While the old style of open sights may not be the first thing that many younger people have used to shoot with, it is a great idea to teach first-time shooters how to use iron sights. For most people, learning with optics and then going back to BUIS (Back Up Iron Sights) is a much more complicated process.
Often with the use of the high-powered optics available today, shooters develop bad or lazy habits that may work with the scopes but are not going to provide accuracy with iron sights. This can make it a challenge if batteries fail or a scope cannot be used for some reason.
By learning with BUIS, new shooters can master the skills they need, then add the optics. Once they understand the basics if they ever need to rely on the old school BUIS, they will quickly remember their early training.
Correct Focus
Scopes allow the shooter to simply line up a dot or a crosshair on the place they want the bullet to hit. With classic iron sights, there are actually three different areas to focus. These include the two sides of the sight on the back sight, the rear sight, as well as the center of the front sight.
The first step will be to ensure that the three points of the focus, two on the rear sight and the top center of the front sight are in a horizontal line. This will ensure that that the bullet will travel straight.
When the front sight is too high the bullet will be over the intended target, too low and it will be below the target and the same for the right and left shift to the three focus points.
Taking the time to learn to shoot using iron sights isn’t a lost art. In fact, many shooting competitions require these sights, so is it a skill worth developing.
