TRAINING SIGHTS
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TRAINING SIGHTS
When learning the basics of firearms training, two key fundamentals of shooting any firearm are
sight alignment and sight picture. Sight alignment is defined as the relation of the front sight to the
rear sight in line with your eyesight in order to shoot straight at your intended target. Optimally,
your alignment will have equal height across the top plane of the sights and equal spacing of light
on each side of the front sight when looking through the rear. Sight picture is commonly defined as
the relation of sight alignment with the intended target. -TS-
For those who may not know, aside from being
a gun writer, I am a firearms instructor and
training counselor as part of the Swanson Training
Group. Not only is my job to find the best way to
demonstrate these key fundamentals to students
but also to perspective instructors on how they can
teach these fundamentals to their future students as
well. While the NRA and USCCA do a great job with
fancy animated PowerPoint programs, they lack two
important aspects. The first being the ability to the students
to come and physically demonstrate what they have learned
without using a firearm. The second is the lack of being able to
reference the PowerPoint on the range during live fire exercises
to clearly illustrate what the student is seeing or doing wrong.
Many instructors either use the index finger and “V” of
the opposite hand index finger and middle finger as a field
expedient or a rudimentary sketch on the paper target that
harkens back to the days of cave painting communication.
For me, this all changed when I came across a product online
known as Training Sights. These appeared to be clear plastic
cards with common front and rear sights imprinted on them.
Immediately my minded began to whirl over the advantages
something like this could hold so I reached out to the company
immediately. The next day, the company owner, Bob Lyons
called me to discuss their product.
Through our conversation, I learned Training Sights is
a veteran owned business and each one of their products is
proudly made here in the US. By making the Training Sights
cards in heavy grade clear plastic, they are weatherproof and can
be directly overlaid onto a target for discussion and illustration
of fundamentals. Lyons wanted something quick and easy to
engage in not only the audio learners but visual and tactile as
well. From his military experience working with foreign soldiers
in addition to US forces, Lyons often ran into the common issue
of language barriers when teaching. He found that visual aids
such as the Training Sights cards were perfect for overcoming
these barriers and helping deliver the concepts while reducing
the lecture time needed. After our discussion, Bob offered to
send out a few sets of various Training Sights products for our
training staff and writers to work with for ourselves in class.