My carry sights are, incidentally, quite similar to my competition sights...Warren Tactical makes good stuff. Maybe one of these days I'll fool around with some other brand. HD's look kinda cool.
My carry sights are, incidentally, quite similar to my competition sights...Warren Tactical makes good stuff. Maybe one of these days I'll fool around with some other brand. HD's look kinda cool.
I do regular night/low light training on flat ranges and in shoot houses, and another factor that weighs heavily in favor of tritium sights in my experience is how severely your "night" vision is impacted by muzzle flash when shooting in these conditions. On guns with dimmer tritium front sights, I have a lot of trouble tracking the front sight through the muzzle flash. My springfield pro is a good example of this. It has a thin (.125") front sight with a fairly dim tritium vial compared to the rear sight. After firing a shot, it takes a moment for my eyes to readjust to be able to find that front sight again. I have not tried all black sights in these conditions, but I'm fairly confident they would be impossible to reacquire quickly after one shot.Originally Posted by Mr_White
I seem to remember one of the standout shockers from the Rangemaster data set being that none of the students needed night sights to aim the gun. "Longer distance shooting" was represented though. Shocked I was, being steeped in the idea that one should always have night sights if at all possible. And I have found plenty of lighting conditions and target colors where some or another variety of night sight was distinctly less visible to me than was a blacker set of sights.
So....do night sights matter?
My G19 and G17 with standard trijicon night sights (.140" front) have a very bright front sight dot that I am able to track through 100% of the recoil and muzzle flash. My agency only buys low flash service ammo as well, but it still leaves a large green spot in the center of your vision if your eyes are adjusted for low light.
I have read through this thread and I understand the usefulness of night sights but I feel like we have done this before. The last go around I thought the agreement that with a good hand held it came down to preference and priorities? I almost feel like this is becoming a "since you don't do it my way, its not the right way"..
*and for the light attracting rounds, I always marvel at this comment. They are going to be shooting at your muzzle flash or center mass anyways, ask a dude who has been in a fight at night with or without NVGs, muzzle flashes grab your attention real quick. Since that is most likely the case, both of those are pretty close to your face... actually your muzzle is in line with your face.. Don't rely on your enemies marksmanship to keep you alive, use your tools the way they work best for you, even if it is the neck/chin index of the light and get hits..
edited to add, I have nothing against night sights and I think they do have an edge over non night sights in low light situations.
Last edited by breakingtime91; 03-26-2015 at 11:08 PM.
I am taking my Beretta Elite II to a class tomorrow. It just has black sights. This week I have been sucking at shooting for some odd reason since adding the HD sights on one of my Glock 19s. I am thinking I should just toss the defoors back on there and go from there but I need more practice. I just know I am the only Mil guy at the class next to cops and it is mainly a Carbine class. I shale see more after I get a few hours of sleep. I might just use my other Glock 19 with defoors that has not been shot in a month. I was just really sucking at shooting after it took me 80 rounds to verify my M4 was still sighted correctly.
Had that the other day to. saying "trigger press" helped me two days later when I went back
From Frank Proctor:
http://www.recoilweb.com/a-few-thoug...#__federated=1
My apologies if this has already been linked to.
Thanks Jay, good read.
Even before tritium and FOs, old school guys that had been in fights in the dark started looking for ways to help them makes hits more better when they had trouble seeing their sights.
Gold and brass front sight beads, things like engineer tape stuck to the front sight assembly on an M16, white tape around the end of the shotgun, were all used.
I respect the hell out of Frank Proctor, but his experience is limited when it comes to hunting bad guys CONUS
I am the owner of Agile/Training and Consulting
www.agiletactical.com
Man there is a definite split in opinions between all the people I respect and pay attention to when they say something.
I respect Frank Proctor, but his article makes a few critical assumptions that are contrary to my experience:
1. That you will always have a weaponlight on your pistol or a handheld ready to go and have the time to turn it on and that the light will always work
2. That you will always be in such total darkness that you can't ID your target without a light
You also have to keep his experience in mind. He comes from military SF world where his pistol is secondary 99% of the time and he has a team of buddies engaged in the same battle.
Take a pistol with no night sights around your house in the evening and see if there are places you could identify a target without a flash light but can't see your sights. I find myself in situations like this all the time.
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