Toning down rear tritium sights

[Chuck Haggard]

Lots of folks will use a Sharpie on the rear dots to tone down how bright the rear tritium dots are on night sights, this can often lead to the dots being invisible, or nearly so. I have found that the red Sharpie works much more gooder for this job.
Allows some of the glow through without being too bright, cheap, easy to re-do as needed, durable and stays put, and easier than ordering yellow or other colored rear tritium sights.

When forced to use a standard set of sights with white outlines around the dots, such as Mepros, I will use black Sharpie on the rear rings to get rid of the white outline, then red on the tritium itself to tone down the glow when in the dark. I find this makes a much more usable set up than blacking the whole rear sight out.

As always, YMMV

[justintime]

I've had good luck with the thin black sharpie but this is a much better idea. I will have to try the red in the future.

[Chuck Haggard]

The up side if it doesn't work? I quick wipe with a alcohol pad or a patch with some solvent and it's gone. Cheap and easy to try.

[breakingtime91]

Thank you Chuck, I was trying to figure out a way to tone down the rear sight of my trijicon HDs. This sounds like a good solution.

[TR675]

Excellent. Thank you.

[Chuck Whitlock]

The red works awesomely on the rear lamps of the HDs of my duty weapon.
I also used it on the rear yellow lamps of the pro-operators on my personal G23. It tones down the glow a lot, but the lamps are not very well recessed, so the sharpie rubs off pretty quickly. I've quit bothering.

I am going to do this with any other gun I have which only has the option of legacy night sights.

Thanks again for the gouge on this, Chuck!

[LSP552]

I love the red sharpie trick, read about it first here on PF awhile back. I do one additional step. I break the point off a tooth pick, dip it in solvent then touch and turn a bit directly over the rear tubes (not the outlines). This thins the coating just a bit and allows tuning how much rear glow you want. Works great with SIG factory night sights.

Ken

[Chuck Haggard]

You can also use the tip of a toothpick like you would a pencil eraser and make a slight "cat eye" in the Sharpie coating. If you want to let a bit more light through.

[Saur]

Thanks for posting this, Chuck! Just tried it, and it works like a charm. I really dig the red look the dots have in light, too. They pair up nice with my orange front sight -- not at all distracting and they come across as 'synced' up.

[Chuck Haggard]

Glad to hear that is working for folks.

[myty7]

For Meps or similar sights with silica windows over the actual lamps/white outlines, do you just color the windows? Or do you somehow break and remove the windows to expose the lamps/outlines?

[Chuck Haggard]

Just color right over the top of the works.

[Casual Friday]

Just color right over the top of the works.

I took a blue Sharpie to the rear of my Siglite night sights and it subdued the tritium very well but it is still visible in low light.

[myty7]

Will try these, thanks.