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View Full Version : One sight to rule them all?



jetfire
03-09-2011, 03:48 PM
I think if there's one thing that's started more arguments, it's pistol sights. There's so much individual input on sights, and everyone has different opinions.

For example, on competition guns I like to run blacked out sights. Black front, black rear for IDPA/USPSA. I'll also run fiber front with a black rear for Steel Challenge or occasionally in USPSA.

Lately, I've been shooting a lot with 3-dot sight, and you know? I kind of like them. My big issue usually isn't with dots, but with how much light comes in around the front post.

rsa-otc
03-09-2011, 03:57 PM
About the only thing that everyone seems to agree on when it comes to pistol sights is that the ones coming from the factory on most service/base line pistols are not up to snuff.

I think pistol sights are an individual preference, with a lot depending on the age of the shooters eyes and quality of their eyesight.

Like you I always liked basic black front and rears. Recently I've come to like plain black rear sights and a bold orange front sight. I recently tried a red FO front sight on my 686 and couldn't come to like it.

Savage Hands
03-09-2011, 04:07 PM
In general I look for sights to have about a plain squared .140 rear and tritium .125 front and I've had success with the Warren Tactical Sevigny Carry sights for Glocks, Heinie Ledge sights and the Ameriglo Pro-Glo sights (which may seem to be wider than .125) for my M&P's. I know others like the U notches of the 10-8 and Warrens but they don't work for me for whatever reason.

jar
03-09-2011, 04:28 PM
I'm currently using the stock fiber front / black rear on my M&P 9Pro competition blaster. I'm currently shopping for new sights after handling a friend's with Dawson fiber front / Warren Tactical rear set up for a wider notch.

My M&P compact carry gun has the stock 3-dot sights. I'll start shopping after I run the new sights on the gamer gun for a while. I'm thinking a truglow TFO front with plain black rear.

gtmtnbiker98
03-09-2011, 05:05 PM
No sight is perfect and I don't have a range/competition/duty/carry setup, I use the same style of firearm (HK) with stock night sights installed for all purposes. For me, it's hard to gain maximum proficiency when you have a different sight picture for a particular application. It's much easier to become proficient on one platform for all occasions.

ToddG
03-09-2011, 05:15 PM
I agree with gtmt. The biggest danger is that folks put most of their effort into their game/competition kit because they're being judged on their performance with that gear every month or even every week. So the majority of their effort is put into maximizing their performance with the easiest-to-use sights, and little effort is put into dealing with the actual sight picture they'll have in front of their faces at a moment of unplanned, unexpected, extreme stress.

jetfire
03-09-2011, 05:46 PM
I am guilty of that; I spend most of my time practicing with my competition guns which have blacked out sights or fiber fronts and not with my carry gear. Part of the new webseries, Down Zero TV that I'm working on is going to focus on shooting guns with actual carry night sights on them with no modifications.

KeeFus
03-09-2011, 06:20 PM
While different than my duty weapon, my personal weapons (save the 442) have night sights (Heinie Straight 8's) although im sure that if a high stress situation occurs sight picture will most likely go out the window.

Here is the video from the Detroit Precinct (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41320221#41320221)shooting from a couple months ago. Not much aiming with sights going on. Having been in an ambush situation myself I can say from first hand experience that my sights were the last thing on my mind. Not saying that training for that situation with whichever sights you want doesn't serve a purpose but when that "oh shit" moment occurs (especially when you do not expect it) the fight or flight mindset takes over.

BWT
03-09-2011, 06:55 PM
I found the limited experience I had with Warren Tactical 2-dot night sights enough to convince me I wanted to switch to 2-dots over 3-dots.

I did like the shape, and frankly, my eye did find the front sight blade much faster in those sights for whatever reason, they say it's because of the rounded corners but I couldn't tell you, that your eyes focus selectively on the sharp edges of the front sight.

I know I sometimes struggle to see my front sight blade, even though when I practice presenting the gun my sights are lined up, and my front sight is painted orange.

It still takes time to comprehend what I'm seeing.

I can tell you with the Warrens, I didn't have that problem.

I'm going to try some different sights here in about a week when visiting my father, I'll have access to 3-dot green front and yellow rear (both models with painted Front Sight and unpainted Front Sight), 2-dot Warren green front white out line, subdued yellow rear, no outline, Ameriglo Front and Plain rear, and a Fiber-Optic front and adjustable flat black rear on various handguns (M&P's, Glock's, 1911's, Browning Buckmark, XD's, etc.). I'd say that's a pretty good sample.

I used to think there were absolute truths about certain things, I found that evaporated, about guns and what sights, methods of carry or what not, that would never change.

It also depends on the individual and their preference.

But I'd agree with Todd and the others, find what you think works best, and ideally throw it on everything, and if you don't like it, change it, on everything.

It needs to be consistent, I find with... everything that you can only appreciate change in a system, when you have a consistency that you're trying to improve. Whether it be bowling, golfing, shooting, whatever, anything that requires a technique or form to do. You need a baseline, and it'd be best to get them all to be consistent.

Because otherwise, if there's constantly changing variables, you can't really gauge improvement or successes. It also makes me laugh that people think they may try something different once (and literally not one outing, but like, for example, grip angle, for one shot "Oh it doesn't feel right" and change back to what they're doing before and be just as dissatisfied), and it didn't improve immediately their results, so they keep doing what they're doing. Give it a fair chance, if you're going to try something, give it an fair opportunity to compare it against what you were doing before. (I was talking today to my brother about grip angle, and I wasn't correcting him, we were just observing what we did differently)

All of the handguns I own have the same exact grip angle or extremely close to it.

I want to handle some Heinie Straight 8's, but... I don't know anyone in the area with them, so, we'll see.

But I do like the simplicity of the 2-dots.

gtmtnbiker98
03-09-2011, 07:21 PM
I am guilty of that; I spend most of my time practicing with my competition guns which have blacked out sights or fiber fronts and not with my carry gear. Part of the new webseries, Down Zero TV that I'm working on is going to focus on shooting guns with actual carry night sights on them with no modifications.
Add to that an actual carry setup and you'd be well on your way.

CK1
03-15-2011, 03:23 PM
Man I'd have a few more pistols in my arsenal if I could get back most of the money I've spent on sights over the last couple of years...

I'm 100% in agreement with Caleb in that I think the light space around the front blade is more important than everything else (I actually just made a marathon post about it in this thread:http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?315-Rear-Sight-Channel-to-Front-Sight-Width).

I don't really have competition guns and carry guns anymore, I pretty much either carry/shoot a 1911 or a Glock. I tend to shoot the 1911's more in competition do to their triggers, and carry the Glocks more do to their reliability, weight and simplicity, but I'm fine with either in either situation. I too came around to really digging shooting with plain all-black irons after trying everything under the sun and going to them on all of my guns, I've even pretty much gotten over night sights as I don't really see them as a real necessity for me anymore...

That said, I really like the Heinie's that are available with the wide-notch and with the tritium in a 2-dot straight-eight set-up (dimmer in the rear), they put the tritium in the blade without the white "dot" or any paint around them so unless it's low-light they just look like all-black sights, uncluttered, no gimmicks. I'd recommend these to a shooter who wants their carry sights that just gotta have tritium to be as close as possible to their competition sights.

JodyH
03-18-2011, 09:25 PM
I've become a fan of the Hackathorn style sights.
Blacked out rear square notch cut fairly wide, tritium front with a bright orange/red outline.
Since these style sights aren't available for H&K's I've started making my own.
Trijicon NS, blacken the rear white outlines with a black marker, paint the front sight bright red with a Sharpie oil based paint pen.
Tritium for low light, high contrast bright front sight for daylight, unobtrusive rear sight.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/JodyHuggins/p2ksights-1.jpg

ToddG
03-18-2011, 09:35 PM
I was extremely happy with the Ameriglo i-dot Pro sights I shot today. It's their very wide i-dot rear with a Hack front. While the front sight is very wide, I found the combo fast up close and very accurate at distance without giving up any speed compared to other N&P sights.

Prdator
03-18-2011, 10:57 PM
I'm sold on the Ameriglo Oporator Pros!! Green front Yellow rear.
The rear has a .180 notch with a .125 front, it's very fast and gives up no accuracy loss at distance.

I like the standard I-Dots as well.

David Armstrong
03-19-2011, 01:58 PM
I liked and used the Novak bar-dot nightsights for a long time, but as my eyes get worse and my situation changes I'm moving toward something big, noticeable, and fast, probably the Ashley Express (yes, I know some don't like them but they work great for me and my needs) or some sort of a fiber-optic with an enlarged rear notch.

jetfire
03-21-2011, 01:30 PM
I just switched out the rear sight on my Sig 1911 for a 10-8 Peformance u-shaped rear (http://gunnuts.net/2011/03/21/10-8-performance-u-shaped-1911-rear-sight/). I really, really like this, especially compared to the narrow Novak rear sight that was on the gun.

VolGrad
03-21-2011, 01:47 PM
I just switched out the rear sight on my Sig 1911 for a 10-8 Peformance u-shaped rear (http://gunnuts.net/2011/03/21/10-8-performance-u-shaped-1911-rear-sight/). I really, really like this, especially compared to the narrow Novak rear sight that was on the gun.

I have the same rear on my Ed Brown along with a Novak front NS. I love that rear sight. It's what got me started putting blacked out, serrated, wide notch Ameriglos on my GLOCKs. I use the Orange ProGlo up front like several others here. I have all my GLOCKs set up exactly the same .... whether for games/carry. I like consistency.

EDIT: I don't find the U shape distracting. It looks a bit odd if I'm actually looking AT it but when looking down the slide and focusing on the front I don't notice it at all. If anything, it seems to make it disappear more.

Like JodyH said ... I just picked up a HK P30 with the factory installed Mep NS. I plan to paint the face of the front around the tritium with an orange paint pen. I just hope I can hold it steady and not F it up.

jar
03-21-2011, 02:08 PM
I like the wide notch, but I find the U shaped rear distracting. It draws my focus to the rear sight instead of the front. Did you find this initially and get used to it, or just have no problem with it?

JV_
03-21-2011, 02:12 PM
The U notch doesn't work well for me either.

jetfire
03-21-2011, 03:21 PM
I didn't have any issues with the U-notch yesterday doing rapid fire, I'll test it out tomorrow at some intermediate to long range shooting.

JV_
03-21-2011, 03:26 PM
I didn't have any issues with the U-notch yesterday doing rapid fire, I'll test it out tomorrow at some intermediate to long range shooting.I ran the U notch for a while (Warren Tactical), I thought everything was just fine. Then my primary gun went down and I moved to my backup - which has Sevigny carry sights. The U rear was listed in the FS section that same night.

On most of my guns, I'm back to where I was 5 years ago, Heinie sights.

jetfire
03-21-2011, 03:45 PM
What I can do is a side by side comparison - I've got a Colt with a Novak wide rear notch and blacked out front, and the Sig 1911 with the 10-8 U-shaped rear. The problem is what kind of testing metric should I use, first shot hit time, group size, etc?

DeltaKilo
03-21-2011, 04:34 PM
For what it's worth, I run 10-8 sights and they work well for me. I suppose in this case, however, that's kind of the point. They work well for me, but that's not saying anything about what works best for others.

jetfire
03-23-2011, 01:02 PM
I ran the u-notch last night in some low-light drills with the night sight up front. I have to say that I really, really liked the set-up. There was just enough ambient light to see the rear outline, so you just put the big glowing dot on the target and whack it. It was very reminiscent of shooting a fiber optic front sight during the day.

ToddG
03-23-2011, 03:02 PM
I need more time behind the idpro before making any serious comparison, but two benefits of the Ameriglo over the Warren are that the edges aren't as sharp (no holes sawed in clothes over time) and they're substantially less expensive.

texasaggie2005
03-29-2011, 01:03 PM
Thanks. Cost is one of the reasons I ask because I need another set of sights for my compact.

I just put a set of Ameriglos on my M&P for a really good price from the Ameriglo site. The rear does a have really nice curved profile that doesn't poke or snag much.