Rifle sight idea, probably too weird--

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I would prefer to shoot rifle right handed but am blind in right eye and hardly any rifle is situated so one can look thru the sights with left eye when shooting right handed.

Mounting some kind of sight real high would be hopeless parallax except at long range. Perhaps a sight mounted 45 degrees off to the left would help but I suspect the sight might still have to be too far away from the barrel and have too much parallax.

Wonder if a 45 degree telescope-style terrestrial prism diagonal would be at all practical? The sight could be snugged down close to the barrel for minimal parallax, but you could look thru the sight at an angle so the left eyeball could see a "low" sight while shooting right handed? Most obviously useful with a telescopic sight, but perhaps not un-usable with a red dot or even iron sights. For red dot or iron sights you wouldn't use an eyepiece, just a prism to bend the light and to-be-figured-out whatever amount of baffling would be necessary in the prism mount to prevent glare.

Given that there is nothing new under the sun-- If such a thing were at all practical, then most likely somebody would have already done it? Talking about building something custom, not buying it off the shelf. Just curious if ya'll ever read about such a thing? An angled rifle sight so you can shoot with "the wrong eye"?

Edited June 25, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Caster]

http://yhm.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_8&products_id=126&zenid=b9e6e8adbe592158425e88b5361adf7d

It could work. Toss a pair of these [or the shorter ones] and slap a scope on that puppy.

[dats82]

This...

http://www.amazon.com/Alex-Toys-402-SPY-SCOPE/dp/B00000JHV0/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_0_1

and this...

http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Color-Yards-THREE-Rolls/dp/B004XHX3DW/ref=sr_1_9?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1340662808&sr=1-9&keywords=duct+tape

I kid of course. Sounds like an interesting idea, and I would be certainly be curious to see what comes up.

[Dolomite_supafly]

Might be able to do it with a small spy type camera behind the sight. Then mount the television portion of it anywhere you want.

Or you might be able to use a standard camera with a flip out screen. Mount it behind the sights then flip the screen open to be seen by your "other" eye.

Dolomite

[pattywak]

This is also somewhat my worry once I get a long arm of my own, but for different reasons. I shoot left-handed, but I am right eye dominant. It's like the worst of both options, "wrong" handedness AND opposite dominant eye.

[greyofk]

German Panzerfaust scope was built this way. Early Russian RPG had prismatic scope.

It is difficult to build prismatic devise that can survive stiff rifle's recoil. An axial scope is way more rigid

[peejman]

This is also somewhat my worry once I get a long arm of my own, but for different reasons. I shoot left-handed, but I am right eye dominant. It's like the worst of both options, "wrong" handedness AND opposite dominant eye.

I'm also left handed and right eye dominant. I learned to shoot right handed. It's a right handed world and it just makes everything easier.

[mikegideon]

I'm also left handed and right eye dominant. I learned to shoot right handed. It's a right handed world and it just makes everything easier.

Me too. In fact, if i try to close just my right eye, my head will explode. I can't recall even trying to shoot left handed.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yah I'm right handed and might shoot rifle more often if I could do it right handed. Can shoot left-handed but it doesn't feel natural. If it felt natural maybe it would be more fun. Was legally blind in right eye as a kid but could shoot rifles right handed and get my head down low enough to sight with left eye. Being a kid and having a small head. I recall it very comfortable shooting right-handed.

All the ideas are appreciated. Many possible ways to skin the cat, though thats no guarantee that any would be practical. Haven't done a patent search. Dollars to donuts there are zillions of old crazy patents on this issue. One time did a patent search on adapters to make it easier to operate a right-hand bolt action shooting left-handed, and there were quite a few.

[peejman]

Shooting a long gun left-handed does still feel a little more natural to me. With some practice, shooting it right-handed works fine too. Not getting hit in the nose with hot brass is a plus.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks Caster, dats82 and Dolomite

All excellent ideas to consider.

Ought to get one of those YHM 45 degree Picatinny Angle Mount Adapters to play with, on the off chance that it might move a sight far enough off the rifle to use with the left eye.

Electronic camera options are interesting as well. Perhaps you would need a high res camera/monitor except possibly for short-range shooting or with a telescope? I only say that because a low-res camera/monitor, unmagnified and situated behind iron sights-- At 100 yards the entire target would only be a few pixels on a low-res screen, which might not be a good enough resolution to find and aim at a distance? On the other hand a lot of the camcorder optical chains have crazy capabilities like 30:1 zoom. With the zoom buttons in easy reach, maybe on a vertical forward grip or whatever-- You could find a distant target zoomed out then push a button and zoom way in to take the shot. That might be pretty keen!

One might even view a video sight with virtual-reality glasses. Wouldn't matter how you hold the rifle. Shoot from the hip and have just as good "chance" at a good sighting than any other stance. That is almost certainly too nerdy to ever be popular. But back in the 1970's was experimenting with in-ear stage monitoring and didn't persue it because it didn't seem likely that musicians would ever get get up on stage with hearing aids or headphones because it would look too nerdy. Wrong. Madonna starts doing it a few years later, then its kewl and not nerdy.

Brings to mind another different idea had been wondering about, either implemented passive or electronic-- You could have zero parallax if you had a weird mutant rifle equivalent of a "single lens reflex camera"-- Sight directly thru the barrel. Short of sighting directly thru the barrel, seems that low-mounted iron sights might be about as parallax free as its gonna get? Was thinking maybe a mini camera or light tube right snug up to the barrel, driving a low power telescope or video monitor, might make a "red dot equivalent" with much less parallax than typical big red dots which sit high off a rifle? That concept might even interest a (pathologically obsessive compulsive) two-eyed shooter?

[Jonnin]

You should be able to use an AR type scope on a bolt action gun and mount it *anywhere* in a circle around the barrel up to 2, maybe 3 inches away from the barrel. It is common for the scope on such guns to be very HIGH off the barrel, but typically not left or right. However, it does not matter: the barrel is round, and having a scope at 90 degrees off to the left is exactly the same as having it off the top of the barrel. In fact, it would be exactly like taking a gun that is sighted in and shooting it when the gun is on its side: it will work. Clearly the left/right up/down are all wrong now, but that is fixed with the scope's adjustments: resight it in. It may be a little strange to sight in if you put it at 45 degress or something, as left right now have an up/down component, but a little patience should still get the gun zeroed once you figure out what is happening.

So, where I am going is, just mount the scope offset so you can use the other eye, and use an AR type scope which is designed to be farther from the barrel, rather than a standard rifle scope which is designed to sit right on the barrel with a small offset. It may be difficult to find or make the offset scope mounts, but it is not rocket science either, if you can't get it anywhere else a machine shop can do it (a smart gunsmith ought to be able).

[Guest Lester Weevils]

In the first message I was thinking wrong that an unmagnified terrestrial telescope roof prism would work with a red dot or iron sights. It would work fine in conjunction with an eyepiece as the back-end of a telescopic sight. However, used as a passive unity-magnification light-bender, a roof prism would be worse than a single mirror diagonal. A single-mirror diagonal gives proper left-right orientation but flips the image upside-down. I got out a roof prism to play with holding it in various positions on a rifle, and a terrestrial roof prism would be even worse-- The unmagnified image would be BOTH left-right swapped AND ALSO upside down. It works in a conventional refractor telescope because WITHOUT the roof prism the image would be left-right reversed and upside-down, so in conjunction with an objective front lens and the eyepiece, the roof prism "puts it back the way it was sposed to be".

There are numerous kinds of reflecting prisms and a configuration could be figgered out that would work. Merely the issue that typical off-the-shelf erecting prisms used in terrestrial telescopes and binoculars wouldn't do the trick, unless they were part of a telescope.

I like dats82's periscope idea more and more. Had been thinking in terms of a single-reflection light bender-- A small light and rugged gadget, just a little hunk of polycarbonate or pyrex that maybe you could mount right behind the back iron sights, but in practice it might be a little too weird to be shooting straight ahead but having to look down or sideways to aim.

One alternative could be to build a telescopic sight designed like half of a set of porro prism binoculars (IOW a porro prism monocular but equipped with a reticle and MOA adjusters like a telescopic sight)-- What greyofk had in mind but wouldn't have occurred to me. Greyofk is correct that it would be more difficult to make such a thing rugged. I've seen "for sale on the web" prisms made of polycarbonate with supposedly pretty good optical quality. Never had a plastic prism in-hand to play with. Would be afraid the money would be "somewhat wasted" a plastic prism as an experimental piece to keep in a drawer and pull out on occasion, because it might be easier to scratch up compared to a quality glass prism. Astronomical telescope folks tend to stick with glass because they are so picky on optics and with sufficient care glass can be ground very precisely, but you wouldn't be using a telescopic sight for star-gazing. It wouldn't have to be "world-class optically perfect". As long as the plastic prism was "good enough" it would be adequately protected inside a scope.

The eyepiece would point straight backwards as usual, but the porro prism pair would offset the eyepiece from the sight-axis of the main telescope body. So you would look forward and get a conventional cheek weld as usual, and the scope would sit ontop of the rifle as usual, but the eyepiece would be offset up and to the left so that you aim thru the scope using the left eye?

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Porro_prism

[mikegideon]

You should be able to use an AR type scope on a bolt action gun and mount it *anywhere* in a circle around the barrel up to 2, maybe 3 inches away from the barrel. It is common for the scope on such guns to be very HIGH off the barrel, but typically not left or right. However, it does not matter: the barrel is round, and having a scope at 90 degrees off to the left is exactly the same as having it off the top of the barrel. In fact, it would be exactly like taking a gun that is sighted in and shooting it when the gun is on its side: it will work. Clearly the left/right up/down are all wrong now, but that is fixed with the scope's adjustments: resight it in. It may be a little strange to sight in if you put it at 45 degress or something, as left right now have an up/down component, but a little patience should still get the gun zeroed once you figure out what is happening.

So, where I am going is, just mount the scope offset so you can use the other eye, and use an AR type scope which is designed to be farther from the barrel, rather than a standard rifle scope which is designed to sit right on the barrel with a small offset. It may be difficult to find or make the offset scope mounts, but it is not rocket science either, if you can't get it anywhere else a machine shop can do it (a smart gunsmith ought to be able).

An AR scope isn't designed to be further from the barrel. It's just offset in height by 2 1/2", and the gun shoots 2 1/2" low at the muzzle with a scope, or if you're using irons. That error decreases as you approach the zero range. Offsetting the scope 2 1/2" to the left will work exactly the same way, only it will be a windage error. If the scope mount is at an angle, you still mount the scope so the reticle is level. Zeroing the scope will be normal. You will just wind up with the decreasing windage error.

[Jonnin]

The point was that AR scopes seem to have more adjustment in them than "regular" (or possibly, "antique") scopes (???). I could be wrong about that, but it seems like my 2 AR scopes can adjust almost twice as many degrees as the "standard" ones, and I just guessed that it was to help counter the extra high mounts? Or maybe I just have too many 30+ year old scopes (most of mine)....

You are correct: if the scope is level zero process is the same, it would take rotating the scope to make the zero go weird, did not visualize that correctly when I said it.... important point there!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

You should be able to use an AR type scope on a bolt action gun and mount it *anywhere* in a circle around the barrel up to 2, maybe 3 inches away from the barrel. It is common for the scope on such guns to be very HIGH off the barrel, but typically not left or right. However, it does not matter: the barrel is round, and having a scope at 90 degrees off to the left is exactly the same as having it off the top of the barrel. In fact, it would be exactly like taking a gun that is sighted in and shooting it when the gun is on its side: it will work. Clearly the left/right up/down are all wrong now, but that is fixed with the scope's adjustments: resight it in. It may be a little strange to sight in if you put it at 45 degress or something, as left right now have an up/down component, but a little patience should still get the gun zeroed once you figure out what is happening.

So, where I am going is, just mount the scope offset so you can use the other eye, and use an AR type scope which is designed to be farther from the barrel, rather than a standard rifle scope which is designed to sit right on the barrel with a small offset. It may be difficult to find or make the offset scope mounts, but it is not rocket science either, if you can't get it anywhere else a machine shop can do it (a smart gunsmith ought to be able).

edit: the below was written before I read Mike and Jonnin's last two messages.

Thanks for the good ideas Jonnin. Am making a list of possible solutions, then perhaps evaluate the list to locate best-looking options. Possibly the best generic solution would be some kind of offset scope mount offering a certain amount of adjustability, but also very rigid after the correct spacing is set and "locked down"?

Maybe I'm too concerned with parallax. Maybe parallax is not very important except at point-blank range? Abandoning concern for parallax opens more possibilities.

If one had a mount that could swing an ordinary set of scope rings "into the perfect position" and locked in that position, then the scope could be rotated in the rings so that the reticle is oriented properly? You could zero a simple red dot or crosshair scope regardless of its orientation. But a sight with elevation/range reticle wouldn't work so good unless it is oriented properly?

Unless custom-cutting metal for each specific individual and gun, it would need at least some adjustability, because everybody has different sized heads and different interocular spacing? Wonder if one could "get away" with a picatinny adapter with only one horizontal degree of freedom? Can't adjust it up and down, can only adjust it sideways? If it needed any vertical adjustment just add a riser? Or possibly the adapter body would allow horizontal adjustment, then the scope mount on the end of the arm would allow some vertical adjustment, but the gadget wouldn't allow angular adjustment? In other words, regardless of where the sight gets offset, the sight would always have proper orientation (so that range/elevation markings would work properly)?

Edited June 26, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[mikegideon]

The point was that AR scopes seem to have more adjustment in them than "regular" (or possibly, "antique") scopes (???). I could be wrong about that, but it seems like my 2 AR scopes can adjust almost twice as many degrees as the "standard" ones, and I just guessed that it was to help counter the extra high mounts? Or maybe I just have too many 30+ year old scopes (most of mine)....

You are correct: if the scope is level zero process is the same, it would take rotating the scope to make the zero go weird, did not visualize that correctly when I said it.... important point there!

Coincidence. You're only adjusting out 2 1/2 MOA. That's only 1 MOA more than most bolt guns.

[mikegideon]

Lester, remember that you're offset from the bore anyway. The paralax is in the scope, not the offset.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester, remember that you're offset from the bore anyway. The paralax is in the scope, not the offset.

Thanks Mike. I may be using the wrong term or misunderstanding the issue. I was using the parallax term as it is often applied to cameras. Ferinstance if you take a photo of a human with a single lens reflex, then unless you twitch the camera the photo will be framed as you intended regardless of the subject's range. But if you take a photo of a human with a rangefinder camera where the viewfinder is offset an inch or two above the lens, then if you don't consciously adjust close shots you will always chop off the head of the subject because of parallax. In a camera, the greater the spacing between viewfinder and lens, the more severe the "aiming problem" at close range.

I realize that bullet trajectories also complicate the issue, but was reasoning that sights "as close as possible to the barrel line of sight" would minimize aiming error at close range? Maybe it isn't that big a deal in practice. Dunno much about it.

[mikegideon]

Sure, the error is max up close. When you zero the scope though, you dialing out the error at the zero range. So, the max error is at the muzzle, and decreases as you approach the zero range. If you want to drill tacks at 25 yards without holding over or under, you need to zero at 25 yards. The difference between the horizontal and vertical offsets is that there's no bullet drop in the horizontal offset. If there's no wind, the error will be a straight line.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks Mike. Will quit worrying about parallax for the moment.

To keep torturing the options-- Back to optical possibilities-- Perhaps not a fatal problem but one problem with mechanisms to adjustably offset a big heavy red dot or scope-- It is difficult to rigidly mount an optic on a picattiny, so the problem of making a rigid-enough adjustable-offset optic holder might be intimidating. For instance its amazing how heavy a telescope mount and tripod is required to keep a few-pounds of telescope from wobbling all over the place.

An advantage of an optical light-bender is that if the optic is mounted "the usual place" then the optic would be well-locked-down. If an add-on light-bender happens to have a bit of wobble then that might not matter so much as long as the sight itself remains stable?

A couple of initial possibilities--

1. Wedge prisms-- Sometimes I don't get theory good and ought to get some wedge prisms to play with and see if they work as expected. Wedge prisms apparently just bend light without reflecting, grossly distorting, or inverting images. But maybe in practice it ain't so great and actually sucks.

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Wedge_prism

http://www.optra.com...amsteering.html

A risley prism is a pair of identical wedge prisms rotatable against each other, supposedly used for laser beam steering and missile tracking. By rotating the two prisms against each other, supposedly you can divert the image any arbitrary direction within certain limitations. Maybe for shifting a big area like the image of an entire red dot or target scope there would be distortions, dunno.

So maybe if you had a risley prism made of a pair of round-cut wedge prisms, in an aluminum holder attached to a picatinny clamp. Perhaps 2 inches in diameter. For instance with an EOTECH sight or a scope you would mount the risley prism assembly behind the sight like you would mount an EOTECH magnifier. Then you would hold the rifle in a comfortable stance and rotate the two wedge prisms until you can clearly see the sight image with the "wrong" eye, and then lock down that orientation? You would have to glance "sideways and down" to aim while shooting "forward" but maybe that would be an acceptable tradeoff for an infintely-adjustable and relatively rigid solution?

====

2. Funky periscope-- For experiment I had a couple of 2" astro mirror diagonals laying around. Plug one into the other for test periscope.

They make nice mirrors nowadays. The dielectric coated mirrors have a very hard coating only a few molecules thick with 99 percent reflectivity and nil odds of corrosion of the reflective surface. Astro diagonals are built "kinda heavy" because you can't tolerate much flex if you hang a 2 pound eyepiece or a heavy camera off the diagonal. A simple 2 mirror periscope delivers properly oriented image left-right and up-down. The mirror in these thangs are cut in ovals dimensioned about 2" in the narrow axis.

So I held the thang in various positions to experiment with looking at a scope sight or dot sight on rifles. Delivered a decent image to the "wrong eye" looking straight-ahead rather than sideways. The interocular distance was too great with the ersatz test gadget and I had to shift head an inch or two off the stock to see the sight thru the "wrong eye". So a practical implemtation would need to be lighter while still rigid. It would mount to the picatinny rail behind the scope, like an EOTECH magnifier. You would need to be able to rotate the two mirrors against each other for up/down adjustment, and need a "lockable slip tube" separating the two mirrors to set interocular distance. Might work!

One implementation detail-- A practical "rifle periscope" would need anti-reflection coated neutral glass windows in front of each mirror, to keep the thang from filling up with dust.

Another implemtion detail-- Some long-eye-relief target scopes are almost black magic. I don't think they are quite 100 percent "conventional refracting telescopes" but a conventional refractor follows certain cruelly restrictive equations, where if you wish to optimize one parameter then it is breaking the laws of the universe not to "cut corners" on another parameter to compensate. Just saying that some target scopes have remarkably long eye relief not to be trading off other parameters. So if you are accustomed to 4" of eye relief but this periscope takes away half of that eye relief, then you would have to crowd the periscope a little to see a good image. So possibly some kind of optional barlow lens could be screwed in to replace one of the dust-windows, to stretch the eye relief back to an acceptable value. Hopefully something like that wouldn't violate all laws of the known universe.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Jonnin]

I do not think you can compare a telescope and a rifle scope. The telescope is mounted to allow at least 2 degrees of freedom (left and right rotation and up/down rotation) while the rifle scope is mounted to have NONE (the gun moves, not the scope on its mounts). That is why it takes a LOT of stuff to hold the telescope in place: the tele is mounted at a single pont on a moving body that must be locked down, and that single point has a lot of the weight of the tele far from it (the front lense is a lot of the weight in many models) so you have a tube that is front heavy mounted by a single point on a device that is designed to be moved but also be locked in place.... compared to an immovable object (rifle mounts!).

the issue with rifle mounts, rails and so on is really just recoil. Recoil will slowly loosen stuff up, even with lock tite a lot of use will eventually batter something loose, its the nature of the vibration. I check all the screws (not just scope mounts) when I clean a gun to keep that under control.

I think you can have it equally well mounted off the side, so long as your mountings, rails etc are quality (do not bend or anything over time) and you keep the screws tight... the offset moment of inertia is not helping but I think it can be overcome and would be a non issue. Again, I have to point at the offset mounts for putting a second optic on an AR. That seemes to me to just about do what you are asking, or at least serve as a starting point (?).

Edited June 28, 2012 by Jonnin

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks Jonnin. Good ideas.

I'm not "3-D" or mechanically imaginative. Making a light rigid adjustable offset adapter looks tricky. Taking your angle adapter idea a little further, perhaps the easy path to rigid adjustability would be a toolkit of various risers and angle adapters, so one could build up the required offsets in "tinkertoy" fashion, bolting together whatever assortment of angle adapters and risers are necessary for the required offset?

Perhaps a useful "tinkertoy parts kit" would include 45 degree and 90 degree adapters and two or three different-height risers to choose from?

For instance to get a horizontal mount surface "higher and to the left" of the rifle-- One might mount a 45 degree adapter pointing left, and then piggyback another 45 degree adapter pointing up. But if that happened to raise the scope too high, then one might want to use a right-angle adapter pointing left, so the scope could be moved left without raising it?

I need to take another look at short risers. Maybe a short riser "with plenty of metal in it" could be used for its "attachment clamp" without having to machine attachment clamps from scratch. Then a block of aluminum cut to shape to make the actual "offset span"? The spacer block would be bolted to the short riser on one end, and a cut piece of blank picatinny rail bolted to the far end of the aluminum spacer block, for scope attachment? That would be a rigid one-piece solution but also "custom cut to fit" that wouldn't have as much appeal as a generic solution.

[Clod Stomper]

As one who was born, for practical purposes, blind in my right eye, I think you are overcomplicating matters. Just learn to shoot left-handed. That's what I do. Practice it until it doesn't feel "strange".

I am right-handed. I was born mostly blind in my right eye. I shoot left-handed. Seriously, reread this post....

perhaps the easy path to rigid adjustability would be a toolkit of various risers and angle adapters, so one could build up the required offsets in "tinkertoy" fashion, bolting together whatever assortment of angle adapters and risers are necessary for the required offset?

Perhaps a useful "tinkertoy parts kit" would include 45 degree and 90 degree adapters and two or three different-height risers to choose from?

For instance to get a horizontal mount surface "higher and to the left" of the rifle-- One might mount a 45 degree adapter pointing left, and then piggyback another 45 degree adapter pointing up. But if that happened to raise the scope too high, then one might want to use a right-angle adapter pointing left, so the scope could be moved left without raising it?

I need to take another look at short risers. Maybe a short riser "with plenty of metal in it" could be used for its "attachment clamp" without having to machine attachment clamps from scratch. Then a block of aluminum cut to shape to make the actual "offset span"? The spacer block would be bolted to the short riser on one end, and a cut piece of blank picatinny rail bolted to the far end of the aluminum spacer block, for scope attachment? That would be a rigid one-piece solution but also "custom cut to fit" that wouldn't have as much appeal as a generic solution.

It doesn't have to be that complicated. Put the butt of the rifle on your left shoulder. It may feel weird or strange at first, but you will quickly get used to it.

Maybe it's easy for me to say, since I've been shooting that way since I was very small. As a matter of fact, putting the butt on my right shoulder feels normal too. Except I can't see the sights. But I've trained myself to feel comfortable shooting left-handed, so I can pick up pretty much ANY rifle and shoot as naturally as a right-handed shooter. Including a bolt-action.

I'm not being snarky. You can do what you want. But shooting left-handed isn't that big of a deal.

Will

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks will. I was born "nearly blind" in right eye as well, damage from childbirth. A "forceps mark". Shouldn't have had such a big head. The eye doctor had a neat description for the elongated shape of that eye, "squashed like a grape".

I've been shooting rifle left-handed the last decade or so since getting back into shooting. It can be "got used to". I don't shoot rifle much because it doesn't feel natural left handed. Maybe I wouldn't shoot rifle much right handed either. Maybe pistols are just more fun. I just recall rifle shooting more fun when I was a kid and could shoot right-handed.