Hey all, I'm leaning toward getting a Marlin 1894 in either 44 or 357 in a big way. However, the budget just will not allow a quality scope this year, and I'm done with inexpensive crap and all their frustrating, inevitable problems.

So I'm turning 50 and of course wear bifocals. My far sight with glasses is 20-20. I've never used metal sights before. Will my 50 year old eyes be able to handle peeps? What range is effective for say, a five inch circle? When will fading light become a factor? Dark woods a problem?

I can probably forget head shots on squirrel and rabbits with my down loads, though.

I figure I use a peep sight on my bow, so why not? Then I thought that my range on the rifle will be beyond my practical range of my bow, soooooo...

Maybe someone in my general age group that hunts with peeps can give me the skinny.

Thanks to everyone for the info and advice so far. This seems to be a very nice and helpful forum.

You'll be fine! I have bifocals and don't have any problems.

The best thing you can do is to get a piece of black cardboard, poke a 1/8" hole in it, take off your glasses and see if you can see. You will most likely be able to shoot a peep without your glasses! With the glasses, you may have to experiment to see which lens is in line, but you will be focusing on the front sight which means you should probably have your "far" lens on axis.

As for darkness, if you don't have to small of a peep (national match sights for example) you should be able to see as well as you would when your not looking through the sight. Usually good peep sights will have removable inserts of varying size for range and lighting conditions.

For accuracy, my M1A with combat peep is generally shooting 3/4" at 100 yards off of the bag, it is not uncommon to outshoot someone with a scope and a bolt gun.

Good luck, and practice often, if you haven't grown up shooting the peep, you will have a little learning curve, but shoot often and remember the mantra, "focus on the front sight" and you will be fine.

John

I haven't been 50 in a long time, and find tang sights to be the easiest to handle with my bifocals. Besides, they look cool on a lever gun (or a pump)!
Pete

I've been wondering what "bifocals" has to do with it. The reading lense would be quite low and unusable.
My specks are adjustable to rise up more for shooting (or Pool or anything where your head is down but your sight up.)
Even then I am looking thru the top part of the lense.

So with a peep and the distance lense the only one in use, the peep is the normal blur (for everyone), the target is clear, but the front sight is the problem. My standard size M94 Win
bead all but disapears. I'm sure a bigger bead would solve that problem.
If I shoot without correction all's good except the target. At close range on larger game that's no problem for me anyway.

I've just tried open sights recently and was pleasently supprised that with a large front bead and a wide safari type rear I can see quite well either way. Of course in the end the scope is the way to go.

Hello Big Bore Boar Hunter,
Good answers and always good to hear from a fellow match shooter. Lot of folks have won matches of 600 yards and on out to 1000 yards using peep sights over scopes, but many will find that hard to believe. Old friend, long since gone to the great range in the sky, used to say he could never understand why anyone would want an aluminum tube, screws, springs and glass on top of a hunting rifle. Definitely old school fellow, but he shot well over 3000 rounds a year with practice and matches and thought nothing about it. Very few left like him.

JWK:

I would be inclined to go along with JAL and say it really isn't important.

I'm much older than you -and never used peeps after about age 30 - so what do I know? My response is that I used peep sights when my eyes were as sharp as an eagle's - but the focus never mattered. The trick with a peep is never to treat the peep as if it was a "hole" to "look through". -but always to get a view of "looking through" - exactly like looking through a window - to find the bead of the front sight. You lay the bead on the target -and that's the focus you need. Don't treat the aperture as if you're trying to thread a needle. You are looking through "a window". That's the great beauty of the peep sight - and why it was such an enormous improvement over open sights.

I wear bifocals and am pretty good out to 150 yards with a Williams fool proof and a fiber optic front on a Marlin 336 in 30/30. Both the calibers you mention get a little bit sketchy beyond 100 yards IMHO.

I must wear Tri-focals and I prefer Peep/scope

Gerry, that's one of the best explanations of the proper use of a "peep" sight I've ever read. Thanks for posting it. I've used them for years on service,hunting,and match rifles. My eyes aren't what they used to be either, but the "peeps" seem to help rather than hinder. For those not familiar with them, I would add that the key to success for a particular application seems to lie in selecting the proper aperature size for the job at hand. A Merit disc offers an adjustable aperature. I have one, and like it. Your results may differ.
Cheers,
Don

Don:

Thanks for the kind words but credit belongs to someone else.

I'm 76 in a few weeks and when I was a kid, the peep sight was common,very widely used (the way scopes are today) I had a very good instructor in my father and he was the one who first instructed me on using a peep sight. The explanation was his and I'm happy to honor his memory in saying so.

quote:

Originally posted by beltloop:
I must wear Tri-focals and I prefer Peep/scope

I'm a candidate for trifocals also; I just haven't given in yet.

What JAL said is true. The bifocals themselves have nothing to do with it. I just figured it would explain the condition of my sight without going into detail.

OK, so you're in the same boat as I am. Even my mid distance is going so that with the distance lens of my glasses I can not focus clearly on the front sight of a rifle. If this is still not a problem for accurate shooting I will give it a try.

Thanks to everyone for the information.

Hi,
50 was a ways back for me too. I wear trifocals. I wanted to be able to shoot my double rifle with iron sights. after quite a bit of experimentation the best thing I have found is to get an old pair of your glasses and buy a set of stick on magnifier lenses at the drug store. Stick a very small piece of the right magnification the upper inner area of the lense on your dominant eye.

You look thru the distance lense to find the target or game. Then drop your head a tiny bit and look through the small + lense and the front sight will sharpen up like you're twenty again. Works for me. Heck with my little gimmick lense and and some vaigra I even feel twenty again at times.
es

I have the progressive lenses and a marbles tang sight on a marlin 1895 no problems