Iron sights sit on my elk "woods" gun. I like them as sight aquisition is fast and you may not see an elk deep in the northwest woods for long. My canyon shooter wears a big scope, though. As my eyes get older, the rear sight get fuzzier. I like a wide V rear with a substantial gold bead up front.

Much ado about nothing. YOu use the sights that are best for your hunting menthod and landscape. Here in Western Washington I use rifles that wear irons and a scope. when things turn froggy, and they often do, or when I'm in heavy cover, as I often am, I rely on the irons or a low power scope. When I hunt clear cuts I use a bit more magnifacation. Also the scopes help in low light as everyone knows-however here we have monsoon rains and poor light. What do you do? I like peep sights. Friends who hunt east of the mountains can't imagine why anybody would need irons. So there you go. Use what works in your area.

I have put a peep sight on my 9.3x62, and use it when I'm tracking cougar, and when scouting for sheep (maybe a bear gets inquisitive). I haven't pushed the limits but hitting things out to a hundred is easy. When speed is of the essence, not many things beat a good peep sight set-up, I feel.

Frans

I am very interestd in this topic. Have a bunch of noce older rifles, that are not drilled for optics. Thought about using them in Africa- hey, up until the 60s wasn't all hunting pretty much done with open sights?

One of these days I'll get bold and try it.

I was raised on iron sights. Shot smallbore competition with them on a Win 52. But that was then and this is now, fifty years later.

I use iron sights on my pistols. Although blind in one eye, I still see three front sights. I just pick the middle one.

I also practice iron on my .375 within 25 yards, but it's optics for me in the real world from now on. Getting older will do that to us all.

For you all bragging about shooting irons as well as scope just keep on dreaming.

Lets see you pick the brown deer out of the brown back ground past 100yards. Lets see you thread the bullet through gray trees and gray brush to find the gray deer. Or just seeing the shoulder or a small part of the neck needed to make the shot.

Yep on a nice sunny day in the wide open with a clear path to a critter well lighted standing out in the open yea ok.

But for every critter I have shot in the open on a nice sunny day with nothing inbetween. I have shot dozens with trees brush and other stuff to cause open sights trouble.

Open sights can get the job done but they hold a back seat to a good scope for putting meat on the table most of the time.

Most of my rifles do wear scopes,except two. My .223 & .270 wear 3-9x40's. The 8x57 & 35 whelen wear 2.5-8x36's. M38 7.62x54r and an interarms mark x 30-06 wear irons. The 06 is going to get an upgrade in irons soon. Peep sights are what I want.

I hadn't shot iron sights for years until picking up my .470 NE. After a bit of practice, I seems the iron sights are about the same as a low power scope when shooting off hand and quickly. I enjoy both types of sights but each obviously has a different application.

My varmint guns will continue to wear glass.

Venado