Trego's Mountain Ear

Aging eyes create challenges for a guy who carries a short gun. The old match pistols still have usable sights, but are heavy and long. The old 1911 sights became hard to see because of cataracts – and after cataract surgery still2 are hard to use because I am now far sighted. I can focus with the old sights if I wear reading glasses – but that kind of defeats the purpose.

So I’ve gone over to three dot sights. They look something like these illustrations (taken from the NRA. The difference from my perspective is that the front sight is pretty well focused and the dots on the rear sight are a bit blurry.

It’s not a problem. Forty years ago, I watched a man with a white cane, using a 1911, score well above me. Hoping I could learn something, I started a conversation, explaining that his score was higher than mine, and his white cane suggested I had better vision. His answer was simple: “Son, all I can see distinctly is the front sight. The rear sight is a blur. The target is a blur. You just have too many distractions. As you get older, you’ll get better at focusing on your front sight.” Well, I’m older. I can focus better on the front sight. And I did manage to put 8 rounds inside the 8 ring -despite being shaky. And yes, that’s at Bullseye’s 25 yards (though I was doing slow fire, where the match distance should be 50). It’s hard to take shooters seriously that shoot at 3, 7 and 15 yards.

Sights have improved over time – Hickock’s 1851 Navy Colts had a little notch in the hammer with a brass front sight – and it worked well for him.

Sixty years later, John Moses Browning put slightly better sights on his model 1911. I could change to these more modern variants:

Glocks have really nice sights – but I’m old fashioned. I want a hammer, not a striker. I prefer the Browning designs. So it’s either a new one, or a $45 expense to bring the 1911 technologically up to the 1990 sights.

I’ll write on the newer optics when my vision further declines – I can still view the front sight clearly.