I know it's in bad form to perpetuate a thread once it is locked, but in another thread I was asked a perfectly legitimate question and it deserves an answer.
It is entirely possible for middle aged shooters who suffer from presbyopia to do reasonably well with a softer sight picture. For me, a perfect sight picture is seeing what I need to see to make and call a shot. The sight picture can take many forms. While perfect sight alignment is nice, it is not necessarily an ingredient of perfect sight picture.
For example, if I see the sights are misaligned, but I know the alignment and reationship of the bore to the target surface are accetable for making the shot, I'll break the shot. If the sight lifts from the spot (or in some cases the outline of the slide) without disturbance, the shot is good. In my case, I do not have a crisp sight picture because of convergence issues with my eyes. I have both vertical and horizontal prisms in my glasses, but I still see ghosting of the sights. Not having sharp visual focus on the sights is not necessary as long as I can accurately read the relationship of the bore to the target face through a combination of visual inputs and kinesthetic awareness of my index.
For people who can see their sights with clarity, it is not necessary for the sights to be in perfect alignment to make the shot. An example would be if the post is centered in the notch, but the top of the post is a tad bit higher than the top of the rear sight. If the "front sight high" picture first appears slightly below your line of sight as the gun is presented, the sights are indeed in alignment, so you can break the shot with the pistol still in motion during the extension. If the front sight is too high at full extension, but the top of the sight is at the bottom of the A box (IPSC) at a distance where experience shows us the shot will strike within an acceptable area, break the shot. It is worthwhile to puposely misalign the sights in practice at various distances in order to learn what degree of alignment is required to make the shot. You have perfect sight picture when seeing what you need to see to make and call the shot with certainty (that Kodak moment), but you may or may not have perfect sight alignment.
Some folks refer to the visual inputs that allow us to read where the shot will strike as visual acceptability. It is important to learn what kind of sight alignment and sight picture will result in an acceptable hit. Knowing what is visually acceptable allows the processing of visual inputs at a high rate of speed and allows the shooter to immediately break the shot when the visual requirements for making the shot have been met.
Processing the visual inputs before breaking the shot is often times referred to as visual patience. Misses typically occur when I don't have the visual patience to wait until I process the required visual inputs. That or I just screw up the fire control.
How one defines perfect sight picture, visual acceptability, etc. is a personal thing and it comes with experience. Each person is free to develop their own frame work for understanding and developing techniques that support the fundamentals of shooting. What is important is for us to allow our vision to control our shooting. I hope that clears things up (no pun intended).
Moderators: If this post is inappropriate feel free to delete.
It is entirely possible for middle aged shooters who suffer from presbyopia to do reasonably well with a softer sight picture. For me, a perfect sight picture is seeing what I need to see to make and call a shot. The sight picture can take many forms. While perfect sight alignment is nice, it is not necessarily an ingredient of perfect sight picture.
For example, if I see the sights are misaligned, but I know the alignment and reationship of the bore to the target surface are accetable for making the shot, I'll break the shot. If the sight lifts from the spot (or in some cases the outline of the slide) without disturbance, the shot is good. In my case, I do not have a crisp sight picture because of convergence issues with my eyes. I have both vertical and horizontal prisms in my glasses, but I still see ghosting of the sights. Not having sharp visual focus on the sights is not necessary as long as I can accurately read the relationship of the bore to the target face through a combination of visual inputs and kinesthetic awareness of my index.
For people who can see their sights with clarity, it is not necessary for the sights to be in perfect alignment to make the shot. An example would be if the post is centered in the notch, but the top of the post is a tad bit higher than the top of the rear sight. If the "front sight high" picture first appears slightly below your line of sight as the gun is presented, the sights are indeed in alignment, so you can break the shot with the pistol still in motion during the extension. If the front sight is too high at full extension, but the top of the sight is at the bottom of the A box (IPSC) at a distance where experience shows us the shot will strike within an acceptable area, break the shot. It is worthwhile to puposely misalign the sights in practice at various distances in order to learn what degree of alignment is required to make the shot. You have perfect sight picture when seeing what you need to see to make and call the shot with certainty (that Kodak moment), but you may or may not have perfect sight alignment.
Some folks refer to the visual inputs that allow us to read where the shot will strike as visual acceptability. It is important to learn what kind of sight alignment and sight picture will result in an acceptable hit. Knowing what is visually acceptable allows the processing of visual inputs at a high rate of speed and allows the shooter to immediately break the shot when the visual requirements for making the shot have been met.
Processing the visual inputs before breaking the shot is often times referred to as visual patience. Misses typically occur when I don't have the visual patience to wait until I process the required visual inputs. That or I just screw up the fire control.
How one defines perfect sight picture, visual acceptability, etc. is a personal thing and it comes with experience. Each person is free to develop their own frame work for understanding and developing techniques that support the fundamentals of shooting. What is important is for us to allow our vision to control our shooting. I hope that clears things up (no pun intended).
Moderators: If this post is inappropriate feel free to delete.
