Originally Posted by
arcfide
I've been pondering the best iron sights for my pistols for a while. I've finally managed to try out quite a few on different guns and in different configurations. I've been watching the "wind" blowing around for a while on different configurations and what people really like and don't like. I've noticed that a lot of high level shooters tend to go for blacked out rears with either Fiber Optic fronts or Bright Dot + Tritium configurations. Having tried 2 dot, 3 dot, white, colored, and some night sight configurations, I decided to give fiber optic with blacked out rears a try. I feel like I've gained enough experience now to finally be settling in on something, and I thought I would share here both for criticism and suggestions, but also in case anyone else has the same sorts of experiences and is looking for something.
I break things down into the sight pattern (dots, &c.), illumination level, sight picture, and color.
Color. Here's where I want to throw out a bit of an "out of the norm" experience, in hopes that it helps those who are in the same boat. Most people find the colored dots more visible and easier to track. After trying them, including bright red dots in sunlight, I've come to realize that the way that my eyes see color, I see white almost as well as I see anything else in bright sunlight, and possibly even better, but I especially see white much better than I do any other colors as the ambient light reduces, rapidly. In other words, there's this almost exponential curve in which the visibility of the colors goes way down as the ambient light goes down for myself. This makes most colored sights surprisingly less visible to me than just plain white dots. I could have guessed this, but I only really confirmed it after trying various colored sights. Even the bright sunlight light fiber optics aren't really significantly more "visible" to my eyes than a large white dot on the front of the sight. This means that in practice, under reduced light, my sights wash out much faster for me if they are colored than other people, making them very dim very fast, and making me more dependent on other sources of illumination faster if I don't use a white dot.
This just goes to show that everybody sees things differently, and even though something might seem basic (white instead of color), it might actually work better for you.
Illumination Level. Here I've been trying a lot of different styles to see where I land, and I've come down with the majority on this one. I'm favoring night sights heavily, simply because that illumination becomes visible to me pretty quickly in reduced lighting, and helps to add contrast in cases where I might not have it. I've also been unable to find a practical way to have a ready to go all the time light on my carry gun, and I'm in too many environments in which positive ID without white light would benefit from night sights. Ironically, one of the places where this occurs often for me is in some indoor ranges that I go to, where having night sights makes the sights a little more visible under their lighting conditions for my eyes. My only concern is the reduction in "white paint" that results in having tritium vials, thus potentially reducing the visibility of the sights under conditions where I don't need to rely strictly on tritium.
Sight Pattern. Blacked out rears and bright front dots are nice in their simplicity, and I do like simplicity. However, in spending time with them and other things, I've come to the conclusion that three dots is the way to go for me. Because my eyes very quickly lose the rear sight under dark target backgrounds and anything that isn't perfect lighting (and because even in perfect lighting, blacked out rears can still get some visual effects on them), having something to contrast with the target on the rear sights greatly aids in my ability to get consistent, repeatable vertical alignment. I strongly suspect one of the reasons for this is that I don't have as strong a shooting index as some people with more experience and trigger time do, and thus I need to compensate a little bit for that through more visual data for the alignment, whereas more experienced shooters who prefer the blacked out rears are probably able to leverage better body index to compensate in those times where they visually lose the rear sight.
Sight Picture. I've been using an adjustable sight to try out center hold, 6 o'clock, and drive the dots sight pictures. Center hold and 6 o'clock are the traditional sight pictures. I was a bit surprised to find that 6 o'clock doesn't deliver more precision for me even in bullseye type shooting simply because my astigmatism results in a visual artifact right as I get around to lining up the bottom of the bull with the top of the front sight, removing the ability to get the pinpoint precision that others would get with this sight picture. This makes it no more really precise than anything else. The center hold has a similar problem for me in that under varying conditions, my astigmatism and visual acuity results in the sights getting washed out too easily. This means getting good sight alignment with a center hold can be difficult under anything but ideal conditions for me. Essentially, I lose the precise aiming point that people usually use the center hold for.
Ironically, the drive the dots 12 o'clock style hold gives me the most consistent and repeatable sight alignment and point of aim reference out of all three sight pictures. if the sights wash out, the point of aim is still the same using the dots, tritium or blades. If the sights are super bright, then the point of aim is still the same. It's the most repeatable for me over the most range of lighting conditions.
All of this leads up to a choice of white three dot sights, optionally with tritium in them. I find this somewhat funny because these sights often come by default on many pistols (the APX which I use comes with a big front white dot and small rear white dots with a drive the dots sight picture), but are usually considered some of the least desirable of the sighting options.
As I get better at my shooting, my preferences might change, but for now, I'm a bit surprised that I find myself shooting the "basic sights" better than I do the other, more fancy sights. I've now got a set of white three dot tritium night sights that I think will do the trick just fine (time will tell), but it goes to show either that I don't know what on earth I'm talking about (likely) or that there really are a huge variety in the way that people see sights, and just because the sights are fancy or basic doesn't mean they are better or worse for your specific shooting requirements.