Stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, breath control, trigger squeeze and follow through, all important elements for good marksmanship.  Of these, for a precise pistol shot, I prioritize sights and trigger.  I demonstrate this to my students by standing like a flamingo (poor stance) griping too low on the frame (poor grip) and holding my breath (poor breath control) while still making a precise shot because of my emphasis on sights and trigger.  If your sights are on target and you can pull the trigger without moving them off target you are going to make the shot.  Simple Sights has devised a system that is intuitive and precise.  They call it the Whoosh sights.

The sight picture through the Whoosh sights. Aligned just a touch high.

Misaligned Whoosh sights.

The common phase I use is “level across the top and even daylight on both sides”, which to a shooter seems pretty self-explanatory but to someone who has never shot before it can be a little confusing.  This system is so simple my 6-year-old daughter understood it instantly (no she was not at the show with me).

Demo guns with Whoosh sights

proper sight placement on AR-15

The Simple Sights folks had a cleverly devised way of showcasing the precision that could be achieved with their Whoosh sight design.  Pictured above are two demo guns equipt with lasers.  The user would align their sights and fire the laser.  If the sights were aligned properly the laser would appear on the target.  I will say coming from traditional sights there was a brief relearning period for me, but within a couple of shots I was making precise simulated hits and transitioning rapidly from target to target.

The keen eye will notice in the photos above that the sights on the AR are located closer together than conventional spacing for that platform.  This is necessary due to the relative dimensions of the front sight and the rear notch.  The precision required for this spacing also limits which handguns can utilize the currently offered sights due to sight radius constrictions.  I was told however, there are more models in the works.  If you are looking to get a pair of simple sights, but they don’t have them for your handgun just standby.  More info can be found at the Simple Sights website: http://simplesights.net/