sight selection

[geronimotwo]

i have decided to purchase a .22lr revolver as my first hand gun. i will be using this mainly for plinking tin cans and such. when looking at the ruger website i found their sa with a 5.5 " barrel and fixed sights to have the classic styling i prefer. the problem is that i saw this gun in our local gun shop, and when sighting down the gun i found that the rear sights just blurred into the rest of the gun. unfortunatly, in our small local shop, this was their only revolver. is their a different gun, and/or sights that will not compomise the classic smooth styling of the fixed sights, but will show up better? can i use dots of floorescent paint , or something, to enhance the fixed sights? i think that i would be willing to sacrifice styles for better sights, as i hope to get more fun out of shooting the gun than looking at it. also, does cowboy style shooting require any specific style of sight?
thanks for any help, and experienced opinions, ron

 

[Old Fuff]

Be sure that you focus your eye on the front sight. The rear sight should be still be in focus, the the target will appear fuzzy. Sounds wrong, but it's right.

If you still have trouble getting a sharp sight picture the problem is probably your eyes, and you should look into getting a pair of glasses to use while shooting - if not otherwise.

Colored inserts, dots, whatever, may help you see the sights quicker, but won't do anything to improve your focus.

 

[RevolvingCylinder]

Actually, when focusing on the front sight, the rear sight should blur. And so should the target. The eye is only capable of focusing on one plane.

 

[Steve C]

Its not unusual for the rear sight to be a bit out of focus. The pupil of your eye works like a camera aperture. In low light the pupil is open more and your depth of field (the distances objects will remain focused in) diminishes. Under brighter light the pupil get smaller and the depth of field gets larger. The lighting conditions in the gun shop where probably not the best so that's why the rear sight wasn't in focus. If you where to try it in daylight or under brighter lights you'd find both front and rear sight would be focused.

There are pinhole aperture sighting aids like this http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=19702&title=HAWKEYE%7e+SHOOTERS+OPTIC+AID that attach to your shooting glasses. When you look through their aperture the front sight, rear sight and target are in crysal clear focus. This works great on slow fire bullseye targets.