OT sorta- Ever had any optional delusions?

J Miller · Post by **J Miller** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:46 pm

Yes I said optional delusions. But it could be optical illusions, or optical delusions, or optional illusions ............... what ever it is, it's weird.

Here's what happened. Yesterday I was practicing acquiring my sight picture with my BH. As I would get into position and get the sights aligned I noticed that the front sight tilted to the left.

Well, lets stop for a second and I'll tell you about that big honkin front sight.
When I got that OM Ruger BH the front sight had two problems.
One; it tilted to the right a noticeable amount.
Two; it was too short.
To fix this I had a gunsmith reindex the barrel and put a taller front sight on it.

So you see, the sight can not be tilting. I repeated the sight alignment exercise several times and each time the sight was tilting to the left.

I'm right handed by the way. And was doing this without my prescription glasses because with them on I can't see the sights at all.

I decided to try it left handed. So I reversed positions, hands and eyes and ...... and........ now the sight tilted to the right.
Ok, now I'm confused as heck. This is with both eyes open ~ or the off eye closed.

Optional delusions is what I call that.

Then I put on my safety glasses with the diopter kit and the front sight was now straight.

I'm near sighted with a slight left eye dominance.
Any body got any idea what would cause my eyes to do this?

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:53 pm

That's what you get for handling your gun too much.

Did your shoot it? That might sort it out.

ceb · Post by **ceb** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:58 pm

I've had the same thing happen, got no explanation though I don't remember that ever happening when my eyes were twenty years younger!

J Miller · Post by **J Miller** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:48 pm

Andrew,

You got a point. There isn't a day goes by I don't handle at least one of them. But I haven't been to the range in a few months.

ceb,
Exactly my thoughts. I can't remember this happening in the past. Used to be I could eyeball the sights on a any gun, long or short, and tell if they were straight or tilted and be right. Now ............ I'm not sure any more.
I'm going to run this by the eye doctor next time I get glasses. That should be pretty soon.

Joe

Blaine · Post by **Blaine** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:52 pm

Both eyes open? That could make a difference.......

Ram Hammer · Post by **Ram Hammer** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:19 pm

Try a two handed hold. It might be your arm is fooling your eye into seeing an artificial horizon.

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:32 pm

That kind of thing always happens with SCOPES for me. I'll think it is aligned, then I'll shoulder it more quickly/naturally, and it will look tipped. Then I use the other shoulder, and it 'tips' the other way.

Drives me Nuts!

At least with scopes, I can 'settle' matters by putting the gun buttstock-down on a piece of graph paper laid on the floor, then by shining an LED light in the scope objective see if they actually 'square' on the paper as they should. Once I do that, and I KNOW they are level, I seem to be able to talk myself into ignoring or not noticing that infernal 'tilt' that haunts me.

Maybe the same phenomenon with the irons as the scopes.

J Miller · Post by **J Miller** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:31 pm

Blaine,

It happened with both eyes open or with just the sight eye open. But I normally shoot with both open.

Ram Hammer,

I always use a two handed hold when I wanna hit what I aim at. I've never been good at one handed shooting.
But I can try it one handed to see what happens. One handed also has the effect of moving the gun farther from my eyes, so that will change the focus too.

Joe