Iron Sight
Iron sights are a system of shaped alignment markers (usually metal) used as a sighting device to assist in the aiming of a device such as a firearm, crossbow, or telescope, and exclude the use of optics as in telescopic sights or reflector (reflex) sights. Iron sights are typically composed of two component sights, formed by metal blades: a rear sight mounted perpendicular to the line of sight and consisting of some form of notch (open sight) or aperture (closed sight); and a front sight that is a post, bead, or ring. Civilian defensive, hunting, and police firearms usually feature open sights, while many military battle rifles employ aperture sights. On many firearms the rear sight is adjustable for elevation or windage.
The earliest and simplest iron sights are fixed and cannot be easily adjusted. Many iron sights are designed to be adjustable, so that the sights can be adjusted for windage and elevation. For precision applications such as hunting or sniping the iron sights are usually replaced by a telescopic sight. Iron sights may still be fitted alongside a telescopic sight and are referred to as Back Up Iron Sights (Acronym B.U.I.S).
Read more about Iron Sight: Theory, Types of Sights, Enhancements, Adjusting For Accuracy
Famous quotes containing the words iron and/or sight:
“As a people, we have the problem of making our forests outlast this generation, or iron outlast this century, and our coal the next; not merely as a matter of convenience or comfort, but as a matter of stern necessity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)