Let's start by talking about standard pistol sights. Most of the popular firearms use the 3-dot, notch and post style of setup. For Glock pistols, the rear sight is a kind of squared off U-shape instead of dots. Personally, I loathe those sights! Can't stand them! For the purpose of this article, I'm ignoring them. Here is an example of the type of sights I'm going to be talking about.
As you can see, the rear sight has a notch with 2 dots, 1 on each side. The front sight is a post with a single dot in the middle of it. Thus we get the notch and post, 3 dot sights.
One quick thing to remember, shoot with both eyes open. None of that wink type stuff you see in the movies. It may work for one shot, but if you want to get multiple hits on target with speed and accuracy, keep them both open.
Now, the first thing any good shooting instructor will tell you to do is find your front sight. It's a must! The front sight needs to be placed on your target to achieve any type of accuracy. In fact, when done correctly, the front sight will be the only thing that can be seen clearly. The target will be blurry and the rear sights will be blurry. Not to worry, that front post is what needs your attention.
You may notice that a little double vision happens with the rear sights when you focus on the front post. Actually, you will definitely notice this. Again, no worries. This is just a part of shooting. With practice, you will know exactly where to place the front sight post. Of course, I have a couple tips to make this easier. First, be sure to position the gun in front of your dominant eye. If you don't know which eye this is, wink. More than likely, the eye that you leave open is your dominant one. For me, my left eye is dominant so I hold my pistol more towards the left. As for the rear sights, squint your non-dominant eye, but do not totally close it. This will get rid of some of the double vision that occurs & you will know where the front sight needs to be. This can be done with an unloaded weapon, without an actual target. Emphasis on UNLOADED!
- pistol in front of your dominant eye
- blurred rear sights
- clear front sight
- blurred target
- 3 dots in a straight horizontal line
- top of front and rear sights make a straight line
- even amount of space on each side of the front sight post