My take:
Shining a decent light directly on a target in the dark will provide enough illumination to silhouette the sights for accurate shooting. If you use this approach, you don't really need night sights if you know you will ALWAYS have a working light and either a free hand to use it or a light system that is mounted to the gun.
That said, after you shoot once, then there's discharge smoke in the air and the light shining through it is distracting--like highbeams in fog. It was kind of surprising the first time I really had a chance to play around with low-light shooting. I had never noticed the discharge smoke in normal light, but with a bright light shining through it in an otherwise dark environment it was an issue--at least for me.
Some experimentation showed that aiming the beam downward so that it strikes the ground front of the target provides enough reflected light to identify and track the target. BUT, then there's no longer a guarantee that you will get enough light on the target to silhouette the sights sufficiently for accurate shooting with standard sights.
Bottom line, I found that having both night sights and a light was beneficial, and that having a separate light was better than a weapon-mounted light because it allowed the gun and the light to be operated independently. Not only so that you're not pointing your gun at everything you want to look at, but because you can alter the light point of aim to eliminate issues like the smoke distraction.
If you can find a place to do some of your own experimentation/shooting in low light, that would probably be invaluable.
Shining a decent light directly on a target in the dark will provide enough illumination to silhouette the sights for accurate shooting. If you use this approach, you don't really need night sights if you know you will ALWAYS have a working light and either a free hand to use it or a light system that is mounted to the gun.
That said, after you shoot once, then there's discharge smoke in the air and the light shining through it is distracting--like highbeams in fog. It was kind of surprising the first time I really had a chance to play around with low-light shooting. I had never noticed the discharge smoke in normal light, but with a bright light shining through it in an otherwise dark environment it was an issue--at least for me.
Some experimentation showed that aiming the beam downward so that it strikes the ground front of the target provides enough reflected light to identify and track the target. BUT, then there's no longer a guarantee that you will get enough light on the target to silhouette the sights sufficiently for accurate shooting with standard sights.
Bottom line, I found that having both night sights and a light was beneficial, and that having a separate light was better than a weapon-mounted light because it allowed the gun and the light to be operated independently. Not only so that you're not pointing your gun at everything you want to look at, but because you can alter the light point of aim to eliminate issues like the smoke distraction.
If you can find a place to do some of your own experimentation/shooting in low light, that would probably be invaluable.