Sight alignment and the rear sight width.

On Sunday I took a S&W .45ACP to the range. What seemed very noticeable was the very visible gaps between the front sight and the rear sight. I always felt that I was struggling with sight alignment on my 1911 with Bomar rear and .125" wide front.

So I broke out the Scatt and dryfired. I noticed my hold from one shot to the other was not consistent. I broke out a Swiss file and took about .010" off of both sides of the rear notch. I know have visible gap that I'm not struggling to see.

I dryfired some more and the previous inconsistencies are gone. 

It makes me wonder if others are struggling with this and dont know it. I dont recall this detail really being discussed here. 

I'm interested to hear others thoughts or experiences.
-Ron

I'm just a sharpshooter but I'm pretty sure I like big sights in general.

My Steyr LP50 Compact air pistol came with a 4.5mm (~.180") front sight and a 4mm rear sight notch (~.160"). And I definitely like that sight picture better than anything I can get on an adjustable sight service pistol.

Bear in mind that the sight radius on the LP50 is much longer than a 1911 which makes that .180" front look a little smaller. So to get roughly the same sight picture on a 1911 you'd use a .160" width for both the rear notch and front post. That's quite a bit bigger than the Kensight Bo-Mar which is a .125" front and .112" rear.

I suspect most pistol sights are really designed for a two-handed hold. When you bring the sights closer to the eye with two hands, you enlarge the apparent size of the front sight *and* the apparent gaps alongside it. So that makes smaller, tighter sights make sense, but when you hold them in a bullseye stance it's another story. I also have fairly long arms (armspan of 6'3") which makes the effect of holding those little sights at arm's length even worse.

If the rear notch is too narrow, the light can refract and small misalignments of the blade to the notch can be masked.  So it’s best to have a wider notch than narrower.  A reasonable “rule of thumb” is a notch that appears to be 1.5 times wider than the blade.

That refraction situation appeared to be the exact effect. I have watched it among people using peep sights on a rifle so I knew what it was.

It just made me wonder how many people are being effected by it in pistol, especially since I dont see that aspect in discussion, along with how people do have sight alignment problems.

rsp nals it! Smith rear sights are notoriously narrow.

Wider is better than too tight.

Few people REALLY understand irons these days. Sights; somewhere around page 53