Opening up the sights

When I first opened up my Steyr LP10 I was pleasantly surprised with how well everything worked. So much so that I never really paid attention to the positioning of the rear sight. The Steyr LP10 has an adjustable width rear sight. As you will notice in Aiming The Pistol the perceived gap between the sides of the rear-sight front-sight is actually quite small. I had a gap on each side that was only around 1/4 to 1/3 of the perceived width of the front sight.

Today I was told on good authority by the New Zealand High Performance Pistol coach that I should open out my sights. He recommended that the gap on either side of the front side should roughly be equal to the front sight perceived width, as a minimum. (As seen above)

This basically allows more light to pass through to the eye, which will give a sharper contrasted sight picture. I definately noticed that the slight halo fog I had between my sights was gone, especially with my tired eyes today after no sleep.

I guess that the exact width is more preference than science, but science surely plays apart in how we see and focus our eyes on bands of light.

Results
I instantly noticed how much easier my eyes felt, a little more relaxed when focusing, and it was easier to tell that the front sight was horizontally centered (even though the gap was bigger). As can be seen from the image above, my grouping improved very much after the adjustment. Without embarrasing myself with a picture I can assure you that my groups were more like a spray across the 8-9-10 today before the adjustment. Thanks Ray for advise well given.


UPDATE:- Opening up the sights more.


Comparing this image to the one at the top you will see that the depth of the front sight, and rear sight blades is nearly twice as deep as the image above. The LP10 out of the factory had the rear sight depth set at the lowest setting, I have now opened mine up to the deepest setting. This lets a lot more light pass through the gap between sight blades, and it also makes it easier to tell if the front sight is bobbing up or down.