Vern Humphrey
Member
I shoot 5 gallon cans at up to 135 yards -- a convenient distance, given the location of the dam of my pond, which is my backstop. I haven't seen much about long-range pistol shooting, so I thought I'd share my technique.
I shoot a Colt New Service in .45 Colt and have my own system which others may find interesting. I zero for 50 yards which puts me about an inch or so high at 25 yards and I'm 6 inches low at 100 yards.
With a sight radius of 6", the ratio of sight radius to range at 100 yards is 1:600. If I hold up an extra inch of front sight, the bullet impact is raised 600 inches -- 50 feet. Obviously too much!
A tenth of an inch of front sight would put my point of impact 60 inches, or 5 feet, higher -- still too high.
The proper sight alignment for 100 yards is to hold up an extra hundredth of an inch of front sight -- for a 6-inch higher point of impact.
I visualize the sights as a dashed line "---" The middle dash is the top of the front sight, and the two end dashes are the tops of the rear sight. The normal sight alignment is to hold those three dashes in perfect alignment. But if the line looks "sloppy" -- you can just tell the three dashes aren't aligned -- you get a hundredth of an inch.
So for a hundred yards, I "break the line" -- take a sight alignment where I can just tell the three dashes aren't in line. For 135 yards, I take up that sight alignment, and double it.
I shoot a Colt New Service in .45 Colt and have my own system which others may find interesting. I zero for 50 yards which puts me about an inch or so high at 25 yards and I'm 6 inches low at 100 yards.
With a sight radius of 6", the ratio of sight radius to range at 100 yards is 1:600. If I hold up an extra inch of front sight, the bullet impact is raised 600 inches -- 50 feet. Obviously too much!
A tenth of an inch of front sight would put my point of impact 60 inches, or 5 feet, higher -- still too high.
The proper sight alignment for 100 yards is to hold up an extra hundredth of an inch of front sight -- for a 6-inch higher point of impact.
I visualize the sights as a dashed line "---" The middle dash is the top of the front sight, and the two end dashes are the tops of the rear sight. The normal sight alignment is to hold those three dashes in perfect alignment. But if the line looks "sloppy" -- you can just tell the three dashes aren't aligned -- you get a hundredth of an inch.
So for a hundred yards, I "break the line" -- take a sight alignment where I can just tell the three dashes aren't in line. For 135 yards, I take up that sight alignment, and double it.