Illuminated Front Sight Only

[Suvorov]

What is the thought about only having the front sight illuminated when it comes to night sights?

I recently was able to pick up a excellent condition low mileage Beretta 92FS Compact which is no small feat in Kalifornia where they are not on the approved "roster." It is a gun that was built in 1990 and thus has the M9 style sights that I prefer over the 3-dot sights. Since this gun was purchased to be more of a carry/HD gun instead of a range gun, I want to have some tritium sights installed. Also since the front sight is part of the slide, I am kind of limited as to what sight options are available to me. As I will have to send the slide off to ToolTech or similar, I am considering having only the front sight done and keeping the original non-illuminated rear sight.

My reasoning here is that:
1) The traditional 3-dot night sights can be confusing in in the dark. I have done a fair amount of low light shooting and more than once or twice have gotten on of the rear dots confused with the front dot. I know this is part of the thought process behind many of the newer night sight configurations, but most of these newer designs are not made for legacy Beretta pistols.
2) It might actually facilitate a quicker shot in low light as the front sight will be easier to pick up. Also the loss of precision caused by not having the rear sight fully aligned is not as critical given the likely ranges that a "shot in the dark" would be taken.
3) It would allow me to retain the M9 style day sight configuration that I prefer.
4) It would be cheaper.

Is my reasoning sound or am I going down the wrong path here?

[BaiHu]

Pffft, screw night sights, this will solve your problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xfs0R-7cS_s

Although I see no proof, it is an interesting video.

[Mitchell, Esq.]

1) The traditional 3-dot night sights can be confusing in in the dark. I have done a fair amount of low light shooting and more than once or twice have gotten on of the rear dots confused with the front dot. I know this is part of the thought process behind many of the newer night sight configurations, but most of these newer designs are not made for legacy Beretta pistols.

Black magic marker darkening the rear sight solves the issue for me.

Dim rear, bright front.

[BaiHu]

Black magic marker darkening the rear sight solves the issue for me.

Dim rear, bright front.

My problem with this is that I get near NO light from my rears. But they are the painted on stuff direct from HK and not the tritium fronts with 'shaded out' rears. I forget which gun you run, Mitchell.

[Chuck Haggard]

I have found it rather easy to screw up my sight alignment with just the front dot type set-up.

[ToddG]

I have found it rather easy to screw up my sight alignment with just the front dot type set-up.

This.

Front dot only works great in a lot of simple all-or-nothing lighting conditions. Start adding dynamic and/or variable lighting (like, say, walking through your house at night) with shadows, areas of bright and dark, etc. and it becomes less workable. It's also extremely limited when dealing with a heavily backlit target in the dark.

[Suvorov]

This.

Front dot only works great in a lot of simple all-or-nothing lighting conditions. Start adding dynamic and/or variable lighting (like, say, walking through your house at night) with shadows, areas of bright and dark, etc. and it becomes less workable. It's also extremely limited when dealing with a heavily backlit target in the dark.

OK then, the "God's" have spoken :o

From what I have found, my only real option for the 92FSC is the standard 3-dot arrangement - do you know of any "better" arrangements that are available for legacy Berettas?

Maybe ToolTech could insert tritium vials in my rear sight without the white outline so during daylight I retain the M9 style sights?

Am I making too much out of this?

[ToddG]

ToolTech can do just about anything if you're willing to pay for it.

There just aren't a lot of great options for the rear sight on a Beretta because by necessity it has to be so narrow.

[BaiHu]

What does anyone think of this fix in order to make my rear sights more distinguishable from the front sight?

Step 1 some scotch tape:
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx38/djdemarco/20120207_000258.jpg

Step 2 your ink/sharpie of choice:
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx38/djdemarco/20120207_000359.jpg

Step 3 do the other side and then it looks like this:
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx38/djdemarco/20120207_001009.jpg

Step 4 check it out in some low light:
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx38/djdemarco/20120207_001401.jpg

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx38/djdemarco/20120207_001419.jpg

It makes my eyes a bit crazy when I look at them in a dark room, but maybe I'll become accustomed to being cross-eyed :D They were easily distinguishable for me and I'll be taking a low-light class this coming Sunday so I'll post my findings.

[Bob Hostetter]

Just my opinion,

I am one of the small group of people who prefer running a trituim insert in the front sight only. While being able to see the sights as clearly as possible is always important I tend to believe that target identification in low/no light situations is even more important. While exceptions alway exist, if there is enough light to clearly identify something/someone as a threat requiring an application of lethal force there is enough light to establish a workable sight picture especially if the front sight is clearly defined by a tritium insert and there is no chance of getting the front/rears out of alginment left to right because they all have the glowing dot.

Additionally three dot systems (tritium or otherwise) tend to not line up perfectly for precise shooting nearly as well as using the tops and sides of the sights in the tradational manner.

[Byron]

While exceptions alway exist, if there is enough light to clearly identify something/someone as a threat requiring an application of lethal force there is enough light to establish a workable sight picture
You're starting an absolute statement ("enough light to ID = enough light to align") with a vague catch-all disclaimer that "exceptions always exist." Why make the statement at all?

It's like saying, "While exceptions always exist, pistols don't malfunction."

If you acknowledge that exceptions exist, why do you overlook them? You don't elaborate on the exceptions, so I don't know your thinking. Are you saying that the exceptions are so rare that they don't matter? Or that you just don't care about them?

Many people are comfortable throwing around the blanket statement, "enough light to ID is enough light to align." It's demonstrably false. As Todd noted earlier in the thread, it may hold true in conditions that are all-light or all-dark, but mixed lighting quickly turns the entire equation upside-down.

I have my SIRT set up with Warrens because they're also on my real Glock. When it was time to outfit the SIRT, I figured I'd save money by going tritium front only. After all, it's just a SIRT: why bother getting full tritium for it?

After months of dry runs in my house, I have found plenty of lighting conditions in which I can identify a threat, but cannot see my black rear sight (or even its outline). My SIRT will eventually be getting a tritium rear.

[ToddG]

I am one of the small group of people who prefer running a trituim insert in the front sight only. While being able to see the sights as clearly as possible is always important I tend to believe that target identification in low/no light situations is even more important. While exceptions alway exist, if there is enough light to clearly identify something/someone as a threat requiring an application of lethal force there is enough light to establish a workable sight picture especially if the front sight is clearly defined by a tritium insert and there is no chance of getting the front/rears out of alginment left to right because they all have the glowing dot.

That has not been my experience when stepping off a consistently lit (or unlit) range and moving into, for example, a structure or even wooded area. Just walk around your house in the evening. There will be rooms where it's light and rooms where it's dark. There will be corners where it's dark and places where's it's quite bright. You don't know if light will be shining in your eyes or on the BG or somewhere in between or both or neither or... etc.

I might ID a threat before my gun is even out of my holster. I might ID him when he's in the light and then watch him as he runs into a dark area where I can still clearly see his silhouette but cannot get any kind of decent sight picture without sights that allow me to align them in 2D in the dark.

Another easy to set up example where the front sight only fails is a heavily backlit target that has already been identified (e.g., you can tell that's a gun even in silhouette). Unless you're willing to compromise accuracy whenever the lighting is less than ideal, a front sight only will not allow you to get any kind of alignment beyond a rough quasi-point.


Additionally three dot systems (tritium or otherwise) tend to not line up perfectly for precise shooting nearly as well as using the tops and sides of the sights in the tradational manner.

That's certainly true. Nonetheless, decades of LE qualification experience tells us that people do actually hit better with night sights in low light than without them. While the sights may not be perfectly oriented, they're certainly better than not having anything to align at all.

[TheRoland]

That's certainly true. Nonetheless, decades of LE qualification experience tells us that people do actually hit better with night sights in low light than without them.

Can you elaborate on this? Have agencies done direct comparisons?

[jslaker]

Any thoughts on contrasting green front/yellow rears? Would that be an option with the 92?

[jbstratman]

Warren Tactical 'Figure-Eight' sights . . .

[Bob Hostetter]

<< decades of LE qualifications tells us people do hit better with night sights >>

Based on the 7 years I spent teaching at my departments Basic and Reserve Academies, and a couple of decades of advanced officer and use of force training I have recieved and taught, that isn't the result we got. Again maybe my sampling is too small, we only had 2700 sworn.

Bryon ... I noted that exceptions always do seem to occur because it's true. However in my experience sometimes the exceptions occurance rate is rare enough as not to be a valid reason to change a proven program but still be something that you and your students should be aware of. Your example of, "while exception always exist, pistols don't malfunction" is a classic example. It is possible to create a testing program that a test pistol completes without any failures. Your test results would be that the pistol doesn't malfunction (within the test parameters), but the existence of exceptions is still valid if only in the context of a parts breakage issue. With out additional support documentation indicating a high or unreasonable parts failure rate the pistol might still make an excellent duty or issue weapon. Considering the world we live in and the results of making any mistake, especially an avoidable mistake, we should never assume something is absolute.

But again that is only my opinion, and I thought this was a place to express and share those opinions. Nevertheless I am prepared to defer to your superior experience and skill as regards this discussion.

[Chuck Haggard]

BaiHu, try using a red Sharpie, that's what I have done for years. This gives you the non-green tritium rear sight option without having to buy non-green tritium.


On target ID;

One of my side jobs is working with Strategos as an adjunct, I am also heavily involved in FoF and tactical training with my department. In that role I have been involved in literally hundreds, if not thousands, of low-light "gunfights" during FoF. In a wide variety of lighting condition I have noted that one is best equipped with both flashlight and a full set of night sights.

It is very often possible, even likely, to have your bad guys IDd but still need tritium to see your sights well enough to shoot. Just the principle of "light-move-shoot-move" that we teach at Strategos means you will often need your night sights as you will have IDd your target, moved off of the line of force and then engaged without kicking your light back on unless you are forced to do so by the lighting conditions.



I've never had any issues with the tritium dots not lining up right at pistol fighting range. I have also noted that some of our worst shooters consistently shoot far better in low light training than they do in daylight.



Anecdotally I know of cases such as a good friend of mine when he was involved in his first shooting. He dropped a bad guy from 34 yards in very poor lighting. I was on the shooting review board at the time, we ran into each other in the hallway as he came into the station, he was pretty shook up, and his first words were "You know what Chuck? Night sights work really good at night".


ETA; In case the above came across as theory, I wanted to add that I have spent 22 or so out of the past 25 years on the job on the street working nights. I also have 18 years on our tac team, and just short of 2000 entries under my belt. I like to think I have some base of experience to speak from ref working in dark and nasty places.

[ToddG]

Can you elaborate on this? Have agencies done direct comparisons?

Only based on my own experience at department/agency training where some guys have 'em and some don't, or based on what many agency FIs have relayed over the years.


Any thoughts on contrasting green front/yellow rears? Would that be an option with the 92?

While I don't think it's a necessity, having different color and dimmer dots on the rear are a plus. Presumably you should be able to find such a rear sight for a 92. Remember that unless you get a 92-series gun with a removable front sight, you need to order one with tritium front installed from the get go. Otherwise you're stuck shipping your slide out to get it drilled and tritiumized. (yeah... I made a word)


In a wide variety of lighting condition I have noted that one is best equipped with both flashlight and a full set of night sights.

It is very often possible, even likely, to have your bad guys IDd but still need tritium to see your sights well enough to shoot.

QFT.

Easy example: put someone wearing very dark clothing in a dim but not pitch black hallway. Put a big bright stainless pistol in his hand. Now stand at the opposite end of that hallway. You can see him. You can see his gun. But unless you have a way to align your sights, you cannot aim your gun properly.

[BaiHu]

BaiHu, try using a red Sharpie, that's what I have done for years. This gives you the non-green tritium rear sight option without having to buy non-green tritium.

Thanks, I'll try that.

[BLACK]

Black magic marker darkening the rear sight solves the issue for me.

Dim rear, bright front.

Same here...

[Chuck Haggard]

Thanks, I'll try that.


Cool thing is, if you don't like it you can wipe the red off with solvent or an alcohol wipe.