Front Sights: Factory Orange Ring vs Orange Paint

[jslaker]

I'm still sight shopping, and some of Todd's experiences with the test G17 are making me really think this topic through.

There's a definite appeal to having a bright orange ring on the FS from the factory without having to fool with painting/repainting it myself.

That said, Todd's made mention of tending to track the orange blob and it resulting in high hits. I've noticed that with my own orange-painted front sights, that while the orange definitely makes it easier to see, I'm also definitely tracking the top edge of the sight. I have a suspicion that I'd fall into a pattern of tracking the top edge of the factory ring and getting the type of high hits he was describing.

Curious if Todd and others with experience with these kinds of factory rings could chime in. My inclination is that it could be trained around, but my gut feeling is that I'm going to end up tracking the biggest/brightest reference under stress (if I'm tracking at all) and it might just be better to paint the whole sight and be done with it.

[GooberTim]

I have the Hackathorn orange rimmed front sights on 2 of my Glocks now for a few months. When I'm shooting rapidly at closer distances (10 yd & under) I don't get a refined enough sight picture when the front sight is back between the rears before breaking another shot on a high probability target to split those hairs. Maybe I don't "have it" yet; it might take 50,000 + more rounds before I do.

I can say that the orange sight has enabled me to make progress in my front sight following ability. And I'm able to shoot a little faster with them. $0.02

[ToddG]

When I paint my front sight, I only paint from the top edge down to about the bottom of the tritium dot. The reason is the same: when the orange extends too low it gives a "false positive" sight picture as the high visibility area comes down into the notch from recoil.

[jslaker]

When I paint my front sight, I only paint from the top edge down to about the bottom of the tritium dot. The reason is the same: when the orange extends too low it gives a "false positive" sight picture as the high visibility area comes down into the notch from recoil.

Interesting. I haven't noticed a similar problem personally, but it's something that'd be easy enough to experiment with. Like I said in the OP, I find myself watching for the top edge of the sight, so that might account for it.

ETA:

Also, my splits are nowhere as fast as yours, so that may account for it, as well. :cool:

[JHC]

When I paint my front sight, I only paint from the top edge down to about the bottom of the tritium dot. The reason is the same: when the orange extends too low it gives a "false positive" sight picture as the high visibility area comes down into the notch from recoil.

+1 I had to learn this the hard way before I saw Todd's details. I painted an all black Warren Sevigny front all up and down bright orange and it sucked. I need to scrub that off.

OTOH, I've not seen much of the high hit problem yet with a Hack front (.220 tall) matched to a Warren Sevigny Carry rear. I've gotten PRs with a G19 at distant precision and gratifying fast hits on low prob 3x5s . . . so far. But I've just finished primary shooting my RTF2 17 to it's 2K test completion so I need to spend more consistent time with the G19 and this front sight to see how it pans out.

It's so wicked fast on other drills - esp those that transition between high prob targets, I'm not clear in my head that I would trade that, plus the aforementioned precision (out to 50 yds) because of half to 3/4 inch misses on a 3x5 shooting as in the FAST. Apart from my recent time using 3x5 cards so much, my aim point is the point of the nose so a hair high does not seem like the end of the world vis a vis so many other things I like about it.

A known shortcoming of my current battery (NGCSUgrad recently observed) is I am running too many different sight setups. Mostly Warren Sevigny Carry but a couple guns have different front sights. But I'm sorting through some options. Shit gets expensive.

[JV_]

I tried the half painted front post. For me, it didn't work as well as the fully painted one.

[VolGrad]

A known shortcoming of my current battery (NGCSUgrad recently observed) is I am running too many different sight setups. Mostly Warren Sevigny Carry but a couple guns have different front sights. But I'm sorting through some options. Shit gets expensive.
This is an excellent point as well. Make damn sure what works for you before you invest a ton of $ into it. I have chased all the "new" sights over the years and finally settled on the HACK setup for pretty much all my GLOCKs. Any of them that aren't HACKs are pretty close ... one has dots on the rear, one is a HACK iDot varation, etc.

I guess I'm not good enough yet (or don't hold myself to high enough standards) to see the problems with rings vs full orange vs half orange, etc. Like Goob pointed out I really started to track the front sight better after switching to the orange fronts. Things started to click for me in my shooting and I started getting noticeable improvements .... not just noticeable to me but to my shooting buddies as well. That isn't all sights though as the time frame coincided with me starting to shoot IDPA and GSSF regularly and taking more classes from good instructors (LAV, Hack, Lund & Litt, TLG, etc.).

I have one of the early Ameriglo ProGlo fronts with the orange square and a bunch of the circle versions. I prefer the square but honestly don't notice much difference shooting either.

[johnvolk]

As has already been noted, one can spend a lot of money on sights (and other accessories) that are supposed to improve ones performance. In reality, the best theories often turn out to be the worst practices. One well known Las Vegas, NV area firearms training school has its students "black out" any "white dots" or similar sight visibility enhancements, claiming that they are a distracting performance reducer.

In the use of the handgun, it is about 95-98% operator skill and discipline. Frankly, one can not buy success with a handgun, or just about anything else.

Various "Trick" sights date back to well before WW II. I have yet to find any that I would shoot in a daylight competition, other than the bulky "red dots" that dominate Bulls-eye shooting, today. Every other "high-viz" sight that I have tried, either lowered my scores or did not improve them.

When a handgun must be used for self defense, lighting conditions are often not good. Thus, having high visibility sights (especially a HV front sight) can give one a distinct advantage in a life or death situation. Radioactive "night sights" are good when it is dark enough to see their luminous feature. Often, in real world confrontations, it is not. Thus having a more visible front sight in intermediate light conditions can be and advantage in actual combat use.

One can easily and durably convert many front sights to "Hi-Viz" with: (1) a good oil remover; (2) ultra-white fast dry paint; (3) "Day-glow" type orange paint; (4) hard, clear fingernail polish (lacquer); (5) flat toothpicks or tiny brushes; (6) "Q-tip" type cotton swab and paste wax or gun oil.

The procedure is fairly obvious. You remove all oil and/or dirt from the entire front sight. Then, you apply a white base coat(s), which is followed by an orange coat. Then you apply several coats of clear nail polish. The white base coat and clear nail polish enhances the orange's visibility and the nail polish protects the orange paint. Each coat should be completely dry before applying the next coat. Thus, this process may take several hours. After a day, apply wax or light oil film to any exposed steel that was de-oiled prior to painting, to prevent blued steel from rusting.

I have a Ruger LCP that is always in my pocket, and was enhanced in the foregoing way over a year ago. The front sight is still serviceable.

[jlw]

I don't personally like three dot sights with a white outline around all three dots. I have Ameriglo Pro Operators on several
pistols. These sights don't have outlines around the rear dots. I recently obtained a set of Ameriglo I-dots and find the front sight easy to pick up and like the vertical alignment versus horizontal alignment as on three dot systems.