Hello Shawn;

I prefer all black sights and a center hold most of the time, especially for bullseye target shooting. It works because we must focus on the front sight to do our best. The bullseye blurs out and the front sight appears sharp and clear. This does not work for the more popular faster blaster matches because they are shot standing so close to the target that black sights don’t stand out against black targets. Bullseye is fired from 50 ft. indoors and 25 and 50 yards outdoors.

I believe the text book 6 O’clock bullseye hold encourages trying to fire when everything is perfectly aligned which does not work. Instead, try letting the gun float around the middle area of your target maintaining the front and rear sight alignment as precisely as you can while squeezing the trigger. The concept is area aiming. The area gets smaller with practice and lots of practice is what your new model 18 is perfect for. I think it’s best to practice single action fire at 25 yards for awhile before moving on to double action and more recoil. An accurate shooter can speed it up a lot easier than a fast shooter can learn to shoot accurately. You wind up being more accurate with the big boomers if you step up the recoil gradually and develop good accuracy at each step before going to the next harder kicker. That also gives you time to find a model 15 that is in as good a condition as your model 18 at a fair price.

Snap caps are necessary as you know. If you substitute fired cases, rotate them frequently. Small drywall screw anchors are made in just the right size to work as .22 snap caps. The ones I have are yellow. All .22 snap caps wear out fairly quickly so this saves a nickel or two. Try dry firing with a penny balanced on your front sight base. The idea is for the penny to not fall off. This works with a penny’s Lincoln memorial aligned on top of a patridge front sight, but I don’t see much of a flat on top of you model 18’s ramp. I have ramp sighted S&Ws with enough of a flat for this to work, even for double action.

Regarding trigger pull, especially double action, the first thing I do to most newly acquired S&Ws is change the rebound spring to a softer one from Wolf. You can clip a coil or two off the factory spring if you prefer. You can stone some surfaces to improve the double action but read up on how to do this correctly first.

Bulk pack Federal .22 is my favorite. I’m not a master at bullseye, but we haven’t had a master class shooter anywhere near my area in years. Bulk packaged Federal groups tight enough in all of my k22s to beat most of the competitors that fire expensive .22 ammo through optical sighted target autos.

If you want to paint your front sight, model airplane paint from hobby stores works well but brighter florescent colors can be found in paints sold to make fishing lures.

Best regards;

Gil