Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Night Sights - for PD / CCW

Just curious how many of you use them, or feel they are a game changer?

The downside I see is.....over time they fade........do the major mfg. 'restore' the tritium for a fee?

Usual for about $100 they can be restored😂

The normal life (they say) is 10-12 years. I have several sets that are still working fine that are older.

I prefer a tritium front sight only so it's fairly cheap.

If you really want night sights I’d go tritium front, preferably painted like the Trijicon HDs, and a solid black rear. I prefer a fiber front and black rear.

Appreciate the comments folks. Anyone else, feel free to chime in. Thanks.

Having a front sight that shows up in the dark is a game changer for me. Got them on my SIG 220 and my SOCOM 16 M1A. E

I like a dot over dot figure eight configuration. The back dot is smaller, dimmer and slightly different color, yellowish tone. Front sight is larger, brighter and green.

I have night sights on several of my handguns, but I don't believe I will invest in any more sets or recharging dead ones down the line. I just don't see them well enough at this point to feel they're worth it. Weapon Mounted Lights and red dots from here on out for me.

The main reason I like night sights is;

I can see the sights glowing in the dark, with my handgun laying on my nightstand.

I wouldn't have to fumble around, feeling for where it was laying with these sights.

Virgil B.

- When "night sights" started to become standard equipment on LE service pistols in the late 80's, I immediately saw an increase in night time qualification scores. Interestingly, the degree of improvement was fairly inverse relative to shooter skill. In other words, the better shooter's scores didn't improve that much but the marginal shooters experienced the most benefit.

- In contrast, that phenomenon didn't measurably translate to an increase in hit percentages on bad guys in actual shootings.

- The configuration of luminous sights (dots, bars, front & back, front only, etc) is largely a subjective matter and I've seen folks do well with all of the iterations available.

- As for the service life issue, the tritium ampules can be replaced but in my mind the juice just ain't worth the squeeze (in most cases) and I just replace them when they die.

Take it or leave it, but here are my observations. I used to be all about night sights and put them on every handgun I owned that ever got in my rotation of defensive guns and the gun I carried on duty. I still have them on my duty gun because policy requires them. I use Ameriglo “Spartan Tactical” sights because the rear vials have no paint around them and the sight looks black otherwise with a big orange front sight. They are also lower profile than Trijicon HDs, which are my next favorite.

When bright LED flashlights and weapon lights with 300+ lumens came out, I started to realize they wash out night sights. But, you get a great outline, so it didn’t effect my shooting. I them tried a fiber optic front with black rear sight and was amazed how well that jumps out at you when using a bright flashlight or weapon light. My personal guns now have that configuration.

My edc light was an older incandescent Surefire Aviator which didn’t wash out my sights as bad. Now I edc a Streamlight Protac 1L and duty carry that and a couple Surefire G2zx “Combat Lights”, with Surefire X300U-B lights on my duty gun and house gun.

For me, seriously, night sights biggest advantage is being able to find your gun in the dark. I think if you have a rail, a light is a much better investment. If you add them, i would go with contrasting dots i.e. green/orange, or like Kensights box rear with dot front.

I like that setup myself. Trijicon FOs on a PPQ 45, shown here in CQB against charging round bales.

[Linked Image]

If I was going back in harness I'd run a front night sight only.

GREAT Feedback folks, appreciate all the info.

how are those RMR and other red dot pistol sights with bright weapons lights?

It depends on the RMR. The dual power tritium/fiber optics will washout when transition from dark to light areas. The LED with adjustable brightness works well as long as the brightness is appropriately adjusted. The biggest thing you can do to nullify this is to have cowitnessed sights. Use irons during transitions and have the RMR set to work with what the predominate light level is.

I keep my dots turned up bright enough to see with my light on.

I don't think they do it for free, but they do it at reasonable cost. My main carry gun always has them.

Yep.