Painted a few black front sights orange with Testor's modeling paint

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kBob said:
Wow guys. Welcome to the 1960's! What you are describing became so common that S&W started putting a red plastic insert in their revolver front sights. I had a friend that carefully made little divots in his older Highway Patrol man sights and filled those dots with glow in the dark paint in the late 1970's or so. If you had the S&W revolver with the red plastic front sight insert and the white box out lined rear notch you could go to a fairly fast flash front sight picture "Yep red blob on target and in white box, pull trigger"

Used to know guys back in the day that simply swiped "White out" or "Liquid Paper" on their front sight with the supplied brush......it suddenly occurred to me that many of the younger shooters have no idea what I am talking about! There were little bottles of paint in the common colors of office paper for making corrections with when all we had were steel lettered type writers. If you found a type writer you generally found a bottle of one or the other in the desk drawer the typewriter was closest too.

I used to do something similar with the M-16A1 in that I would cut a sliver of glow in the dark tape (aka Ranger Eyes, we would get sheets of the stuff about index card sized to cut up and sew on the back of hats or cammo bands for helmets to make "eyes" the guy following you could see from a few yards away, after a day of exposer to sun light they were visable almost all night. We also once made a star chart on the ceiling of our barracks room to help teach major constalations and got ragged about it )and place it on the front sight tower vertically facing me and another sliver horizontally below the rear sight on the carrying handle. The rear one was too close to really focus on but in the dark the two formed a sort of interrupted inverted T that allowed one to quickly engage 18x24 inch things out to 25 yards or so with some hope of hitting when there was no where near enough light to see the sights. I did know one guy that carefully painted on fifth of his M-16 A1 front sight red with model paint after he zeroed so he could back off two front sight clicks and see the red or click back up and be zeroed again. Also saw Ranger Eye tape stuck on an M60 GPMG front sight and then the sides blackened with Sharpie so only a thin verticle line is left.

Also knew 1911A1 useds that painted a small white stripe just to the fireres side of the teenie tinie front sight on a GI pistol. I claimed it made the front sight more visable in low light and another claimed it gave him a reference while the muzzle was elevated and when he lowered the gun enough the white disappeared it was time to shoot.

Police that were a little gun savy and the general run of "gun nuts" were very much into the sort of front sight painting here described by the OP.
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What's old is new again. A new generation just needs a bit of education..... :)
 
Merle1 said:
I also use a white base coat - it seems to brighten the top coat.

But I use fluorescent green as a top coat - it works better in dim light - at least for my eyes. :thumbup:
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I remember reading a low light color test several years ago.
If I remember correctly, green was the first color that the eye could identify as the light was slowly increased.

Steve
 
Steve Cover said:
I remember reading a low light color test several years ago.
If I remember correctly, green was the first color that the eye could identify as the light was slowly increased.
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And I remember reading somewhere that human eyes are very sensitive to shades of green, probably as an evolutionary adaptation that allowed us to identify where the predators were hiding in the long grass.
 
Steve Cover said:
I remember reading a low light color test several years ago.
If I remember correctly, green was the first color that the eye could identify as the light was slowly increased.

Steve
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I had also heard that, so I bought a set of fiber optic "light pipes" from Bass Pro; they were for a shotgun turkey sight IIRC.
At any rate, the set contained a variety of colors - red thru green.
Holding them up to a light proved that green just jumped out - the visibility was amazing.
They were also the most visible when not aimed at a light.
I got the closest paint match I could find, which was fluorescent green - similar to what highway workers wear.
 
toivo said:
And I remember reading somewhere that human eyes are very sensitive to shades of green, probably as an evolutionary adaptation that allowed us to identify where the predators were hiding in the long grass.
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Merle1 said:
I had also heard that, so I bought a set of fiber optic "light pipes" from Bass Pro; they were for a shotgun turkey sight IIRC.
At any rate, the set contained a variety of colors - red thru green.
Holding them up to a light proved that green just jumped out - the visibility was amazing.
They were also the most visible when not aimed at a light.
I got the closest paint match I could find, which was fluorescent green - similar to what highway workers wear.
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I used to paint my front sights with red, but for a while now I've been painting my front sights with Testors florescent green, sometimes along with red or orange on the rear sights. It's been working well for me. It draws my eyes to the front sight.

As others said, use white as a base coat. I use Tamiya white liquid surface primer.

Degrease the sights well with 90% Isopropyl alcohol on a q-tip before you paint. You can apply the paint with a toothpick. Bite the end off to blunt and flatten it
 
A thin film of grease on the sides of the sight will make any over-run fail to adhere there.

Broadway brand nail polish is, I am reliably informed, tough as nails and stays on forever. Currently using Nail Art White underneath Neon Peach. On my sights, not my nails.
 
I picked up a .22 S.A pistol ,and had a tough time seeing the front sight,it was blued steel. I dug out the paint kit and hit it with silver and that helped quite a lot . I thought flouresent green would look out of place on an old fashioned six shooter
 
C.R. said:
I picked up a .22 S.A pistol ,and had a tough time seeing the front sight,it was blued steel. I dug out the paint kit and hit it with silver and that helped quite a lot . I thought flouresent green would look out of place on an old fashioned six shooter
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I don't think theres any penalty for having a non-period correct enhancement that allows you to shoot your gun more effectively. :)
 
The first color the eye is able to detect in low light is that funky lime green you see on fire trucks at the airport. Years ago the insurance industry spent a lot of money to figure that out. I like a bright yellow on front sights. You can still see it reasonably well even against a white target ( you know, those pesky hostage targets - always in the way).
 
Yet another vote for the white base coat under the color coat. It makes a big difference in how bright the color coat appears.

I use model paint and have had good results. Another tip, I use a toothpick as my applicator. Using the toothpick's small point I can very precisely place the paint exactly where I want it.

Edmo
 
I use Testor's Gloss White then Florescent Orange. Since I build plastic models I have model paint brushes galore to apply that with.
 
Those funky green firetrucks are all the metro has had for years. Its actually old school now. Half the construction workers and all highway workers wear it locally. You can buy the vests and t-shirts everywhere.

Having purchased a watch which is Dive rated and intended for good use at depths or conditions with almost no visible light, the hands and markers are done in hi luminescent paint. After a few hours it's not quite as bright as Tritium - but there is a much longer half life, and the stuff is readily available on the internet. Another thread brought that out a few months back elsewhere. In my experience it is superior to night sights if the handgun is first allowed ten minutes of ambient light. That's all it takes and it's good to morning. Unlike Tritium, it won't fade to uselessness in ten to twelve years and cost the price of the sights again to renew.

I did try the glow in the dark stuff back in the 80s and it was junk. The newer superluminescent paint meets your expectations very well. About the next step better would be LED sights and I expectantly wait for them to show up on the market in the next few years. Pretty much a no brainer. Factory installed they could turn on from the safety shoe on the trigger or touch sensor. A USB port could recharge them easily.
 
White nail polish is what I use. I've used it with a toothpick to brighten up dot sights, and carefully with a firm small brush on front sights.

Sometimes in the supermarket I'll glance at the neon/flourescent colors and ponder how they would work. A nice lady chided me once that she would not ever consider letting her girls wear such colors. I just smiled and said, that's OK ma'am, I'm looking for me. :)
 
cc-hangfire said:
My wife is embarrassed at my nail polish collection. One bottle each of bright orange, red, bright green, along with white, black, silver & clear. And the clerks have given me a strange look as I've checked out. Picked them up one at a time as I found them for $1 to $1.50 a bottle.

Luckily, this collection should last my lifetime.
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Maybe you should stop wearing it when you're with her.
 
I got ambitious over my days off and decided to finally get my "Bright Sights" sight paints out and use them. One of the first I did was the Tanfoglio in my avatar over there on the left. A bright orange front and bright green rear dots look great. It's funny, I've had that gun for a few months and never noticed until Monday that the rear sight had been damaged during it's previous life in Israel. Not badly, but I can't believe I missed it. After it turned out so well, I went and did almost all my older guns with dirty or damaged white dot sights with different glow in the dark or high visibility paints and they look great. My Sar K2 45's sights went from blah to great in about 5 minutes of work, including cleaning of them before painting.
 
Took your suggestions and painted this one white first, then green over the top. Stands out almost like a fiberoptic rod! Very nice.

IMG_4537_zpsrsapr74g.jpg
 
I just did a few of mine with nail polish. I degreased with nail polish remover, then put on white (with hardeners), then bright orange (with hardeners). Works excellently and is very rugged.
 
I've only done one front sight with modeling paint, and that was on a rifle over 20 years ago and I did it in orange. It's a barleycorn (?) front sight on an old 1908 Brazilian Mauser that's worn but shoots good and is all matching. Now that my eyes and I are older, got some tritium and fiber optics plus I may do some handgun sights in fluorescent green as I have some experience with it on other folks guns and it seems to work well for me, better than orange anyway. The orange on the Mauser is starting to wear off after all these years but as you age it sure helps to have a highly visible front sight. Think the Mauser's gonna get a green front sight next. IMG_1601.JPG
 
The front sight on my edc are painted with a neon orange paint marker. I get them at the farm store, they come in a variety of colors.

This was taken moments before I executed a rat in a burning brush pile near my son's house.

While the .380 is well known as a mouse gun. Some of you may be interested to know that it will take down an animal as large as a rat with a well placed shot . Screenshot_2017-03-23-14-26-51.png
 
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