So while I'm a BIG fan of quality glass, I have several rifles that will never have scopes on them: a Winchester 71 in .348; a .308 on a Mauser action with custom peep sights; a .35 Remington pump, and a couple others.

I don't hunt anymore, but very much enjoy the precision of rifle shooting. While I have zero desire to kill anything ever again, I still like reliving my old hunting days, so I consider a 8" circle to be an acceptable target, since that's the quick-kill zone of most game animals.

Now my eyes aren't great, but they're 20/20, and I can still read without glasses. I'm not a great rifle shot, but I'm pretty far from a novice...I've got that breathing and squeezing thing pretty well sorted. But when I hear people saying that they're shooting elk at 250 yards with peep sights, I'm baffled. I simply cannot put a bullet into the indistinct target which the quick-kill zone of an elks chest represents at that distance. I mean, I can hit an elk at 250 yards, but not the sweet spot. I would never consider taking that shot as a hunter.

At 350 yards I'm doing pretty good to hit an 8" circle at all with open sights, at least from any standard field position. I'd probably do a little better from a bench, but I never found a convenient bench when I was out hunting, so I use field positions. And the fact of the matter is I can barely see the target at that distance, which makes hitting it problematic, bench or not. At 50 years old I understand that I don't see as well as I did at 20...but still.

So I'm curious what other people are comfortable with while shooting open sights? I guess I could ask on a gun forum, but I'm looking for information from real people...

I’m interested to see what other have to say on this topic.

I’m a pretty novice hunter, been hunting all my life but have never been very serious about it, but I’ve enjoyed shooting rifles since I was quite young and used to be quite proficient.

150yards is the longest shot I’ll take with open sights. But I’m pretty cautious and am unwilling to risk wounding something and not be able to find it.

IMO there are a lot of sloppy hunters out their that are completely fine with lobbing a bullet a ridiculous distance at a target they can hardly see and not care if they wound it knowing it is too far off to have any chance of tracking it.

I hunt big game a fair amount. On an annual basis I usually have 2 to 3 hunts that require a passport, plus 4 to 5 that are within the US. Most of the time I’m dragging around a bow and arrow, which utilize open sights, but I also gun hunt a bit.

IMO open sights are effective and accurate (considering good eyesight) up to 80 yards or so. Over 80 and up to 200 or so is certainly possible given experience, but beyond that it’s a stunt.

Depending on quarry, I’ll fling bullets/ arrows at 100+ yards and if I happen to connect it’s pure luck

I think the world record for an open sights shot is like 2200 yards. ...So I guess you just suck.


The reality is it took several shots before the guy hit the BUFFALO- sized target.

I suppose it depends on the shooter and the sights. As far as I know, long range open sights are different than regular ones. I think some are hollow in the center which let you sort of guess where center is. That way you don't cover the target. I could be wrong on that, though.

I think a person could try a 250 yard shot on a kill-zone sized target if he had a solid rest. I don't think you are doing too bad, Hammer. In fact, you make me want to brush up on my skills.

As far as hunting goes, I want a quick kill. I hate that feeling I get when something's just wounded. So I would be fairly conservative on the distance to try the shot.

I don't really hunt much. Here on the cattle ranch, we are around the wildlife year round. There isn't much thrill in shooting something for me. That "elusive" 190 score whitetail buck that some city dweller shot in winter, was routinely seen eating my hay bales near my house over summer.

I like watching a coyote pounce on field mice, as long as he leaves my livestock alone. We do have a prairie dog problem, so I try to shoot them regularly.

All this talk about guns reminds me I need to finish sighting in my ARs. I got a red dot on one, and a simple scope on the other.

I wont shoot an animal with open sights over 150 yards. Just to risky and not worth it. Even if it does die theres a good chance of ruining meat. If I thinj I'm shooting that far or further I'm bringing a scoped rifle.

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I was OIC of Easy Gap defensive firing range between Armor Officer Basic and flight school. I taught a class on defensive fire and Sgt. Biggs ran the show. Everyone in each training company fired the first round, then "bolos" got a kid who qualified in the foxhole with them, and finally a drill sergeant. We were still using the M-14.

I was amazed at the high percentage of 200 meter silhouette targets that went down on the first round and a good number of 250s.

We weren't injuring animals and in Vietnam we were most interested in getting Charlie's head down.

Yes, the site was a dot on front and a hole to look through in the rear. That way you could see what you were shooting at.

Sierra Victor wrote:IMO open sights are effective and accurate (considering good eyesight) up to 80 yards or so. Over 80 and up to 200 or so is certainly possible given experience, but beyond that it’s a stunt.

Unless your shooting a Shiloh-Sharps .45-110 with a 34" barrel, double set triggers and a Vernier sight...

whee wrote:

Sierra Victor wrote:IMO open sights are effective and accurate (considering good eyesight) up to 80 yards or so. Over 80 and up to 200 or so is certainly possible given experience, but beyond that it’s a stunt.

Unless your shooting a Shiloh-Sharps .45-110 with a 34" barrel, double set triggers and a Vernier sight...

It's all in the Vernier sight whee... love that movie!

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I only have one word.....PRACTICE!!... Scratch that...lots and lots of practice. I've done a tiny bit of shooting with open sights and will say, it is amazing how good one can become with a good peep sight.

Cheap way to practice would be to get a good air rifle and practice with it. Even the cheap Daisy Match Grade Avanti 853 would be sufficient. I have a Feinwerkbau that is dead nuts accurate. It's actually one I got when I lived in Okinawa, belonged to the Japanese NRA olympic team. (Yes, the Japanese own guns!)

I wished I would have purchased one of the precharged air version Anschutz or another Feinwerkbau when station in Germany, Mine is the side lever cock type, but very easy to cock.. Helps hone the skills without making a lot of noise and one can shoot indoors at a pellet trap if you have the room.

Interesting replies...seems like 100ish yards is the consensus, which makes a lot more sense to me than 250 yards. Even with a scope, 250 yards is further than I'd shoot game from a field position unless I had a good gun rest. I don't think I ever took a shot over 200 yards, and most were half that. I was always curious about 300 or 400 yard shots, but not enough to bet a wounded animal on it, and I never once had to follow a blood trail.

I don't know about practicing though...accurate shooting is really more reliant on having the latest cartridge than on the shooter... Most of my rifle practice is either one of my .22's, or dry fire with snap caps, which works quite well with a scope, but not so well with open sights. I used to shoot my AR quite a bit for work, but I find it a dreadfully uninteresting rifle otherwise.

While it is amazing what some people can do with open sights, I think the biggest limitation with open sights for me personally has more to do with definition and contrast than anything else. Hitting a clearly defined 8" silhouette at 200 yards is a whole lot different than being able to pick out the sweet spot on an elk that's the same color and texture as the surroundings, at least for my eyes.

Unfortunately I think Whee is correct in that a lot of hunters, with or without scopes, don't care all that much if they wound or loose game. Having to wear orange in the woods is proof enough that a significant percentage of hunters don't care one bit where their bullet connects on an animal. That a man can get shot off a horse by someone who thinks they're shooting an elk is incomprehensible to me, but it happens. Every fall I loath the start of rifle season because I have to wear an orange outfit while mountain biking, and I dislike the color.

I see people adopting 1,000 yard cartridges for hunting and I wonder just how far they really plan to shoot. Shooting an enemy combatant at that range is one thing...any hit is a good hit...but if that's really as close as someone can get to an animal, you have to wonder if "hunter" is the right term for them. Hopefully that 1,000 yard cartridge is just giving them a margin of error for much closer shots, but who knows. Quadrupeds have a tough go of it on this planet.

Outside the bedroom window:

The main thing I use my long range cartridges for is for wolves and coyotes. Mostly wolves. Having the ability to shoot 500 plus yards and know you can hit a wolves is a very handy thing up here. A buddy just smoked one at 693 yards the other day, and a coyote at the same range 5 minutes later. Nothing to do with hunting ability, but rather the fact that wolves are damn smart.
I agree that the main thing with open sights for hunting is more a contrast thing. My eyes are the same, if theres a contrast to shoot at it is way easier then trying to pick the right 8" circle on an animal that's all the same color.

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whee wrote:

Sierra Victor wrote:IMO open sights are effective and accurate (considering good eyesight) up to 80 yards or so. Over 80 and up to 200 or so is certainly possible given experience, but beyond that it’s a stunt.

Unless your shooting a Shiloh-Sharps .45-110 with a 34" barrel, double set triggers and a Vernier sight...

Ah damn, now I have to watch Quigley Down Under again...

Zzz wrote:

whee wrote:

Sierra Victor wrote:IMO open sights are effective and accurate (considering good eyesight) up to 80 yards or so. Over 80 and up to 200 or so is certainly possible given experience, but beyond that it’s a stunt.

Unless your shooting a Shiloh-Sharps .45-110 with a 34" barrel, double set triggers and a Vernier sight...

Ah damn, now I have to watch Quigley Down Under again...

I never got past Quigley using his rifle as a trapeze bar at the beginning of the movie...even though it's just a silly story, things like that ruin a movie for me. That rifle would never shoot straight again after that, and that's all I could think about through the rest of the film.

Funny to get hung up on crap like that. Maybe I'm autistic.

Back during my USMC training before and for a couple years after my SE Asia vacation, we were required to qualify annually with the M-14 at 500 yards, using minute of man targets and prone position. After that we switched to the M-16, which I used with despair, and which wasn’t nearly as accurate. I can still do it, at least I did it a few years ago at an Appleseed course at the Badlands in southern OK using the non-select fire M-1A. My local range only goes out to 400 meters, so I don’t ring the gong out to 500 yds much as a rule. It mainly requires not rushing, strict attention to all the fundamentals, but can be done even with aging Mark-1’s. BTW, the Appleseed courses are great ways to get introduction/refresher training in marksmanship, IMHO.

Hammer, you would have appreciated the West Point cadet at Ft Knox when I was at AOB. He got his M-14 caught in the turret ring and had to march the remainder of his orientation with a 45 degree bend in the barrel. They let him quality with another cadet's rifle.

Open sights can be used very effectively out to a few hundred yards. But, just because it is an iron sight, does not mean that you have to shoot offhand.
I consider myself a pretty active and experienced hunter and shooter. I have hunted with many iron sighted rifles and unless the conditions are pretty special, I limit my shots to under 250 yards. A big game animal at 250 with a good aperture sight and a good rest, is really not that hard to do. But, I also shoot a few thousand rounds per year.
I used to shoot with a friend at steel out to 700 yards. As a gag one day, I bet him lunch that I could hit the 700 yard target with my 30-30 at least once out of a 7 round tube. I got two hits without any spotting, or sighters. That target was pretty big, but still a pretty big challenge.
It takes familiarity with the rifle, the ballistics of the cartridge and lots of practice.
To me a big game animal at 100 yards with iron sights is a chip shot.

I'm a couple years older than Hammer and still don't use readers or need glasses to fly but my eyes aren't great with the contrast required for long range open sight shooting.

I have a peep sight on my Marlin 45-70 and practise out to 50 yards or so. It is a bear defence gun for me so that is sufficient.

I have a long range setup but I purchased it mainly to become a better shooter, not to hunt game. Like A1Skinner, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot at a wolf or coyote at that distance but I don't foresee shooting anything else at that distance. A lot of that has to do with the terrain in which I hunt-- not a lot of long shots present themselves.

That said, I don't have a problem with people that take long shots if they know what they are doing, it just isn't my thing.

jrc111 wrote:... BTW, the Appleseed courses are great ways to get introduction/refresher training in marksmanship, IMHO.

I had not heard of Appleseed courses before. I looked them up and they appear to be very interesting courses...and quite inexpensive. I've never had any interest in colonial history, but I'd much rather learn about that than attend another "tactacool" firearm class. I've had a gut-full of those over the years and don't find them even remotely interesting.

Now I just need to amass 250 rounds of ammo for a rifle I actually want to shoot so I can attend one of their classes. Should probably get a go-fund-me account.

It's all about definition and contrast of the target when shooting long distance with open sights. I have a range with gongs out to 500 yards behind my barn, I grab a rifle off the rack every day and go shoot at least one 3 shot group, often more, it's not a huge amount of shooting but it adds up to 1-2 thousand rounds of centerfire annually. I do all my shooting from field positions and the gongs are 2 MOA, so 6 in at 300 and 10 in at 500. They're painted bright too but if the day is overcast or rainy it's tough to see the 500 yard gong well enough to hit it. On a good visibility day though I'll go 3 for 3 every time. I'd say for myself I'd be good to go to 300 with open sights from sitting if the quarry was very visible with a good contrasting background, how often do you get that though so realistically probably a lot closer.

I saw Hammer commenting on long range rigs. I'm OK with guys doing the long range thing and I can understand the fascination with the dedicated long range rigs, the only part I don't like is when people think they can purchase a shortcut to long range shooting abilities. As in they think they can buy a whiz bang rifle and scope package ready to go and not really put in the practice. I had thought that phenomenon was made up but I have actually met a couple guys now who were like this, they had purchased some Gunwerks/Huskemaw thing and in both cases thought they were good to go for 1000 yards hunting.

You were 20 years before me (USMC Infantry 88-94). Apparently the following generations of M16’s were/are considerably more accurate then your days. Easy shooting of torso targets at 500 with iron sights, even with sloppy, loose “combat worn” rifles.
Agreed on the Appleseed program. My wife went through it some years back and really enjoyed the refresher.

jrc111 wrote:Back during my USMC training before and for a couple years after my SE Asia vacation, we were required to qualify annually with the M-14 at 500 yards, using minute of man targets and prone position. After that we switched to the M-16, which I used with despair, and which wasn’t nearly as accurate. I can still do it, at least I did it a few years ago at an Appleseed course at the Badlands in southern OK using the non-select fire M-1A. My local range only goes out to 400 meters, so I don’t ring the gong out to 500 yds much as a rule. It mainly requires not rushing, strict attention to all the fundamentals, but can be done even with aging Mark-1’s. BTW, the Appleseed courses are great ways to get introduction/refresher training in marksmanship, IMHO.