XS sights suck beyond 10 yards...

[Gadfly]

To each his own...

I can make XS work. But to me they are slower and sloppier than most other sights. If they are all I had I could make due, but they would never be my first, second or third choice.

I have HDs on my 17, and TFOs on my 26. Both carried IWB most of the time. Never really had a problem with the sights tearing up my shirts, and the sweat guard on my holster projects my love handles. The only times my sights were a problem was ankle carry. Rear sights tear little jokes in my jeans over time.

Different folks get different results. That was some damn good shooting at 50yrd with those sights.

[MGW]

As I recall, some years ago, Gunsite paired an Ashley small dot front with a opened up Novak rear sight, and called them old man sights, or something to that effect. Pre Hack/HD, that seemed a reasonable accommodation for mature eyes, but today I would take a Hack or HD sight set instead.

If I felt liked I needed a big dot front to see it, I would go with a RDS instead. If the need for the big dot front was for a skill deficiency, as opposed to a vision deficiency, there probably is a solution for that.

That's the exact article I was thinking of. I found the link if anyone is interested. Nothing earth shattering in the article. The short summary is high visible front sights paired with a low key rear sight are easier to pick up quickly.

[Dave Williams]

Novak has a half ghost with a tritium dot at the bottom. I thought teamed with a Big Dot front it'd be a nice set up for someone like me who can't see well.

[Moonshot]

Since I started wearing bifocals I find I can pick up a front dot placed over a rear vertical line (dot the i) faster and cleaner than I can pick up a front dot that needs to be placed within two rear dots.

This is even more true if I am not wearing my glasses. I practice with and without my glasses (as I might lose my glasses when I have a need for my gun), and Big Dots are much easier in this situation.

When I had 20/20 vision, 3-dot sights were great, but now I need something else. When I adopt a shooting stance, it's too uncomfortable and too unnatural to try and lean my head back to view the front sight with the "reading" porting of my glasses, and getting specialty glasses is not an option - I need to be able to use whatever glasses I am wearing, or no glasses at all.

It might be harder to achieve great combat accuracy with Big Dots, but it's not impossible. Like the OP said - it's the indian not the arrow.

For me, with my eyesight, Big Dots allow for a rapid sight picture, combat accuracy (I recently shot a 288/300 on a qualification course with my G26), and most importantly - they work even without my glasses. I do see the limitations of the Big Dot (no pun intended), and better sights might have let me shoot a perfect 300, so I am considering different sights, but again - they must work even without my glasses.

Any suggestions?

[JodyH]

Ameriglo ProGlo square is the highest visibility front sight you can buy without the razor sharp edges on the HD's.
On my Glock 26 it's paired up with a standard notch rear with yellow tritium.
The CAP rear is also good.