A little personal "perfect" iron sights journey

[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.

[willie]

For any type general shooting ranging from plinking to target shooting or hunting, a serrated front sight and adjustable rear are my favorite combination. Plain black without any white dots or inserts or paint is my preference. For a dedicated defense weapon, I prefer night sights.

[BillSWPA]

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.

Much of this is true for me as well, although I prefer 6:00 for bullseye shooting and a center hold for almost anything else.

I recently tried fiber optic front sights on a couple of handguns, and just replaced them with the original black (or black with red insert) front sights. Any increased visibility of the fiber optic for me is highly dependent on the lighting conditions, and I find them useless in low light. On both pistols, I found that the slight difference in height took the sight out of the range of adjustment of the rear sight.

I would not be without 3 dot tritium on anything I use for serious purposes, and which will accept them easily.



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[spinmove_]

I’ve put a lot of thought and effort into trying different things and drawing my own conclusions. I like a black serrated front with fiber and a black serrated rear sight. Green fiber. Square notch. Front sight width .115” or smaller. Rear notch width .125” -ish.

Green fiber works the best for me in the widest of lighting conditions. It blooms the least and retains sharpness in the brightest of conditions and disappears later than everything but tritium in low light. Serrations are a must on front and rear as they maintain better consistency in lighting conditions in how I perceive the sights.

I don’t even really SEE the rear sight so much as I see the lightbars that they produce. Specifically my area of focus in terms of the sights is the top edges for everything while managing the light gaps between both sides of the front sight. Everything else is noise that is effectively discarded.

Tritium is essentially useless for me. If I can see the tritium bright and clear, it’s too dark for me to PID a target. If I can PID a target using ambient or self-produced light, I can see my sights well enough in some capacity to make a shot. If I’ve PID’d my target and don’t need to maintain a light source to see the target to make a shot and tritium is helping me make that shot, I’ve now just found myself in a pretty low-probability situation in which the cost of tritium (monetarily, dimensionally, and consistency wise) is too much.

When I deviate from this general sight setup it will be to move to a red dot. All other sighting systems are not as good IMHO. These preferences work well for me.


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[arcfide]

Thanks for the experiences everyone! One big aha moment I had when working with my sights was recognizing the effect that astigmatism was having on my edge definition of my sights in references to the target. I had always wondered why it was so frustrating trying to get a consistent sight picture and why sometimes it would work for me and sometimes not. When I realized that the more of the target "pattern" was visible around the specific visual point of maximum acuity (the point my eyes had to focus on as the main reference point for aiming) the greater the aberrations and chance of interfering to distracting that strong visual focus, it all clicked. The tritium is required in certain very low light settings for me, but still has potential bloom. However, I agree that green is better than red. However, the fiber optics also had that "light generating" effect that results in bloom, whereas the white is merely reflective, and thus doesn't bloom as much for me, for some reason, while increasing contrast.

When all of this is combined with the wide front drive the dot sight picture, it means that there is more in the same visual plain to focus on, with more "black" to help hide aberrations and gives me a wider plane on which to help gain a clear front sight focus. It's also easier to see when I might have a target focus and the point of references might blur. This all means that there's a net reduction in "distracting visual artifacts" from my eyes. The only issue is the potential reduction in awareness around me, but I'd say that the gain in functional ease of precision makes that arguably worth it.

I had always wondered why it was so much easier for me, even from a bench rest, to shoot good groups consistently with the stock APX sights and a drive the dots, compared to a 6 o'clock hold, which should in theory be more precise when shooting at bullseyes for groups. But practice told me that it was significantly more mental energy to shoot the latter than the former, and my groups weren't all that different. It took a lot of time and reflection to recognize that the theory wasn't matching up to what my eyes were seeing in practice.

I wish that I could just "see the lightbars" as it were, but my eyes end up with all sorts of strange things going around with the way they focus. It's also become clear to me that seeing the center of a thing is easier for me than seeing the edge of a thing, which is not the case for a lot of other people.

[CTX44]

Fiber optics are often a tad too bright for me as well. I think most folks end up really zeroing in on the top edge of the front sight for target work, rather than the entire front sight itself.

Alot of this, as you point out in your post, has a lot to do with how each individual's eyes work. I love serrated black sights for target work, but find them slow to use against dark targets, once the light dims. This is way more of a problem now than when I was 30. I can PID a target easily in lighting conditions that make it very slow to find black sights...my ability to focus at multiple distances has gotten way worse in my 40's. For me, tritium in dim light just nicely amps up the brightness of the white or yellow front dot.

Also I've found in all the force on force training I've done is that I end up looking through the sights anyway and focusing on the threat...which I've heard from lots of experienced folks is what happens in almost every gunfight until you've been in a lot of them. I need a brightly colored front sight with some tritium to remind me of where the sight is. 2 subtle dots on the rear sight is an added bonus.

How is your POI adjustment with the drive the dot system at 25yds vs 50yds etc?