Sightless rifles and how I Loathe them....

Bob has been making cracks about how I am the most militant person he knows when it comes to leaving iron sights on a rifle after you have it fitted for an optic of some sort or another. So as a bit of explanation I guess I will start with why I hate rifles with just optics on them.

First of all there is the gun owners that think just because they have a top of the line optic on a gun it will make them a better shot. Good fundamentals that you get learning how to shoot Iron sights and lots of practice make you a better shot. I have had the misfortune of shooting with a few of these people and they failed to understand how I was producing results as good as or better with my Iron only sighted 8mm when they had put more money into thier optic only rifle.

Secondly Remington, Savage etc most major Firearm manufactures make a model of high power rifle that comes drilled and tapped for a scope mount but they fail to include the most essential part of any useful rifle FUCKING SIGHTS!!!!!!! Sorry for the profanity but it is necessary to make my point. Seriously they save maybe 25 cents on the steel and maybe 40 dollars on paying the machinist.

Reason number three. A high power rifle with out iron sights has a weakness worse than Bruce Willis' susceptibility to water in Unbreakable if you are on a long hunting trip like at a resort, or really roughing it and killing your food as you move through the mountains you have the potential to ruin your whole experience by accidentally dropping you expensive piece of crap on its optic and now your gun can't reliably hit any game responsibly. Now if your rifle had iron sights in addition to a fancy optic all you need is a Swiss army knife and a few minutes to remove your optics and its mounts and your rifle is now functional again. If you are any kind of a shot you can still make a decent kill shot on a deer at 100 yards with the irons. But if you still feel the need to waste your money on a gun with no sights at least do the right thing and buy an iron sight that you put on with the scope mounts and throw it in your gun case with the rifle just in case it will be a short sight radius but at least you will have a sight for the gun.

These things being said I have a little advise for the beginning rifle shooters. Start small with an experienced shooter; learn the fundamentals with a .22 it is cheaper to shoot and more forgiving on your shoulder than picking up a .308 and trying to put 100 rounds down range. Next learn all of the standard shooting positions: prone, sitting, kneeling, and off hand. Bench resting is ok for killing paper and sighting in an optic, but when out hunting it isn't very often your get the luxury of a rest and sandbags. Finally don't give up the iron sights completely, it will help keep you in practice.