Heinie Straight Eight Night Sight

I've never used them myself, but they are a conventional post in notch sight with an equally conventional single round dot on the front. At the bottom center of the rear sight's notch is another equally sized round dot. The idea is to "dot the I" with the sights while focusing on the front. When you stack the round dots atop each other it looks like a figure 8. It is somewhat like the "von Stavenhagen" sight picture found on SIGs and Kahrs, but the rear sight inlay is a round dot instead of a vertical bar. I believe a sight of this type (but not night) is used on the Taurus 1911. They are more for fast close shooting than precision alignment at long ranges for target shooting. Google Images

Heinie Straight-8 sights are very accurate for precise shooting in the light, being nicely serrated and such. (Maybe not bulls-eye competition-grade, but quite good for combat sights.) In the dark, the figure-8 glowing image is quite useful. I hate the 3-dot pattern, with two tritium dots in the rear sight, on either side of the notch. FWIW, I have always liked the Von Stavenhagen sights mentioned by The Lone Haranguer.

I used them on two duty Glocks. I now use SIGs for duty, and like the Von Stavenhagen rear sights better.

I have them on my CCW STI Shadow and really like them. I wasn't sure how they would be at first, but they are very quick to acquire especially shot to shot in semi rapid fire. Mine are also pretty easy to be very accurate with in slow fire.

I have them on my G19 and really like them. The narrower front sight post is much easier to line up than the chunky stock sights. My groups reduced dramatically.

I really prefer the post and dot approach, which the straignt 8's are quite similar to. The three dot system is not nearly as fast for me, I find myself trying to focus on the rears.

not sure about the night sights but I prefer the straight 8's... I have a set on my PT1911 and really love them... I also like the sight configuration on the Steyr M9-A1 (trapezoidal?) and another set i have on my Kimber... Rear blacked out and front fiber-optic.... what do all of these have in common? they arent 3 dots... I shoot 3 dot fine, but the depth difference from left to right (or right to left) seems to "fight" with you as you try to focus on putting the front sight on target....

Funny as it seems... 9mmepiphany put it well.

Straight 8 sights

I've tried them on 1911's and glocks; I find it faster than three dots. I really like it on Glocks as something that mitigates the the grip rake being dissimilar to the 1911's I usually shoot; I have the visual cue of dropping the front sight into the figure 8, which helps me.
Cheers, TF

Hi guys, I really liked the bar - dot sights on the Kahr models, and I found myself always shooting groups that were more veritical, than spread all over the place, which I liked!

I don't know of anybody that markets a night sight version of the Stauvenhaugen sight for the M&P models, as well the other popular brand pistols. Maybe somebody should!

Stay safe all!

I thought I'd ressurect an old thread instead of starting a new thread.

I am a big fan of the factory glock sights (other than the fact they're plastic), but recently switched to the Heinie Straight 8s on my Glock 21. I like the profile and picture so much that I bought a second set for my Glock 22.

My question is this though. I noticed that the front blade is so narrow that I can see a little sliver of the hole on the slide on either side of the front sight? I do like the narrow front sight, but am just curious if this is normal. It doesn't have any wiggle room, so I don't think its an issue at all, but I am moreso just wondering. Thanks!

One of my pistols came with the straight-8 sights. I painted the rear dot black and its a fine set of sights now. IMHO you need to focus on the front sight, and anything on the rear is a counter-productive distraction.

i really like the Heines, but my experience has mostly been with them installed on a 1911. i like them for the flat face of the rear blade, the wider rear notch and the nice serrated rear face of the front blade.

i use the blades for shooting in good light and only resort to the dots in dim light. it is faster for me to stack the sights than to try to align 3 of them across, i find the 3-dot system distracting. in my experience the fastest setup for night sights for me is the single front dot

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Ill second that.

The hole I am referring to is the hole in the front of the slide that the front sight mounts through. I should have taken a caliper to the width of the hole and also measure the width of the front blade. Im sure it's completely normal as the Heinie sights have a thin front blade.