I use a FO front and plain black rear on my game guns and range toys.
Carry guns are a different animal. Tritium front always.
Plain black rear or two tritium vials with a very strong preference for no outline because they are much easier to ignore. Clutter is no bueno, but in very low light it's not that cluttered since you can't really see the light bars or the top of your sights and the rear dots are quite helpful.
No.Originally Posted by Mystery
Yes, in fact.Anyone compared 3 dot sights with 2 dot sights?
Having two dots requires accurately judging the gap between those two dots at speed...which I found resulted in a lot of vertical stringing. Especially in low light using night sights with the 2 dot arrangement.
Three dots isn't perfect either...but it's easier to put the front dot centered between the two rears than to judge the gap between two dots or with the "dot the i" arrangement of Sig sights.
When I can see the sights clearly I'm not looking at the dots, I'm looking at the top edge of the front sight. The dots are somewhat useful when you can't see the sights clearly.
For irons, the best low light setup you can get is a bright tritium front dot and smaller, dimmer vials for the rear:
That's a really easy sight picture to use in low light.
Last edited by TCinVA; 01-03-2020 at 07:30 PM.
3/15/2016
Yes, that's why I brought it up, and presumably why sight makers offer different tritium colors for front and rear dots.
Trying your quickest draw in near dark with 3 green dots, it takes a fraction of a second for me to figure out which green dot is the center dot.
Haven't had that issue. These days my only live low light training at speed is with the sheriff's office with two of my Glocks wearing HDs. Dark enough that I can't see my sights without tritium but can barely make out the target. So far, so good.
That said, I'm sure it takes everyone a microsecond to process the visual input.
There's nothing civil about this war.
To me three green dots always ended up looking like two bright ones on the rear sight and a fuzzy dim one on the front. My muzzle is always high when I start the press-out and it's easy to drop the front dot between the two rears.
I carried a Gen2 23 that had Meprolights with green front/blue rears. That was high speed back in the day.
Ameriglo yellow Operator rears after that.
I've tried tritium front only several times and didn't find it useful for anything.
Last edited by M2CattleCo; 01-03-2020 at 07:54 PM.
When using a pistol that has tritium rears I usually make them dull with a black marker so the front stands out more. If the reads have white rings they get blacked out too. Especially helpful on agency weapons where I can’t change the sights.
ETA- and yes back in the 90’s I used the PT night sights from IWI (Innovative Weaponry Inc) that had orange tears and green fronts. Or was it the other way around? Lol! I no longer believe mixing up the green dogs is a problem for any shooter who has spent time shooting their gun. I’d have to be pointed off to one side significantly to misalign them.
Last edited by El Cid; 01-03-2020 at 08:06 PM.
Regardless of low light or good light, I have found that taking an extra 0.1 second to make sure I have a proper grip on the gun at the beginning pays off in overall faster times and better accuracy. I try to grab the gun so that the central axis of the barrel is lined up with the central axis of my forearm when viewed from the top. With this grip, I am reasonably assured that when the gun comes into my line of sight, the front sight will already be in the rear notch. Correct (or not) spacing of the sights also verifies that the front is the one in the middle.
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Perceptions about handgun sights obviously differ considerably among shooters.
I've always felt that "three horizontal dot" sights were easier to align quickly and automatically for both windage and elevation than the von Stavenhagen (Sig-Sauer pattern) dot and bar sights or the Heinie "straight eight" or vertical double-dot type.
I've never had trouble distinguishing the rear dots from the front dots, or their spacing, with the three dot types either.
Others' perceptions differ.
I'm actually one of those rare people who likes the stock Glock "ball in the box" sights better than many other options for gross sighting, otherwise just preferring to align the tops of all sights, with POA being center of front sight top aligned on target.
I long ago gave up on tritium pistol sights of any variety.
After using tritium dot sights for some 20 years on multiple different guns, I got tired of having to replace them when they wore out (became too dim) after 2-10 years, and began to just practice dry firing with plain black sights or Glock pattern sights in reduced illumination.
I'm not saying that tritium sights can't be helpful; obviously they can, but the range of diminished lighting in which they are truly necessary or represent a real a boon is small enough to make the expense and trouble of their replacement just not worth it, at least for me.
"Therefore, since the world has still... Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure, Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good." -- A.E. Housman
I agree with this. I prefer three tritium sights with a strong white outline. My main issue with my eyesight is trouble picking up black on black sights in many lighting conditions, including many indoor situations. So the 3 dot with a colored outline is very important to me for most shooting conditions. I typically go with trijicon tritium dots with white outlines, or with some guns Meprolight. For whatever reason I seem to prefer the Meprolights on H&Ks.
I don’t really like dots. With plain black sights, I easily pick up the silhouette of the sights, and I can easily focus on the front sight while placing the silhouette of the sights on target. I’ve also noticed with plain black sights I can go back-and-forth between sight focus or focusing on the target without confusing my eyes.
If I have to have dots and/or night sights, I like the style that features a brighter front sight with blacked out rears, like on my P365XL. At night, the front is a bit brighter; during the day the front really pops and the rear is dark. I like it, but find myself using it almost like a red dot sight. It’s very fast, especially up close (just put the dot on target), but not quite as accurate (especially at distance, and if I want to align the actually sights at distance, the dot is too much eye candy).
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