Aim a Shotgun Fitted with a Bead Sight

For those of you who may not know....you'd be surprised at how well you can shoot like this.

From FirearmsTactical.com-TacticalBriefs, February/March 2000

How to Aim a Home Defense Shotgun Fitted with a Bead Front Sight

While ghost-ring sights currently seem all the rage for home defense shotguns, a ghost-ring sighting system really isn't necessary. For most private citizens, a bead front sight is sufficient for home defense purposes.

Ghost-ring sights offer improved sighting capabilities under the following conditions:

* You intend to engage distant targets with slugs.
* You desire a front sight that's equipped with a tritium insert.
* If you're an ambidextrous practitioner, the rear sight aperture can make it easier for you to acquire and maintain focus on the front sight with your non-dominant eye (both eyes open) as you shift your mounting of the shotgun from one shoulder to the other, as necessary, to maneuver around strong and weak side corners.

Unless one or more of the situations above apply to you, you can save yourself about $100.00 by learning to become proficient with using a bead front sight.


Aiming a shotgun equipped with a bead front sight is easy. Mount the shotgun and obtain a good cheek weld on the butt stock. Look through the shallow channel that's machined in the top of the receiver and focus on the front sight bead. To obtain proper sight alignment, visually center the bead in the middle of the channel. You should see only the spherical bead. To engage a target, "put" the bead on the center of the target and press the trigger. The pellets will pattern on the target around your bead.

The entire bead should be the only part of the shotgun barrel that's visible beyond the receiver. The shot will hit low if you can only see part of the bead. Conversely, the shot will go high if you can see any portion of the front sight pedestal or barrel. The photograph and illustration above show proper sight alignment.

If your shotgun is equipped with a ventilated rib and a front sight bead, the directions above also apply. Only the bead should be visible atop the raised rib.

When shooting slugs from a bead sighted shotgun, use the same sight alignment, but you'll have to experiment to determine where the slug hits the target in relation to your sight picture. For example, a Remington 870 shotgun usually shoots high with slugs. You may find that you'll have to aim at a bad guy's belt line to put slugs in the center of his chest at 35 yards.

good info.

thanks

Get one of these, they work great and they're fairly cheap: Hi Viz shotgun sight.

Pretty slick little gizmo there Jack, nice find.

In the case with a mid rib bead, the proper sight picture is the same but with the two beads making a figure "8".

Ron, I never shot one but always wondered about that...thanks