Lever action sights

[elmbow]

TimPierce, if you want to continue using your iron sighted rifles into middle age and beyond, you are going to need to compensate for presbyopia. This is assuming that your vision is otherwise normal. Doing this requires discovering what your individual hyperfocal distance is. Here is a link to the discussion of it on the CMP forums:http://forums.thecmp.org/archive/index.php/t-5881.html

My rifles tend to have their front sights ~29-30" from my eye. The formula suggests that I use a +0.75 diopter glass. Here is a link to the ones I use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QUTQRTS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1YGXL3JFE47O2

These are the largest aviators I could find with the correct diopter for me. They give me good sight picture with my face down on the rifle. The +0.75 diopter gives me a very sharp front sight and is still weak enough that I can see a 12" bull at 200 yards well enough to shoot at it.
For my handguns I step up to a +1.0 diopter because the handgun sights are that much closer to my old man eyes that I need a stronger power to get the front sight in focus. Typically, I wear a +2.0 reading glass.

I love the history, the practicality, the balance, and the nostalgia of quality receiver sights as were typically seen on the sporters of the early and mid 20th century. More than half of my long guns are iron sighted, all of them with a receiver sight of one type or another, I am 66 years old and if I can see it, I can scare it ):. My NM M1A and I are capable out to 700 yards.
Enjoy that levergun.

Another well written explanation of iron sights and old age: http://www.jarootfarms.com/photogallery/albums/userpics/10001/shootingsight2.pdf

 

[COSteve]

Or . . . . . . . . . you can make a aperture for free from a piece of black electrical tape, your hole punch, and a nail and stick it to the outside of your regular shooting glasses where you sight through it to shoot.

Then you have your regular glasses and a sighting aide that makes the front sight and target crystal clear.

 

[Big Shrek]

Rather fond of Irons on my 336RC, but I did make one contrition to old age...
add a fiber optic front sight...at less than 100 yards, it'll be like a laser

 

[Art Eatman]

One advantage of a scope is in very early morning or late evening--the "poor light" condition that is still within legal shooting hours.

Keeps a fella from shooting a stump deer, a rock deer, a cactus deer--or a people deer.

When ranges are short, something like a Weaver K-4 works just fine. Or any equivalent. I've used Weaver rings and mounts for many decades. It's not that they are somehow "better", but they have always worked just fine and they are inexpensive.

 

[elmbow]

Or go to Costco and drop $200 on an examination and a pair of aviators with impact resistant lenses, the shooting eye with the correct diopter on the lens and a bifocal reading diopter and the non shooting eye uncorrected or corrected for astigmatism or whatever, and also the bifocal reading diopter in the bottom of the lens. The problem with tape on the lens is when you look up at your surroundings you have a black block in the middle of one eye.Disconcerting to say the least. Also, the problem, as I see it, with small iris receiver sights, which do help in sharpening the front sight, is they also limit your ability to see your surroundings. The weak diopter corrected lenses give you a sharp front sight, a pretty clear image of a bull out to 200 or beyond and also enough acuity to see game and shoot it through a ghost ring sight. And the ghost ring will let you shoot easily to 150 yards to within 15 minutes of first or last light of a scope. Always a tradeoff and I always have good glass on my hunting rifle when I'm chasing my annual elk for the freezer, so I'm not advocating trading glass for iron as a set rule, but iron sights are so much more fun to go on daily hikes and rambles with. One of my favorite plinking rifles is a 6 lb 1948 BRNO 8x57 with a Skinner LoPro peep. I shoot Hornady 170 gr RN bullets, propelled by 23 grains 4198 for ~1600 fps. It is zeroed at 70 yards. head shots on grouse at 25 yards, enough poop to kill an elk at 125 yards if I ever needed to, no recoil, quiet, hardly need to resize brass, can load it for ~$.30/rd. I absolutely love shooting like this and I do it with a dozen different iron sighted rifles.

 

[COSteve]

The problem with tape on the lens is when you look up at your surroundings you have a black block in the middle of one eye.Disconcerting to say the least.

It's clear you've never tried it. Take a hole punch and pop out a 1/4" black circle. Don't put a hole in it and place it where it is on my picture and then put the glasses on. Now look around. There isn't a 'black block' in front of you.

Why? the spot is too close to your eye to focus on so you're mind discards it. Have you ever heard the term 'ghost ring'? Do you know that it means? The aperture you make in effects becomes a ghost ring. Same effect as when you place a high magnification scope on a rifle with a high front sight. At powers above about 4x, the front sight just disappears from view but trust me, it's still there.