Sight Pictures!

[Clobbersaurus]

Good stuff Gabe!

Here's a portion of a post I did a few years ago in the "Fiber Optics on a carry gun thread":

Sights are Ameriglo Hacks and HiViz Overmolded. All photos taken in the late morning.

Gun room. Lights off, blinds closed. Any darker and it would closely represent night conditions in the house, which means most things are reasonably visible.



Darkest hall in the house, lights off.


Brightest area in the house, lights off.


Brightest area in the house, lights on.


Gun room, lights off, TLR-1 activated.

[Clobbersaurus]

I'm laughing at how often that stock Glock sight shows up best.

I'm leaving the stock sights on my G-43 for now. They seem to work OK.

When shooting my 92D I have no trouble picking up the front sight, which was a tritium lamp with white around it. I do have to keep it clean though and it was amazing how dull it got after even one range session.

[Wondering Beard]

Tom Givens recounted an excellent history of the development of night sights during his low light lecture at Tac Con. It was mostly focused around the experiments of a Border Patrol (?) agent. One of the things he tried, and maybe even ultimately settled on, was iron sights with natural ivory inserts. Tom said the natural ivory has a property that makes it particularly good at collecting/reflecting light. I haven't done any research on what that actually is.

I wonder if the plastic white dot of the stock Glock sight has a similar property, or if a solid white paint dot would perform equally well.

This is John Harrison's (one of the top 1911 smith out there) take on front sights and he talks about white dots (more of a bead if you look at pics of his work) at the bottom.

The stock Glock sights have somewhat close properties but being painted and flat, the reflectiveness goes away pretty fast in my experience, while the green FO (the only one I have) stays visible longer as the lights go down. Still, best, for my eyes, of the non trit sights for low light is a gold bead, preferably larger than what Harrison talks about.

[spinmove_]

The more I look at these pictures, the more I find that the white ringed tritium front sight is the most consistently visible in just about every lighting condition you run into. The second most consistently visible front sight is the black post with white dot. To my eyes anywho. As much as I love the concept of a fiber optic front sight, I don't really see much of a point in giving up more versatility and consistency in visibility to gain more visibility in a more limited spectrum. I'm not saying they're a bad option and shouldn't be chosen, I'm simply saying that I don't think they're necessarily for me. At least not at this time anywho. Maybe one day if I have enough resources and time to spec out a pistol specifically for competition. But even then I almost think I'd be just as well served by a black on black set with some white paint on the front sight.

[JCS]

Very cool idea! The tcap sight really stands out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pennzoil]

Anyone have some they can do with the TFX and HD's in the same kind of idea?

I currently use the Glockmeister TFX sights on my Glocks with green fiber and painted the front white then orange.

After I switched to the TFX I did a similar test in varying light conditions from AZ sun to night shoots against different color clothing over targets.

The TFX isn't the end all be all but helps me in dusk like shooting conditions when it's difficult to see the sights but not dark enough for the trit to kick in on standard night sights. It helps in my house also as the lighting varies a lot creating the same condition. If that makes sense.

Not sure if the image will help but here is one starting left to right. MEP night sight, TFX, defoors painted, cz red fiber, cz green fiber.



I set up a rig with different sights measured distance how I hold the gun, different color shirts, varying light etc. I couldn't get the camera to capture what I was seeing but I have zero camera skills.

[Pennzoil]

Here is what I got with a good camera trying to focus the sights at my normal length I hold the gun. With the flashlight all sights looked black but camera still picked up the trit. Also the rear sights have Sharpie and more subtle in person. The rest are pretty much what I see. My Gorilla tape bubba fixture reflects some light.

Starting left to right. MEP night sight, TFX, defoors painted, cz red fiber, cz green fiber.

[GRV]

The more I look at these pictures, the more I find that the white ringed tritium front sight is the most consistently visible in just about every lighting condition you run into. The second most consistently visible front sight is the black post with white dot. To my eyes anywho. As much as I love the concept of a fiber optic front sight, I don't really see much of a point in giving up more versatility and consistency in visibility to gain more visibility in a more limited spectrum. I'm not saying they're a bad option and shouldn't be chosen, I'm simply saying that I don't think they're necessarily for me. At least not at this time anywho. Maybe one day if I have enough resources and time to spec out a pistol specifically for competition. But even then I almost think I'd be just as well served by a black on black set with some white paint on the front sight.

I disagree. Really interesting to see different opinions from the same pictures. I think sights are more psychological than even being about individual eye differences.

From those pictures, it looks to me like white-ringed tritium is poorly distinguishable across basically all conditions. Yes, you can roughly see it everywhere, but that's about it. In my limited experience running drills to test sights, I've found that "roughly see it" doesn't cut it. It's either very visible, or you have to fall back to using it like all-black sights. The white-outline tritium, based on the pictures, looks like it doesn't make the visibility cut I'm imagining, in basically every lighting condition. I should note, before this thread, I was expecting that my next set of sights would be Dawson tritium 3-dot with a white outline front. I'm doubting that now.

I do agree, however, that the stock Glock sight seems super visible in a shocking number of those pictures. Straight down to relatively dim lighting, it is the most visible sight or a close second. I never thought I'd say this, but the white-rod sight option is now on my RADAR for future sight options. I'm wondering if the difference between that and the tritium is: (1) the size of the dot vs. the outline, (2) the concavity of the outline which lends itself towards shadowing, or (3) the paint vs. plastic.

Personally, I'm going to rerun my low-light livefire experiments with the TCAP front, then switch to Dawson chargers for a while to develop opinions about them first hand. I'm not sure where I'm going to go after that.

Here's an interesting article by Spaulding: http://www.handgunsmag.com/tactics-t...ativep_061207/

Spaulding talks about using sights in a way that is eerily similar to what Sean M has said in another thread about actual real-world pistol iron sight use. I'd really like to hear some other SMEs (particularly those who have used pistols with iron sights in multiple engagements) chime in on this. From time to time, I wonder if we should be doing limited livefire training using the target-focused sighted fire approach. eyemahm and I tried it once and found it surprisingly easy to make shots to 2" dots at 5-7 yards. Probably an experiment worth revisiting. Recent experiments have continued to convince me that the minutiae of "proper" sight usage technique is just that, and trigger control is orders of magnitude more important.

Based on Spaulding's article, I wonder if something like TruGlo TFX is really the answer for maximizing real world performance via target-focused peripherally-referenced coarse sight alignment. I also have a feeling that after a sufficient amount of skill building, making precision shots with thick sights (like the TFX) stops becoming so daunting. That may even be doubly so with a target-focused approach.

Having said that, Spaulding once said something like "the front sight is the greatest training aid ever invented". I think the type of sights one uses has a big impact on their training progression and directly causes them to build certain skills in certain ways at certain rates. I think a person who starts out shooting, say, Trijicon Bright and Tough and never switches to anything else will have a very different set of sighted-fire skills then a person who spends a lot of time training with different sights over the years before finally settling on the same Trijicon Bright and Tough sights. The two people will have the same sights, but they will use them in very different ways. I think the sights you train with over the years, in the order you train with them, actually matters. It's a concept I've been calling "sight preference hysteresis" lately.

[BillSWPA]

While I agree with the idea that the tritium surrounded by the white ring is visible under the greatest number of conditions, I would qualify that statement by saying that putting that white ring inside a sight that is as black, dark colored, vertical, and nonreflective as possible really increases the variety of conditions in which the sight is visible. At least to my eyes, this seems to ensure that some contrast exists between the white ring and what is immediately around the white ring.

The Trijicon Bright and Tough sights are a good example of this. I have used these sights for years and am generally happy with them, but they are not quite as black and nonreflective as the Dawson sights. There are a small number of light conditions wherein the Bright and Tough sights will be less than optimally visible. My next sight purchases will likely be Dawson.

I will add that, for my eyes, there is a big difference between a fresh set of tritium inserts and a set of inserts that is only 75% as bright as a new set. The former will be visible in a much greater variety of conditions.

[spinmove_]

I disagree. Really interesting to see different opinions from the same pictures. I think sights are more psychological than even being about individual eye differences.

From those pictures, it looks to me like white-ringed tritium is poorly distinguishable across basically all conditions. Yes, you can roughly see it everywhere, but that's about it. In my limited experience running drills to test sights, I've found that "roughly see it" doesn't cut it. It's either very visible, or you have to fall back to using it like all-black sights. The white-outline tritium, based on the pictures, looks like it doesn't make the visibility cut I'm imagining, in basically every lighting condition. I should note, before this thread, I was expecting that my next set of sights would be Dawson tritium 3-dot with a white outline front. I'm doubting that now.

I do agree, however, that the stock Glock sight seems super visible in a shocking number of those pictures. Straight down to relatively dim lighting, it is the most visible sight or a close second. I never thought I'd say this, but the white-rod sight option is now on my RADAR for future sight options. I'm wondering if the difference between that and the tritium is: (1) the size of the dot vs. the outline, (2) the concavity of the outline which lends itself towards shadowing, or (3) the paint vs. plastic.

Personally, I'm going to rerun my low-light livefire experiments with the TCAP front, then switch to Dawson chargers for a while to develop opinions about them first hand. I'm not sure where I'm going to go after that.

Here's an interesting article by Spaulding: http://www.handgunsmag.com/tactics-t...ativep_061207/

Spaulding talks about using sights in a way that is eerily similar to what Sean M has said in another thread about actual real-world pistol iron sight use. I'd really like to hear some other SMEs (particularly those who have used pistols with iron sights in multiple engagements) chime in on this. From time to time, I wonder if we should be doing limited livefire training using the target-focused sighted fire approach. eyemahm and I tried it once and found it surprisingly easy to make shots to 2" dots at 5-7 yards. Probably an experiment worth revisiting. Recent experiments have continued to convince me that the minutiae of "proper" sight usage technique is just that, and trigger control is orders of magnitude more important.

Based on Spaulding's article, I wonder if something like TruGlo TFX is really the answer for maximizing real world performance via target-focused peripherally-referenced coarse sight alignment. I also have a feeling that after a sufficient amount of skill building, making precision shots with thick sights (like the TFX) stops becoming so daunting. That may even be doubly so with a target-focused approach.

Having said that, Spaulding once said something like "the front sight is the greatest training aid ever invented". I think the type of sights one uses has a big impact on their training progression and directly causes them to build certain skills in certain ways at certain rates. I think a person who starts out shooting, say, Trijicon Bright and Tough and never switches to anything else will have a very different set of sighted-fire skills then a person who spends a lot of time training with different sights over the years before finally settling on the same Trijicon Bright and Tough sights. The two people will have the same sights, but they will use them in very different ways. I think the sights you train with over the years, in the order you train with them, actually matters. It's a concept I've been calling "sight preference hysteresis" lately.

The more I've looked at and discussed sights with other people the more I am convinced that sights are definitely a personal thing. For psychological as well as physiological reasons. Personally, I keep finding myself craving simpler sight pictures with only white (not any other color) on the front sight. I not only find these kinds of setups the least distracting, but I find that I have no accuracy difference between having a blacked out rear vs. a rear with stuff on them (provided I can simply focus on what I need to focus on and shoot). Conversely, something like the CAPs or TCAPs I find ultimately not useful because I find that the orange/red variant to go dark way too soon in certain lighting conditions and the yellow variant washes out in too many lighting and color conditions. I find that neither of them gives me enough black around them to properly contrast in the previously mentioned compromised conditions. This is why I've found the white dot and the white circled tritium dot to be the most visible for me and my eyes.

Having said that, I just moved in a few weeks ago with my future brother and sister in law for a short period before getting married. They happen to have two dogs that I end up letting out every morning for their constitutionals. One happens to be black and the other white. I find that, while my eyes are still adjusted to the light I can most definitely see their white dog in the reduced light while, if it wasn't for his LED lighted collar, wouldn't be able to see their black dog without the aid of my flashlight. During this early morning light, or lack thereof largely, I would be able to see the tritium about as well as a white dot front sight (a la standard Glock front). Would I be able to ID a threat in this same environment? That depends on a bunch of different factors, to which if there were enough of those factors that would make me question it, I'd still have to use a white light. Based on this thinking and experience and the fact that I still haven't had any low-light training (yeah, I know, I really need to get on that) I think I'm going to hold off on buying any more tritium sights until I'm able to verify that I do actually need them. I think I need to be able to test and verify for myself before I can truly justify the extra expense and application. I say this as simply something that I've discovered for myself and myself only. I think if you're a person who can justify actually needing tritium, rock on with your bad self. But this thread, as well as some others, have sort of opened my eyes and given me something to truly think about and examine instead of simply spending money on something that I might ultimately not need.

Totally digging this thread though. Interesting discussion.