Maybe not madness, but it's an indication that most modern rifle shooters don't know
anything about gun fit. It probably comes from only shooting while sitting on their butts at a range bench.
I'd have one, too, if the iron sights on my new 7600 weren't canted an eight of a inch to the left.
...at which point you'd probably get rid of them promptly, once you've experienced them firsthand in the field.
I don't get all that magnified movement jacking with me
That's a symptom of
over-scoping (like a 4-12x on a general-purpose hunting rifle), not necessarily scopes in general. Hunting is not military sniping, and at 2X magnification, that syndrome is not a real issue. I even use a 2X scope for pistol matches, with no trouble. 4X would be unnerving, and anything higher would be maddening.
I see it as related to the same mentality that is causing a raise in shooting from the bench and a decline in shooting from the prone unsupported position.
Prone shooting? Yes, bench shooting is not shooting. It's useful for load testing and sighting in. But unsupported prone? That's a position that has absolutely no useful application in the real world I live in. I'm a hunter, and let me tell you, the ground is only flat in videogames. Even your average
parking lot has too many obstructions to make prone shooting useful. I practice shooting on BLM land, and one thing I learned quickly is that targets often disappear behind minor variations in the landscape, even when you shoot from a
seated position.
(Even if you fancy yourself a militiaman, prone shooting has to be done from high ground. In a military scenario, that's called suicide unless you train as a sniper -- which is NOT just rifle training by any stretch of the imagination.)
BTW yesterday I was sighting in a scoped hunting rifle (2-7x on a .30-06) at 200 yards. To take breaks from that somewhat tedious task, I played around with shooting a semi-buckhorn .357 lever carbine from a seated semi-jacknife position at 200 yards (a real jacknife doesn't work too well with a little carbine). I really enjoy iron sight shooting, generally more than using a scope, and I only put scopes on firearms that
require them for their intended purpose (e.g. of the 8 .22 rimfires I currently have, two have scopes -- one for match shooting and one for ground squirrel hunting). Not all guns are just toys. Some are tools.
Modern bolt-action hunting rifles (which is what we're discussing here, I think) shoot cartridges that are effective at 400 yards and beyond. It would hardly be ethical to hunt pronghorns at 400 yards with irons. Sure, there are aperture sights that will allow acceptable accuracy at 400 yards, with a high-contrast target and good light. I shot a buffalo with the crude and hard-to-see irons on a Sharps, and dropped it with one shot -- but a buffalo is BIG and it stands out clearly against the prairie. A small deer, the same color as its background, at first light at 250 yards, or a pronghorn in the sage even farther away? You couldn't see it at all through a tiny peep sight, and it wouldn't be ethical to shoot it with crude open sights that wouldn't narrow your aim down past "somewhere on the animal".
One final note... My first 3 guns were loaded with loose black powder. I built them from kits, cast my own bullets, and of course shot them with iron sights. I use brass cases now, too, but I handload almost every centerfire I ever shoot. So, if you buy your guns from the store, your ammo from the store, and you don't load from the muzzle, you're a wimp, right?
That makes about as much sense as thinking that regular prone unsupported shooting is what makes you a real shooter, or that a scope on a hunting rifle is about "instant gratification".
