1911 Sights for Old Fart Eyes

[Borderland]

My eyes are going to shit, too. Bright orange dot front with or without tritium, and a serrated black rear. As an alternative I do well with a gold bead up front and serrated black rear. Dots blow either away, but I’m not willing to give up irons just yet.

Getting old sucks.

[revchuck38]

Getting old sucks.

But it beats the alternative.

[RevolverJIM]

Getting (becoming) old is an adventure..........being old, not so much!

[gato naranja]

Hola, Gato!

I’ve never minded the GP factory sights, until my middle-aged eyes set in. A FO front would definitely help. Do you happen to know what size you got?

The label in the bag it came in sez:

Sight/Ruger/Front/GP100
Revolver/Opt/.270T/.125W/Ramped/Also
Fits Redhawk Series/Tools Not Included
7-20

019-114-00

[Jim Watson]

I have been in the FO front, black rear camp for a long time but a friend's FO fore and aft sights are getting interesting.

[entropy]

I always thought there was a singular answer to this. Lately however I wonder. I went thru a period where my near vision began to deteriorate. Began wearing 1.25’s. Then progressed up to about 2.50’s over a period of maybe 5-6 years. The past 12-18mo or so, it seems to have peaked and perhaps even improved. I’ve found my ability to quickly accommodate has improved. My eyeballs don’t seem to act like an old autofocus camera so much anymore. Optometrist says this is sometimes the normal progression of it all.

At first I thought the flat serrated rear with a wider notch and tritium front would be the answer. It was for a while in the beginning. Now I struggle with that because it seems my brain has trouble FINDING the rear sight to begin with. There’s no reference there to draw the eye to it. Once I find it, it’s fine and I can fill the rear notch with the front blade. It’s just not a quick process. I’ve had a bit better luck using a fiber optic front and a Novak plain wider notch rear. It seems the cut of the Novak creates a “tunnel effect” that while not having any dots on the rear (white, tritium or fiber optic) forms a shadow of sorts that’s draws my attention to that rear notch. That, combined with the bright FO front seems to be much quicker. There’s still a lag time tho. As much as I used to despise them, the three dot tritium set up (along with a slightly wider rear notch) seems to be my latest solution. My brain is able to quickly pick up the rear dots for reference, find the front dot, then the brain is able to kind of align those three dots as a rough reference along with the target. If I need more accuracy, I can slow down a bit, fine tune things by either looking for the blade and rear notch outlines (some days easier than others) or if I didn’t eat enough carrots that day, ditch looking for blades and notches and concentrate more on lining all the dots up nice and pretty.

I still stubbornly refuse to go down the red dot path. I like them on rifles, not on pistols.

[03RN]

I like this sight installation Dave Lauck did. The gold front has a nice straight top edge. Something like that would not be bad on a 1911.


Attachment 115932

Attachment 115933

Ooh, I like that. Is that a stocked item sonewhere?

[DMF13]

What about something like one of these, along with many other similar options:

https://vulcanmachinewerks.com/2011-...optic-milling/

https://chpws.com/product/2011-1911-milling/

https://ateiguns.com/product/1911-20...g/#milling-for

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I've pretty decided that I wouldn't go RDS on the gun. I have a SRO Glock 17 Gen 5 MOS and still in the mode of deciding how I do with it versus irons. I read discussions back and forth. Thus, I want to enhance the irons on this gun. Should I put in more time with the RDS, yeah - but life is complex and other expenses speak to me. I do like shooting the 1911, despite the gamers saying this or that. It's just fun. It's a touch big for EDC on little old me. With our 10 round limit, carrying 9 isn't an issue like with the why not carry 18 folks.

Thanks for the suggestions, folks.

[BN]

This is what I would try first if it was my pistol.

It looks like it has a Novak style rear. I would measure the width and depth of the rear notch and measure the width of the front sight. Form looking at the picture on the S&W site, I'm guessing the width of both will be .125". I would take a safe file and widen the rear notch to at least .140" or even .150". Then look through the sight and see if you can see the complete white dot on the front. If you can't see the whole dot, then deepen the notch. I might make it a U notch.

Then try the different colors of https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this and see which shows up best to your eyesight. Finger nail polish remover can be used to remove the paint if you decide to change colors. You could try just painting the white circle around the tritium or paint the whole dot.

If you're thinking about replacing the sights anyway, you can't hurt the original sights. I find that I prefer the red paint on a front sight, but I prefer green if it's a fiber optic. Trial and error without spending big bucks. I'm not cheap, I'm thrifty.