A while back I was watching a Q&A featuring Karl and Ian from Inrange TV. The question that was raised in this Q&A was what they thought would be the next real inovation/future of firearms or something along those lines. They stated that they think optics will be the area small arms will continue to see some of the greatest improvements.
Which raises an interesting thought for me. Optics have the "potential" to fail, but for the average, every day shooter, who will likely never be found out in the brush fighting in a warzone, does having back iron sights make much sense. With how modern optics are continuously becoming more and more reliable, do you think we'll eventually reach a point that optics become so reliable, that it'll render tradition iron sight systems obsolescent?
Case in point, I was watching a video where Ian was shooting a heavily customized G3 rifle that he commissioned from Brethren arms where the iron sights were rendered completely unusable due to the stock he was using raising his cheek weld above the stock sights. To get around this, he used a raised aimpoint like optic and didn't even bother installing back up irons (or rather modifying the gun to allow them in the first place) on the rifle.
For the purposes of a non-combat oriented shooter, someone who really only goes to competition type events (like the ones Ian and Karl typically attend), would it make more sense to simply forgo the use of irons and build a rifle entirely around a quality optic.
Outside of the military/combat aesthetic of Ian's and Karl's competitions that they participate in, I'm curious to hear what people think about this and the future of firearms sighting systems.
Which raises an interesting thought for me. Optics have the "potential" to fail, but for the average, every day shooter, who will likely never be found out in the brush fighting in a warzone, does having back iron sights make much sense. With how modern optics are continuously becoming more and more reliable, do you think we'll eventually reach a point that optics become so reliable, that it'll render tradition iron sight systems obsolescent?
Case in point, I was watching a video where Ian was shooting a heavily customized G3 rifle that he commissioned from Brethren arms where the iron sights were rendered completely unusable due to the stock he was using raising his cheek weld above the stock sights. To get around this, he used a raised aimpoint like optic and didn't even bother installing back up irons (or rather modifying the gun to allow them in the first place) on the rifle.
For the purposes of a non-combat oriented shooter, someone who really only goes to competition type events (like the ones Ian and Karl typically attend), would it make more sense to simply forgo the use of irons and build a rifle entirely around a quality optic.
Outside of the military/combat aesthetic of Ian's and Karl's competitions that they participate in, I'm curious to hear what people think about this and the future of firearms sighting systems.