How are most sights so accurate on guns, even though they’re a few inches above the barrel?
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Firing a gun is basically the same concept as throwing a rock; the projectile flies in an arc as gravity pulls it down, not a straight line. Of course firearms are throwing their projectiles much faster so their arcs are flatter than your throwing arm can produce, but the concept is the same.
A sight on a gun though does look in a straight line and there are only two places that straight sightline and arc of the bullet will intersect. The first is where the bullet rises from the barrel above the sightline of the scope or sight; it does this because the barrel is actually pointed slightly upwards compared to the sightline. Then it will intersect again as the bullet falls back down into its line of sight, and that distance is where the scope or sight is “zeroed”. A scope can typically be adjusted to align with intersecting that second crossing point at different distances from the gun, and/or there will be markings on the sight picture indicating where the bullet will strike at different ranges. Knowing how far away a target is is required for a sight to be useful, as just putting the crosshairs on the target isn’t sufficient.
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