Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

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The simple V or U notch, still popular, works better than its simplicity suggests. Countless tons of prime game meat have been brought to table with rifles sporting this sight. I have seen O’Connor’s flat bar with white line in Africa. It is intended for close encounters of the Cape buffalo kind. It is simple and fast for bullet placement at very close range when a hunter’s starched shorts are at risk of being sullied and the target is a broad skull or hearty shoulder. The Patridge is much more precise when it has a frame of reference, as explained below, especially effective with the six o’clock hold.

Taking nothing away from any of these open sights, it is the peep (aperture) that rules the world of rifle iron sights when precise bullet placement is called for.

Last season, partly for the SCI meat donation program, I hunted big game exclusively with my Marlin 336T Texan .30-30 carbine, the one closely resembling Winchester’s famous Model 94. The original open iron sight missed nothing, only one second shot required on an antelope buck taking a bullet on angle. And yet, the open iron and bead front on that carbine are now replaced with a White Stripe front matched to a Ghost Ring aperture (peep) from XS Sight Systems. The promise of an extra margin of bullet placement was fulfilled with this peep sight. Groups proved the .30-30’s potential as a mid-range cartridge, as evidenced by Hornady’s LeverEvolution ammo and my own handloads (160- to 165-grain bullets at 2,450 feet per second from 20-inch barrel, a blip faster out of the 24-inch tunnel.