Night sights?

[AgentPickle]

Night sights on all your carry/defensive pistols or no?

 

[Alex Clayton]

ANY kind of sight system seems to inspire a lot of hate. I personally do LOVE night sights. Also laser sights and lights. Older my eyes get the more help I will gladly take. Been shooting over 6 decades and in that time I have personally seen a handful of really good shots with hand guns. The kind that seem to make it almost too easy and literally can do better than me with no sights. Its a talent that can be honed but, still a talent not everyone has. I have lost track of the people who tell me they don't need sights at "self defense distance" who can't do what they claim. Get them to the range and suddenly they can't stay on paper that's not shooting back or moving. So bottom line if it works for you? Who cares what someone else tells you. Set up your guns the way they work best for you.

 

[powermad]

I have night sights but only because that's how they come.
The majority of contrast sights have a tritium tube, if it was an option I would take the plain ones.

 

[AJC1]

I install trijicon iridium 3 dots on my auto pistols.

 

[nettlle]

I have them on a couple of guns. I've found if it's too dark to see the target the night sight isn't going to do much good for aiming at something that I can't see.

 

[film495]

I have them on a couple of guns. I've found if it's too dark to see the target the night sight isn't going to do much good for aiming at something that I can't see.

yea, I have them on one pistol and I think it is good. The front sight just has a glowing green dot in the dark. I'd rather have it than not, but it is only an advantage if I'm in the dark. Part of me wonders if it is very dark, if the night sight might affect my night vision and make it harder to pick up a very dark target. certainly no expert, just casual observation on them. I did't go out of my way to put it on, came that way. maybe I like it, just so I can find out if I like it or not as I learn more about it, and I'm undecided.

 

[Varminterror]

I actually preferred Meprolight tritium sights over Trijicon for a long, long time (still do, but they're gonezo). I put tritium sights on all of my defensive pistols, even made some custom sights to have Amerigun install trijicon tritium lamps for some of my revolvers which didn't readily have tritium sights on the market. XS, meprolight, Trijicon, Amerigun, Ameriglo... I've replaced several sets as they aged too far into their life cycle (12yr half life is basically too dim for use after ~15yrs or so).

I personally prefer orange dots in the rear and green in the front. Green is the brightest tritium, and the color green is the highest acuity for the human eye, so having a little dimmer and less bold REAR sight dots which are closer to your eye will let the brighter FRONT sight stand out better... I absolutely love that combination. I'm not a fan of sights with colored rings around the exterior, just give me the white polymer tube plus the tritium inside - not even the steel tube of the trijicon lamps, just the old white polymer tubes of the Mepros, nice even color throughout, great picture day or night, orange rear + green front... best defensive pistol sight arrangement I've ever used (short of a Dual illumination RMR + laser/lite combo).

 

[Boom Vang]

Nope.

Obviously not on the revolvers I frequently carry. With pistols, only if the sights have poor contrast in varying lighting, I will change them out. My nightstand gun does has tritium sights.

 

[Ks5shooter]

Night Fision on everthing gonna carry.I like them because you configuere them the way you want them ,color,sight style etc.....better to have and not need than want and not have.

THE WORLD´S #1 SOURCE FOR Night Sights | Precision Tritium Night Sights

NIGHT FISION NIGHT SIGHTS. TRITIUM Self-powered illumination, 17 year warrantee. BRIGHTER than leading competitors night sights. Pigment impregnated ballistic polymer rings for daytime, PATENT-PENDING domed lenses for a crisp sight picture in low or no-light conditions.

www.nightfision.com

 

[MikeInOr]

Some of my carry pistols have night sights, some don't. Some just have a factory front night sight. I don't fret over having night sights on every carry pistol but they are nice and I don't see any down side to them other than cost.

My CZ-25, which I haven't carried in decades, doesn't even have sights on it!

 

[Hartkopf]

Yes but mostly because of the shape and style of the sights. I like a big U groove rear sight with no dots and a white dot front. TRUGLO tritium X sights are so cheap and have the style I like so they're now on all my Glocks.

 

[CoalCrackerAl]

My 44 came with night sights. I didn't like them. So i put the stock sights back on.

 

[jmr40]

Not any longer. I prefer to use a mounted light.

 

[Spats McGee]

Yes. I've put TruGlo Tritium Pros on the past few CC semiautos I've had. Now that I've settled on one semiauto for carry, I don't see that changing. If I carried my LCR more, I'd put the same thing on it, but because I so seldom carry it, I don't see any need to spend the $.

 

[halfmoonclip]

We shouldn't call them night sights. We should call them low light sights. Why would you want to shoot in the dark?
The Trijicons on a 640-1 are really useful in lousy light, as are TruGlos. Both have a white circle around the tritium (front only on the TruGlos, which is actually better), which is helpful in itself.
In full darkness, they can make it easier to find your gun....
Moon

 

[The Night Rider]

I said this in the other discussion. I have Ameriglo I dots on my Glock 26. Got them because I find it makes it easier for me to pick up my sights in the daytime.

I never put them on my Glock 19 because I couldn't justify the expense.

In the other discussion, Tom Givens is referenced as saying of the 63 students of his who have actually been in a gunfight having night sights on their guns had no bearing on the outcome.

I think he said that none of them had a weapons mounted light either but that's a different topic.

Of the 63 gunfights over 80% of them occurred in a well-lit parking lot between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.

This generally mirrors my experience. I worked as a security guard for 15 years and I would say that seven or eight of those years I was working third shift.

there really wasn't any place I ever had to go where there was no light. The only places I went that there was no light where places that people wouldn't be in anyway.

Bottom line I can't justify the expense

 

[Charlie98]

I have 2 pistols and one rifle with them... but both of the pistols are dead, now (20+ years.) I don't care to spend the money to replace them.

 

[buck460XVR]

Some do...some don't.

 

[JoeHenry]

Most of my pistols with night sights are now dim. Not a fan.

 

[benEzra]

I would say yes, definitely, with two caveats.

1, get the front a different color than the rear. (I went with a green front and orange rears (Trijicons), and they served well for a long time.

2, once you hit 50ish, you may find that focusing on irons (even tritium ones) in low light is a lot harder than it used to be (and they are way fuzzier at night than in the daytime). For 50+ eyes, the best night sight may be a red dot, since it is in the same focal plane as the target.

 

[powermad]

At 55 I kinda need a front sight I can see.
Most of mine are pretty much set up the same.
An orange front dot that I can see and no colored rings on the rear.

I have Trijicon HD/XR with a U notch rear and orange front on a couple.
XS RAM sights with an orange dot.
Ameriglow I-dot with an orange front.
XS DXT2 with an orange dot.
Red dot pistol has plain blacked out sights.
TFO green front and plain blacked out rear.

 

[wayneinFL]

I shoot better in low light with night sights. Like having fiber optic sights on a sunny day. I've had them on most of my carry guns.

 

[luzyfuerza]

Tritium sights only help me during those very rare moments when there is just barely enough light to identify my target AND not enough light to align the front sight with the rear. In the absence of artificial light, there are only five or ten minutes a day, at dawn and dusk, when both of these conditions are true.

Also, for me, if its too dark to identify the target, then the flashlight makes sight alignment a breeze. And washes out the tritium glow.

And as @The Night Rider pointed out above, his and Tom Givens' experience has been that in urban areas, there is almost always enough light to identify targets and to align regular iron sights. Help from tritium is not required.

I love big, bright, fiber optic front sights. Tritium vials, which only have value a few minutes a day, not so much.

 

[chicharrones]

My response is the same as I wrote in the Glock night sights thread as evidenced by the photos in this post.

Dark targets, even with good ambient light, can still make sights virtually disappear.

 

[drobs]

I have installed them on my 3 carry guns. I find they last around 10 years and then need to be replaced.