What Goes Into Rifle Sighting Technology

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For almost as long as there have been guns there have been gun sights. When these sights were first utilized it was a small, notched piece of iron affixed to the end of the barrel. The sight allows the shooter to more accurately line up his gun with the intended target. Having a sight helps the shooter’s eye focus on objects in the distance and helps target it.

Because the human eye is a) fallible and b) incapable of seeing at the distances hunters sometimes need, using a sight helps solve the problem and improves accuracy.

The advancement of sights through the decades:

Original iron sights is a technology at its most basic. These sights, as mentioned, previously were mounted on the end of the gun with a notch in the middle to help the aiming process.
Telescopic sights have been in use in one form or another since the late 1800s. These sights are able to be attached to a handgun or a rifle and help magnify the target. Today’s sights can be adjusted by the user for both aim and focus. Some of the sights can be adjusted for differences in elevation between the target and the hunter.
Laser sights use laser light technology and can be affixed to handguns and rifles. The laser sights place a red dot on a target that lets the shooter know where the bullet will hit. There are laser sights that also incorporate infrared technology which means the laser and its dot is invisible to the naked eye but can be seen through night vision goggles.
There is a newer microsight technology that has been developed that incorporates “zone plates” which help eliminate the issues the human eye has with focusing on more than one target. With this technology, the zone plate uses a diffraction method to bring distant objects closer and close objects within the same focal range, thus eliminating some sighting issues.
A “smartsight” technology was developed that is a combination of a miniature camera mounted on the gun and the shooter uses a remote viewfinder that is positioned over his eye. In military settings this is an ideal technology because it could allow the soldier to remain behind cover, but allow him to aim the gun above his head and the remote viewfinder would still allow him to see the target.

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