Competition vs Carry sights

[NorthernHeat]

All rear tritium vials are easily made lower profile by hitting the vials with a red Sharpie.

Just sayin.

Chuck,

You are a absolutely right and this was done to my P30 stock NS (per a previous post by you I think).

I like the Spartan Tactical sights from Ameriglo but wish they had the rounded corners of the Warren and the "wave" shape.

I also wouldn't mind the front sight to be a little thinner on them.

[Chuck Haggard]

Chuck,

You are a absolutely right and this was done to my P30 stock NS (per a previous post by you I think).

I like the Spartan Tactical sights from Ameriglo but wish they had the rounded corners of the Warren and the "wave" shape.

I also wouldn't mind the front sight to be a little thinner on them.

I was just throwing that out there for people to consider

[NorthernHeat]

I was just throwing that out there for people to consider

My bad Chuck

[Chuck Haggard]

My bad Chuck

No worries brother

[ToddG]

I prefer tritium sights for carry/work guns. I do paint the front sight orange (poor man's HD sights) which really helps with sight acquisition in daylight. There are a lot of low light conditions that I've found myself in with my pistol drawn where I had enough light to see 10-15 yards away but would have not been able to see the sights if not for the tritium. I dislike plain black rear sights because you have no frame of reference to line the front dot up with in low light. I also dislike 2 dot sights because you can only line up the sights along one axis...good for up close, terrible for any kind of precision shooting at distance. If you use a flashlight, all sights will look the same (black silhouette), however I have seen too many flashlights break, run out of batteries, fly off the gun because the mounting hardware was loose, shooters unable to locate the switch bc of a bad grip on the draw, etc, to want to rely on that in order to see my sights.

This needs to be repeated for the folks who simultaneously want a legitimate practical sight setup and a corner-cutting "better in bright daylight" setup from a single set of sights. They compromise on what might actually matter just to see some nicer numbers during drills.

[Mr_White]

might actually matter

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?

[ToddG]

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.

"Less visible" is not the same as "cannot see so cannot aim."

Easiest way to prove it to yourself: put a target farther uprange than the light source so you have a strongly backlit target. Instantaneous realistic example of something you basically cannot aim at with all black sights.

I've yet to find a target or condition where the combination of whitish tritium dot surrounded by orange high visibility paint surrounded by black steel makes aiming impossible. There are conditions -- especially on nice sunny days -- where they're less than ideal. Then again, I've always used the trit/dot as my aiming point and not the top edge of the sight, which may be why they don't seem to cause me as much concern under the circumstances they don't work for someone else.

[Kevin B.]

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.

I find the Rangemaster data set to be informative, not definitive.

I stopped selecting equipment based on what somebody told me my fight was supposed to be a long time ago. Instead, I try and select equipment that is as versatile as possible. That includes night sights.

[psalms144.1]

I had the opportunity to put this to the test on the range this week. One of my students had a FO equipped pistol, I was running my Gen4 G19 with Proglo Orange front and Operator yellow lamp rears. We shot both pistols side by side in a variety of lighting conditions (gotta love a well set up indoor range). When the shooting position was lit, didn't matter what the target lighting was, the FO were significantly easier/quicker to pick up. When the shooting position was not lit, or dimly lit, the FO "faded" quickly to a small red dot that was pretty tough to pick up unless the target was light and well lit. With a dark target in marginal light, with the shooter in marginal light, the tritiums were much quicker and more consistent to acquire.

Using a handheld light, I didn't see much of a difference. Using a weapon light provided no "illumination" of the FO, unless the target was light in color and very close. Using a handheld in a variety of standard positions didn't throw enough light onto the FO rod to make it "light up" for me or the other two shooters who tried the experiment. The only exception to this was the old "neck index" hold, which, frankly, I can't imagine ever using in the real world, due to the likelihood of light attracting fire...

Bottom line, I came up this week thinking about switching to a plain black rear and FO front of some sort. After today's test, I'll be sticking with my Ameriglos.

Your mileage may and probably will vary.

[Kevin B.]

Psalms144.1,

Your experience is virtually identical to mine when I did a similar test.