I used to claim to tell the sex of a praire dog at 300 yards but with the mid 40's setting in the old peepers aint what they used to be.

I am getting back into service rifle shooting and am seeing verticle stringing of my groups which tells me my sight picture is not consistent. I have always used a 6 o'clock hold for target shooting but wonder if some of you who have expereinced this before could tell me if a center of the target hold would help ?I plan to get some practice time in this long weekend to try it out and see if I can shrink the prone groups a bit.

I can't remember what causes vertical holes at the target, but I don't think it has anything to do with your eyes.

As far as sighting is concerned. I, too, sight in most of my firearms at 6 o'clock on the bullseye. I do, however, sight in my scoped hunting rifle at center of the bull. My open iron sighted rifle is still at 6:00 position.

By the way...I can still tell the sex of an african elephant at 100 yards with these ol' eyes...If I could remember which was which...

The holes are round they just group in a verticle line 'cuz I can't pick the same spot twice to break the trigger on!

Try a small red stick-um dot at 6:00??? And yes I know that bullet holes are round (@#$%^&* ). Just can't remember why they sometimes go in a vertical line (CRS). Each one being round as they climb.

Dawgdad wrote:

The holes are round they just group in a verticle line 'cuz I can't pick the same spot twice to break the trigger on!

G'Day Dawgdad.

I have always been taught that vertical stringing of the group is an indication of incorrect breathing. (Are you releasing half a breath then holding the rest (without breathing) to squeeze the trigger?)

I'm sure that there may well be other reasons but that is what they taught us in the Army when teaching the Sequence of Firing a Shot.

As for your eyes wearing out.....only one answer for that.....go and get them checked by an Opthalmologist. He can detect any problems other than age related deterioration. I found that my pistol shooting started to deteriorate, in fact turned to total crap, at about 47 yrs old (I dropped about 300 points over my normal scores). I also noticed that my arms needed to be about 12" longer to read the newspaper.
Decided to get my eyes checked........ended up with bloody eye crutches. The only problem with this was the glasses were for reading. The sights were crisp and sharp but the target, even at about 5 metres was a total blur. I gave up pistol shooting not long after that for a different reason and put scopes on my rifles....problem solved.

If you are hell bent on using iron sights, or if iron sights are the only sight you are allowed to use, then get onto an Optometrist who is also a shooter. He will understand the problem and should be able to help.

Maybe another way to solve the problem is with a peep sight. It isn't the best solution, but it MAY help for a little while.

Be aware though, that your eyes will now start to deteriorate at a regular rate for about 4 or 5 sets of glasses until they stabilise. However, be prepared for them to keep getting worse for a number of years. I am on my fifth set of glasses in 7 yrs and I am not sure that things have settled down yet. Only optical sights now without using my glasses. I can't even see iron sights unless I stand back about 2 metres from my rifle, which may not always be a bad thing with the way I shoot sometimes.

Good Luck mate.

Cheers, Vince