Iron sights

With regard to firearms, the term iron sights refers to the open unmagnified sighting system which comes as standard with most weapons. This usually consists of some form of v-notch or peephole rear sight and a simple front sight post. The rear sight may be adjustable for windage and/or elevation. For precision applications such as hunting or sniping the iron sights are usually replaced by a telescopic sight, and for target shooting and combat operations low-power magnified or unmagnified optical sights such as red-dot or reflex sights are increasingly common.