominate target shooting. The human eye is better at finding the center of a circle than any other shape. Its pretty repeatable about that. And that's the key. Being able to do exactly the same thing, time after time. And the small peeps used for target work allow for the "Finest adjustment". But it takes a (small) bit of time to get on target and focused. The larger the hole you look through the less precise things get, but the faster you can do it. When you're shooting a stationary target, you've usually got all the time you need to line things up. Many people use peep sights for hunting and our military has been using them for combat for over a century now.
What makes a hunting sight setup?
Same as the target but with different emphasis. Speed of use and field of view matter more than fine precision. You could be shooting a moving target. The sights need to be "open" enough to keep that target in view as it moves, and don't need to be as precise as target sights, where the difference between scoring 9 or 10 might win or lose you the match. Minute of deer is minute of deer, something a bit bigger where a hit that would be an 8 on a scored target and one that would be a 10x are both equally "minute of deer" (dead deer)
Combat sights?
lots of opinions, several different styles in use today. Peeps up through ghost rings, various V and U notch combinations etc.
Essentially can be very simple or it can be moderately complex, it just has to be easy enough to use, fast. And the required "fast" is "faster than the other guy can use his on you". That's about it.
All are some level of variation on a few simple things.
A few guns have more than just one sight set up. Not many today, but some older guns did. A couple of the military bolt actions had rear sights that could be used either as V notch or peep sights. The notch was for rapid work, the peep for "long range /target" work.
One of my guns taught me a few things I had not realized. (ok, a lot of them have, but I'm talking one specific one here
)
I had a semi auto 1927A1 Thompson. The deluxe one. Auto Ord gun before Kahr took them over. Long barrel (to legally be a rifle) finned barrel, Cutts Compensator, Ladder rear sight the works. Trigger was mush, but with practice one could do decent work. Gun itself was pretty accurate, using the rear peep, you could put 5 into a one hole group at 25yds from a bench or good rested position. AND using the peep with the ladder up, you could reliably ring the 200yd gong. Not too shabby for a .45acp semi auto Tommy gun. Now, here's the thing I learned...
For many years I always wondered why Thompson put the cocking knob on the top. Of course because it was in the ling of the sights, it had a large Ushaped notch in it. But, why didn't it get put on the side, like many other guns, and like the US did with the M1 variant of the Tommy gun??
What I learned was that BIG U notch made a fine "combat sight". Much, MUCH faster to use than the actual rear sight, and once you had a little practice, no problem keeping hits on a 2foot plate (torso size) out at 40-50 yds. as fast as you could pull the trigger.
precise? no. adequate accuracy, good field of view and FAST? YES, YES!
Same general idea with express sights, large open, fast to line up, accurate enough. Don't need X ring precision to stop upset buffalo or elephants, you need good enough and fast enough, the rest is way down the list.
So, to try and get back on point, what makes a target, hunting, or combat sight set up is how well it suits the user's ideas of what is needed.
All a matter of degree, and the perspective of the user (or the maker) In general, target is the most specialized and usually the slower type to use. Same sight with a larger aperture? Hunting or combat sight. (slightly less precise much faster to use)
Open V or U notch rear sights found on most hunting rifles plinking rifles (the ones that still come with sights) and many older military rifles (like Mauser 98s) easily do double duty.
clear as mud now?