What distance for deer with iron sights?

Hunting bow range is not 60 yards. Competition isn't shooting at a living animal.

The only relationship I'd consider there to be with extreme bow/rifle range is time in flight. When a bullet takes as long as an arrow to reach it's target, then you need to think about animal movement more than your own accuracy. If your projectile is traveling faster than the speed of sound, your theoretical limit is within your naked eye range. The practical limit is what distance you've practiced at and your available light on your sights and your target.
 
Normally, I'd say about 75 yards is reasonable for iron sights. But knowledge of friends faced with deer and misses, I'd have to say, "It depends on the hunter." My buddy had an open-sighted Marlin 336, .30-30.

Once, when we were about 16, he had a nice buck stand about 40 yards away in the woods while he quickly fired ALL of his 5 shots right over its back, not noticing that the REAR SIGHT wasn't part of the picture he saw. No more ammo, (which I knew). I yelled to him from over a hundred yards: "Did you get him?" The answer was, "No". Next question: "Which way did he go?" Answer: "Nowhere, he's just standing here looking at me."

The buck got away and I never saw him.
 
Great story, Picher!

It reminds me of a Minnesota hunting joke.
Sven: “911! Help, help! Send a helecopter! I shot Ole! He’s dead!”
911 operarior: “Are you sure he’s dead?”
Sven: BOOM. “Yup, now for sure.”
 
There's a big difference between the theoretical ability of hunter and firearm and the reality of hunting conditions.

Animals have a way of facing directions you don't like, coming from places you don't expect, standing right in the sun glare, making you lean funny directions, stand there aiming for 10 minutes while they stare you down... etc, etc.

There's also a big difference between hunting heavily pressured woods where you can only see 100 yards and most animals will be running and/or never move voluntarily during daylight vs the edges of lightly hunted fields where animals congregate during daylight hours and allow plenty of time to pick and choose your shot.

Anyone who hunts, know this.

I've shot many, many deer (dozens) with a 12ga, smooth bore slug gun with a peep sight and front bead, at distances from barely clear of the muzzle to 75+ yards and never had any trouble. Mostly, I almost never knew the actual range. Too many variables and not enough time. You just learn to *know*, "Yes, I can make that shot." or "No, I can't".

Not because you know it is 75.3 yards, you're zeroed at 23.7 and 120.5, the wind is from 037 at 15 knots....
But because you know what you can do and what you can't.
If you don't know, don't do it.
 
80 yards . . . .

I had an in line muzzle loader with open sights. Knocked a whitetail down at 80 yards. He dropped in his tracks. The thing is . . . I was aiming for double lung shot and hit him mid spine. Hmmmmmm . . . .

Life is good
Prof Young
 
eye's not so hot anymore so never, well, seldom use iron sight's today. If I did, I think I would look at it similar as my scope sighting, max point blank range zero. No matter what scope I use I go with a dead on hold out to close to 300 yds. I'm not sure that is realistic though with open sight's. But I do believe anyone could find the range that their eyes work well with with open sight's and then I'd simply go max point blank to there. Little secrete to using open sight's. Get a rear aperature sight, peep. With most you can screw out the peep. do it and sight through the opening that's left. Not as clear as with the insert but the light will still draw your eye to the center of the opening and you'll be able to see better.
 
I actually like using iron sights, as my deer hunting is usually under 100 yards. I took two with a Marlin 38/55 this last season with no problems, but both were in the 50-60 yd. range. I like to shoot traditional muzzleloaders too, and iron sights are the norm for them. A good .50 caliber works just fine at the 50 yd. range.
 
Back when I was a teenager, my Dad bought lever action Marlins for himself and my brother and I. They went straight to using scopes, but I decided to stay with iron sights. My Grandpa, former rifle and machine gun instructor in WW1, had taught me to shoot. I didn’t need a scope, and I was young, with good eyes. Well, they killed a lot more deer than I did, and did less tracking. I finally had to admit that using iron sights at dusk was just not working for me. I got a 4x scope and all was good from then on.
 
I can hit the high-power silhouette rams pretty consistently at 547yards off the bench, in good light with a low heartbeat, that's a far cry from actual hunting conditions. Deer are most active at dawn and dusk, generally the don't stand around and pose for perfect broadside shots, given these facts 70yds has always been the limit for me even when I had perfect 25yr old vision. I've shot a few antelope farther than that with aperture sights on a muzzleloader but also missed more than I care to admit.
 
My first deer (long ago), was taken at over 120 yards with peep sights, sitting, knee as a brace / sling around elbow, gun was a Savage 170 pump in .30-30. Don't underestimate peep sights... or the .30-30 Win round.
 
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