Night Sights vs fiber optics (August 2013 edition)

[Shawn.L]

You mean the guys who operate in teams with weapon mounted lights, IR illuminators, and NODs? Because I'm not sure that has a high degree of relevance to what I need as a lone "operator" dealing with a criminal ambush.

When I took Southnarc's AMIS one thing the students agreed on almost universally was that the lack of night sights on the Sim guns was a significant hindrance. There were plenty of times that I didn't want to project white light but could see well enough to locate the target. Without illuminated sights, though, it was just a black mass atop a black mass. It's a lot easier against static cardboard than a moving target.

In the 2 times Ive taken AMIS I have used my personal SIM guns in the dark and final evo's equipped with the GL-433 (Hack) Ameriglo sights same as my carry and training guns. Huge advantage. Having a strong index on the gun and having that dot of the tritium like a RDS to stick on target gave me not only huge confidence but made incredibly accurate and reliable hits at full bore speed on live resisting opponents actively working against me.
My personal suggestion to students taking that class is at the very least get a phosphorescent paint pen and hit the front sight on your airsoft with it and charge it up before going live in the dark.
During one evolution I had 2 actors try to ambush me, one in the hard corner, and one waiting "out of bounds" and coming in as I entered the room. Watching that dot jump from one target to the next as they stumbled over one another and wound up in a pile in the corner as I maneuvered was the sort of "yep, this works" confirmation of skill, technique, and gear choices coming together only live training can bring out.

On another note, I dont comment here much but I do read this journal often. Good work AK.

[Mr_White]

Don't mean to hijack your journal bro

Not at all dude, I like it when people talk about stuff in my journal!

If the dot is too bright and is a star burst

No issue with that so far. It was a sunny day at the match and the fiber was bright and round and I could still see the top edges and light bars just fine.

Just as Ahole with an opinion but it's not the FO - it's the thinness. Shoot groups side by side with .100 front and .125 front and see, or with the Defoors. Might explain the not shot calling. Cause with that large of light bars, you can't tell. My worst shooting has been with a .100 Dawson FO front I once had on a 17L. Longer barrel probably exacerbated the effect. Just sayin'.

I don't know what happened at the match. For now, I am going with it not being any more complicated than I just screwed up those four shots. Out of around two hundred and sixty.

I have tried the .105, the .115, and the .125 fronts on the range and don't notice any real difference in group size.

During one evolution I had 2 actors try to ambush me, one in the hard corner, and one waiting "out of bounds" and coming in as I entered the room. Watching that dot jump from one target to the next as they stumbled over one another and wound up in a pile in the corner as I maneuvered was the sort of "yep, this works" confirmation of skill, technique, and gear choices coming together only live training can bring out.

Can you describe the decisionmaking aspect of this evo, with regard to the decision to use (simulated) deadly force? What specifically did you see, hear, know, etc. that caused you to recognize these two guys as deadly threats? I appreciate your indulgence on this; I am very interested in the low light marksmanship-meets-low light decisionmaking aspect of AMIS.

On another note, I dont comment here much but I do read this journal often. Good work AK.

Shawn I appreciate hearing that you see fit to check out the journal. Thank you!

[ToddG]

Did anyone there run FO sights as their primary sighting system on non-sim guns?

One of the Airsoft guns I used for many of the low-light "low order evolutions" had FO sights on it and they were no better than completely black sights in even dim light.

Could anyone there speak for FO in similar situations? Could anyone there speak to experience of using FO in situations where there was enough light to properly ID a target but not differentiate the front sight from the rear on blacked out sights?

That's a common issue raised by folks who like FO sights but it's terribly misleading. It comes from range experiences where lighting conditions tend to be severe, don't change, and targets don't move.

First, it's very easy to find real world lighting conditions in which a threat can adequately be identified as such but where dark sights are inadequate for aiming. I posted this image on my website not too long ago:


Everything in the entertainment center area is clearly identifiable but you couldn't make out a sight picture if your life depended on it (literally).

It's also very easy to have a real situation in which someone moves from an area lit well enough to be identified to an area where he can still be seen but the lighting is no longer adequate to find a sight picture without illuminated sights. An example I've used in classes before is a target that is strongly backlit. Even if it's wearing fairly neutral colors, a person who is backlit becomes little more than a dark silhouette and having non-illuminated sights (or even an illuminated front sight only) means you're point shooting.

I have used both in similar situations, and while at some points the night sights did have an advantage, there were other times when FO had the advantage.

Sometimes night sights let you do things that FO won't, and sometimes FO let you do things that night sights won't. I wouldn't argue that point. But the things FO sights let you do aren't all-or-nothing, they just work a little better in terms of speed/accuracy. In those places where night sights beat the FO, the FO sights are literally useless for aiming. Put another way, while night sights might not be the best in every environment, they work in every environment because I can always see them and aim with them. That's not the case with FO sights.

[ToddG]

Locate it or ID and assess it too? As in, make a properly-founded decision to use deadly force against it?

Sometimes. See the "television versus black sights" photo in my previous post.

Or had it been 'pre-emptively ID'd and assessed' somehow?

Sometimes. Imagine someone is in your house with a gun. He steps into a dark corner. You can see his silhouette but not the details of his face. His arms raise up pointing at you (or one of your children) in what appears to you to be a shooting stance/position of some kind. Would you want to be able to fire aimed shots into that silhouette?

I completely understand the allure of FO sights. Many people find them a benefit in competition and at the range because they are easier to see and they provide a finer aiming point than a plain black front sight because, obviously, they're smaller. So they make things better in best-case scenarios. But they make things worse in worst-case scenarios, and my personal viewpoint is that it's a poor compromise given what we know about the lighting environment in many DGUs.

[Mr_White]

That's a common issue raised by folks who like FO sights but it's terribly misleading. It comes from range experiences where lighting conditions tend to be severe, don't change, and targets don't move.

Sample of one to be sure, but the the head of our LE FTU reports never having enough light to ID and assess a person and decide to point a gun at them, but not have enough light to aim (with black sights.) His experience definitely comes from a career in the field, not from training on the range.

Look, I hear your general description of hypothetical low light situations with enough light to ID and assess but not enough light to shoot accurately (whatever that is for the hypothetical problem at hand.) I tend to think that short shrifts the complexity and potential for error in assessing a person and deciding whether they need to get shot, and also the relative ease of making hits based on practiced index at what most people would consider to be likely pistol engagement distances.

Can you assign some specifics to your experiences in AMIS?

There were plenty of times that I didn't want to project white light but could see well enough to locate the target

Locate it or ID and assess it too? As in, make a properly-founded decision to use deadly force against it? Or had it been 'pre-emptively ID'd and assessed' somehow?

[ToddG]

Look, I hear your general description of hypothetical low light situations with enough light to ID and assess but not enough light to shoot accurately (whatever that is for the hypothetical problem at hand.)

I'm not sure what's "hypothetical" about the photo I posted. That's my living room almost every day. Some light comes in through the sliding glass door, providing varying degrees of light to different sections of the room. From where I'm sitting right now I can easily "identify" plenty of things around the room but when I point my gun at them, the sight picture is black on black on black. Heck even the grey part of one of my targets hanging on the wall -- which is VERY clearly identifiable -- is all but invisible against the black of my sights. The only reason I can aim at it is because of the faint but obvious green glow on the front sight and the even fainter but still visible yellow glows on the rear.

I tend to think that short shrifts the complexity and potential for error in assessing a person and deciding whether they need to get shot,

and also the relative ease of making hits based on practiced index at what most people would consider to be likely pistol engagement distances.

Once you start talking about unsighted fire the point becomes moot. If you're confident you can index on a realistic moving target under realistic conditions adequately enough to deliver the hits you want in the time you want, great. Then obviously you don't need sights that work well in the dark. Or that work well in the day. Or at all.

Can you assign some specifics to your experiences in AMIS?

The most obvious I can remember is seeing two silhouettes in a doorway at the other end of an otherwise pitch black room. They were engaged in a gun battle. I knew one was my friend (TCinVA, as a matter of fact) but there was absolutely no way I could get a sight picture on his opponent. When I brought the gun up all I had was a big black mass hanging in the air in front of me (hands, gun, sights) blocking out an almost-as-black world in front of me. That was with Sims.

There were other instances -- even during the non-lowlight portions of the class -- where opponents would squirrel themselves into dimly lit corners and shoot when I appeared. If I was also in a poorly lit space, I knew where they were and could see them well enough to locate them, knew they were an imminent threat (that whole "shooting at me" thing), but without illuminated sights I couldn't adequately differentiate my sights -- including the FO front & rear on one airsoft gun -- from their body.

Specifically, one of our "training areas" was a giant cluttered warehouse. Line of sight to the threat was often muddled by intervening objects and a very visually chaotic background. The sight picture was never clean. There were always multiple visual distractions along the entire 3D line of sight. When there was enough light on the gun to see the sights' outline clearly it was workable. When there was enough light on the BG to see the sights' silhouette it was workable. When the lighting conditions didn't allow for either of those things, it was still very easy to locate & identify him as a threat without being able to fire aimed shots at him. Given that he was often a partial target using the environment as cover, it made for some challenging work even when aiming was possible. When I'd bring my gun up and see nothing but various shades of dark it made effective fire impossible.

Locate it or ID and assess it too? As in, make a properly-founded decision to use deadly force against it? Or had it been 'pre-emptively ID'd and assessed' somehow?

I believe I answered this exact question previously.

[Chuck Whitlock]

Question....
Is there any situation where night sight DON'T work, but something else does?

[AJZ]

Question....
Is there any situation where night sight DON'T work, but something else does?

I would venture to say that picture is a prime example, and a RDS may be helpful there, but I have very little experience with a pistol RDS. Maybe someone who runs one full time can chime in?

[ToddG]

Night sights worked fine in that picture's environment.

[41magfan]

Sample of one to be sure, but the the head of our LE FTU reports never having enough light to ID and assess a person and decide to point a gun at them, but not have enough light to aim (with black sights.) His experience definitely comes from a career in the field, not from training on the range.

That’s pretty much been my experience, as well. Having carried a gun for a while before the advent of luminous sights, I don’t see them as a panacea or even as an essential option. However, I will say without hesitation they sure made qualification scores go up.