The best inventions always seem to be the simple ones. Once we have them in our lives we are amazed it took us so long to discover them. We then find ourselves wondering how we lived without them – things like the wheel, lightbulbs, drive-through coffee and now, marksmanship training aids from TrainingSights.
Last summer I was teaching a class far from home. I wanted to close out the first day with a set of drills that explored the skill of quick pistol shooting with a “good enough” sight picture. It was at this point I realized I had left my cardboard representation of sights at home.
I broke out a box cutter to put my arts and crafts skills to work, and then something happened that changed how I explain sight use forever. I was passed two pieces of 8.5 x 11 transparent plastic by a fellow instructor. One piece had a front sight image, the other a rear sight image. The clouds parted, the sun shone down, and the ballistic gods blessed me with the solution to more than a few problems.
Why is this so important?
There are only two things required to shoot a gun accurately. The first is to point the muzzle at what you want to hit. Quite often the accuracy of that pointing process needs to be aided using a sighting system. Fixed “iron sights” or an optic are the two predominant options used to refine handgun aim. If you’ve been shooting for a while, it can be easy to forget what it is like not to know how to aim effectively or efficiently. Aiming is simple, it’s not intuitive.
(For the second thing required to shoot a gun accurately, click here.)
Teaching people how to use a sighting system is quite often disconnected from reality. There are a lot of ways we try to explain the use of sights to people, such as pictures in books or on screens, and drawing big thick black lines on targets. One of the common issues with those approaches is the static nature of the representation and its isolated location. My sights never, ever look like the picture in the book. My sights are always moving, they are rarely perfectly centered. When you’re behind the gun aiming the sights are always overlayed on a target too; those elements are not frequently present in books, posters and handouts. The best way to show people what the relationship should look like between what they are aiming at, and their sighting system is to show them on the intended target. TrainingSights has perfected a solution that meets the needs of this critical teaching moment.
Lots of options, broadly applicable
Whether you are teaching new shooters the principles of aiming, introducing a new sighting system or showing experienced shooters the limitations of what will get them the hits they need, high-quality visual aids are essential for all those demonstrations.
TrainingSights has a range of options to represent the sighting system you are trying to emulate. The company offers variants of red dots reticles and holographics that have multiple “sight windows” that represent the shape of the housing your shooters will be looking through; there are different shapes of pistol and rifle iron sights, and the pistol options come in a variety of colors too.
The variety of options means you can show your shooter exactly what they should be seeing, and exactly where they should be seeing it. If you’re competing against noise distractions, language barriers, or trying to address large groups, the high-quality realistic visual representation from TrainingSights is going to cut through that disruption. This training aid will allow you to send your message clearly and concisely in any environment.
A touch of reality
Adding movement to the visual representation of a sighting system is another limitation to pictures, or sight cut outs. TrainingSights keeps the front and rear sight separate. They are on two different clear sheets that allow them to be overlayed, offset and independently manipulated.
Want to show some vibration style constant minor movements on an imperfect sight picture? TrainingSights has you covered. If you are among the informed who are making a move to pistol-mounted optics, there is a need to know what “parallax free” means to us as shooters, and to show people what can be done with the dot anywhere in the window. Just as the front and rear sights are separate, the optic versions have the reticle on one sheet and the optic housing on another.
Robust and handily sized
The rugged clear materials used to produce the sights are extremely tough. I have traveled the country with my sets, I use them constantly with no issues. Whether you’re working in a classroom, indoors, outdoors, rain, or shine the all-weather materials used to produce the sights are well selected to ensure the longevity of your purchase. The variety of sizes means you can always keep a set nearby, in a bag, in a pocket, they even make wallet-sized versions for ultimate convenience.
If you are tasked with teaching people anything to do with aiming a firearm, an investment in TrainingSights is not something I need to sell to you; if you teach people to shoot you already know the value. The company slogan is “Just be good at your job” and they have created the equipment to help us make that a reality.