# Night Sights



## cbrgator (Aug 21, 2007)

I am looking for a set of night sights for my Glock 19. Anybody have some recommendations? What's an average set cost? Are they easy to install yourself or is it best done by a smith?


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## JeffWard (Aug 24, 2007)

I put Trijicons on my XD45, and I'm getting a second set for my XD9SC. Excellent. They are the industry standard 3-dot config. Flat front on rear sight for single hand slide racking if required.

About $80-90 at Midwayusa.com

If you have a bench vice and a brass punch, you can install yourself, but you will destroy the plastic factory Glock sights. If you want to keep the old sights, a Smith will put them on for around $20-30. You'll need a "sight pusher".

JW


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## Dredd (Feb 22, 2008)

Trijicon, Heinie, Novak all make quality sights.

Trijicon offers a standard 3 dot with the option for a lighter color in the rear sight such as orange or yellow so that you can more quickly pick out the front sight.

Heinie offers a unique sight system called the straight eight. What is different is that there are only 2 dots on the sight. You simply line them up straight up and down and you have a perfect sight picture lined up, and it creates a sort of picture of an 8. The different is that it's slower sight aquisition when you're trying to line it up horizontal. 3 dots would give a better horizontal picture IMO. What I mean is if you were scaning a room it seems to be easier for me to line up the sights when doing this procedure with a 3dot system. Just drawing and aiming the straight eight system works better. YMMV


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

I prefer Meprolights, and have them on two of my three Glocks. I prefer the higher, blockier sight picture versus the Trijicons. They are also less expensive. I just had a set put on my 23 at Glockmeister (here in Arizona) for $67 including installation.


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## falshman70 (Jul 13, 2006)

If cost is an issue, a good stop-gap is the Nightsiter. I bought 10 small dots for $10 + shipping and find that they work as advertised.


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

Get some tritium ghost rings.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Ghost ring sights are counterproductive on pistols for people with normal eyesight.

Work great on long guns, though.


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

Mike Barham said:


> Ghost ring sights are counterproductive on pistols for people with normal eyesight.
> 
> Work great on long guns, though.


I was kidding, lol.

But tell me about those people with abnormal eyesight. Which eye condition would make ghost rings a good choice on a handgun? :mrgreen:


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## submoa (Dec 16, 2007)

Father-in-law has a set of Truglo TFOs on his 19. Fiber optic worked great in day and tritiums at night (but not as bright as Mepros).


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

submoa said:


> Father-in-law has a set of Truglo TFOs on his 19. Fiber optic worked great in day and tritiums at night (but not as bright as Mepros).


The TFOs are what I had planned on getting put on my XD had I kept it. The problem with full tritium is you can't see the dots to save your life in broad daylight. A fairly easy fix is to _carefully_ put a small ring of fluorescent paint around them without covering up the tritium. I'm not about to try it, but it's an idea.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

I've talked to some presbyopes who liked the ghost rings on pistols. They weren't fast, though.


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

Mike Barham said:


> I've talked to some presbyopes who liked the ghost rings on pistols. They weren't fast, though.


What's a presbyope?


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Guys with short-arm disease. In other words, guys who are old enough to need reading glasses.


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## cbrgator (Aug 21, 2007)

fivehourfrenzy said:


> The TFOs are what I had planned on getting put on my XD had I kept it. The problem with full tritium is you can't see the dots to save your life in broad daylight. A fairly easy fix is to _carefully_ put a small ring of fluorescent paint around them without covering up the tritium. I'm not about to try it, but it's an idea.


Do the trijicons have this problem?


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Every time I pass by this thread on my way elsewhere, I think to jump in with my opinion...and then I rethink it and don't.
For some reason, tonight I'm driven to express my thoughts on the matter of night sights. Maybe it's because I'm old and right now my arthritis is acting up. Whatever...

In my experience, night sights on a pistol are a waste of both money and the effort to install them. (And night sights on a rifle are as useless as [nipples] on a hog.)
How do we use our pistol sights? We are supposed to focus on the front sight, and line up the blurry rear sight and blurry target with that front sight. Right? OK, in the dark and focusing on the illuminated front sight, how does one see the target? The light of the front sight swamps it, and it functionally disappears. (And, if there is enough light to see both target and sights clearly, you don't need illuminated sights. See?)
Better in the dark to have un-illuminated sights and, instead, to focus your eyes on the target. The target is what you need to hit, so you absolutely must be able to see it. Your eyes need to gather all of its reflected light, without any interference or distraction from illuminated objects in between.
So, if your eyes are focused on the target, how do you line up your sights?
Easy: You don't!
Successful night pistol shooting depends upon practice, practice, and more practice. Successful night pistol shooting requires sufficient practice from you, such that your pistol's sights "automatically" come up to meet your line-of-vision every time you present your gun. Thus, if you focus on seeing the target and then raise your pistol, your sights will be automatically aligned because of well-practiced "muscle memory." It's better not to see your sights, to shoot a pistol well at night.

I have insufficient night-time experience with shooting a rifle, so I'm not qualified to instruct on that matter. The little night rifle shooting I have done has taught me that any scope I've used was counter-productive at night, and that anything more than maybe 60 yards away could also have been on the moon, as far as my ability to hit it was concerned.

My friend and mentor, Mike Harries, used to say that, "There are no gadgets or miracle cures that save you from having to practice. Good shooting depends upon lots of practice at using the simplest equipment."


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

With all due respect to my friend *Steve M1911A1*, I must differ. While I am very much a software-over-hardware guy, and despise almost all manner of gadgetry, I think night sights are useful enough to warrant at least serious consideration on a fighting pistol.

Illuminated sights help in several ways. Dark sights in even dusky light can easily wash out against a dark shirt. A backlit target - as in someone silhouetted in a doorway in your home - presents sight alignment difficulties that night sights solve. Night sights allow you to find your nightstand pistol quickly in the dark. Are these a limited set of circumstances? Sure, but none of them are rare in the spectrum of defensive pistol uses.

I fully understand and appreciate the fact that a well-trained shooter can indeed shoot in the dark without night sights by using "muscle memory" (or whatever the cool-guy jargon is this week). Mas Ayoob showed me how to do it. But the vast majority of gun carriers don't have mentors like the great Mike Harries, and haven't attended upper-level training at Gunsite or wherever. Nor do most people shoot enough to retain the "muscle memory" needed to get good hits in low light on moving targets in a dynamic fight.

Most people derive a benefit from night sights. Is it gigantic and overwhelming? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the situation. But since there are no real-world downsides to tritium sights (unless you fancy yourself a ninja), and they cost less than a few boxes of ammo, I think _not_ having them is a mistake - though perhaps a minor one.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

I give all due respect to you, too, Mike, especially since you are one of the few on this forum who has actually been in fire-fights, and therefore know more about the subject of defensive (and offensive) shooting than most of us (including me).
I have to say that it worries me considerably that you could be correct, that people who own defensive weaponry don't practice with their...er...tools enough to develop the necessary "muscle memory" to do their defensive jobs as well and as safely as possible.
It has absolutely nothing to do with having been mentored by Mike, or attending Gunsite (which I never did), and absolutely everything to do with mind-set, motivation, and (dare I say it) craftsmanship. If you own a tool, and especially as inherently dangerous a tool as a pistol, it behooves you to do your best to become proficient (or even highly skilled) with it.
With experienced hindsight, I'd say that one needn't attend Gunsite or Front Sight, to develop speed-, power-, and accuracy-proficiency. ("DVC"—remember them?) All one needs to do is to commit a small amount of time, each and every day, to consistent practice. (You might practice the wrong thing, but you'll become very good at it; and that would probably suffice to save your life in a fight.)
To attain useful muscle memory, one must dry-fire (including presentations) for no more than 10 minutes every day. More than that is counter-productive, because fatigue cancels learning. Then, one must shoot actual bullets at actual targets for at least an hour, once a week, including (as one develops proficiency) movement and both short- and long-range attempts. That's all it takes.
I ran my own leathersmithing business, a two-man shop with walk-in customers. I'm sure that you, Mike, know how fatiguing that was. But at the end of every day, after walking a mile home and before eating dinner, I put in my 10 minutes of practice. (My at-home coach was my daughter, from ages three through 12. I showed her what I had to do, and she critiqued whether or not I was living up to my own criteria.)
I never became a Grand Master in IPSC, but what I learned is still good enough to have stayed with me until today, 30 years later. And I still practice.


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## JeffWard (Aug 24, 2007)

Somewhere in the middle, like usual... lies the truth.

In an instictive shooting situation, at close range, in an out-draw to survive scenario... You're not going to see the sights, illuminated or not, and your survival will depend on your training, and practice, and a lot of old fashion... luck.

In the instance where a more precise shot may be required, ie home defense in the dark from the top of the stairs... against a dark target, like a guy in a black sweatshirt, black pants, and a black hat... I'll take the night sights every time... If I have the element of suprise, ie time, I want sight alignment. Black (or white dot) sights on a black background, in low light... I WANT to avoid being silouetted, and avoid having a tactical light in my gun creating a target...

The thought of my tritium sights "washing out" a target to me doesn't wash... Where "correct" technique requires focus on a front sight... tritiums work exceptionally well in FORCING the eye to focus on the glowing dot... the center one... They aren't nearly bright enough to "swamp" a target... They DO help me find the gun on the nightstand in the pitch black though!!!!

My 2 cents.

JW


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

Steve, as always, your experience and wisdom are top notch. However, I think there is a happy medium between your argument that night sights are counterproductive, and the rest that say they make a difference. A big part of it depends on how bright they really are. Yes, if they're way too bright, you lose focus of your target. However, most modern tritium sights emit a very dim glow that is enough to easily acquire and line up in dim or no light, but aren't bright enough to "blind" you, or cause you to lose focus of your target. Whenever light starts to dim, they start glowing. In pitch black, I wouldn't consider them bright, but in pitch black, you can't see a target anyway. I seriously doubt using the tritium glow (at least on my handgun) would in any way inhibit my ability to shoot defensively. I don't like the idea of not being able to see them in dim light, which means the gun might be pointing in any direction with no way to confirm sight alignment. And if it's too dark to see your target, you're not gonna hit it unless you get lucky, whether or not you can see your sights. The sights on my Nite Hawg are perfect...they glow just enough to be visible and stand out, but not to cause me to lose focus of a target, or even worse, cause my pupils to constrict, inhibiting my ability to see my target in dim light or darkness.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> (You might practice the wrong thing, but you'll become very good at it; and that would probably suffice to save your life in a fight.)


Now *that* is an interesting statement, and one I think deserves its own thread. Can being skilled at the "wrong" things be beneficial?


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## fivehourfrenzy (Aug 12, 2007)

Mike Barham said:


> Can being skilled at the "wrong" things be beneficial?


Yes.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

fivehourfrenzy said:


> Yes.


Perhaps you'd like to start the thread, then. I can see how, from a martial arts/empty hand perspective, that would be true. I can further see how that can be expanded to pistolcraft, but I think an exploration would be quite interesting...at least from a "software" point of view.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Mike Barham said:


> ...Can being skilled at the "wrong" things be beneficial?


No matter how "incorrect" your technique (according to someone else's standard), if it's _effective_ in stopping the fight you have suddenly found yourself in, then it turns out to be beneficial.
1. In response to an attack (carjacking, holdup, etc.) adrenalin-fed fight-or-flight takes over, you react blindly, forget almost all of your training, and draw clumsily because that's what you've been practicing, but you end up with your pistol pointed at a very surprised BG. He immediately surrenders (or runs off). Bad technique due to insufficient, and poorly constituted, practice; but good, effective outcome.
2. Marksmanship, for instance, is a far better technique than "spray and pray." But given military-style ammunition resupply, "spray and pray" (a technique much practiced in some of our own recent-past warfare) has been known to effectively get a defending force out from under the massive attentions of an attacking force. Bad technique, but good effect. See: Vietnam.

Mike: Has the Army gone back to teaching one-shot-at-a-time marksmanship? Last I looked, it hadn't.

(If someone wants to move this post to another thread, it's OK with me.)


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## Dredd (Feb 22, 2008)

JeffWard said:


> Somewhere in the middle, like usual... lies the truth.
> 
> In an instictive shooting situation, at close range, in an out-draw to survive scenario... You're not going to see the sights, illuminated or not, and your survival will depend on your training, and practice, and a lot of old fashion... luck.
> 
> ...


Just going to pick out the idea of a tactical light. They are not ment for constant on operation for the most part. You may see cops on TV walking around with their light on the bad guy and that's fine for them. However, their use is more for momentary operation. You thumb the switch just to blip the target/area and no more. You're not going to be walking around the house beaming 80+ lumens of light around. You're supposed to use it to illuminate the area for a moment. Generally speaking, people overlook the usefulness of a light. Being proficient with using a tac light on or with your gun takes more practice than most people would say is worth it. It is possible to momentarily blind a person who is poking around the dark corners and that may be enough for him/her to drop their guard. You're not relying on the light so much as using it as another tool to pickout the proper target and not start shooting at a shadow who turns out to be the kid next door who climbed into the wrong window after being out all night drinking.

My point is, a light can be very useful in the right hands if you are willing to practice using it properly. I'm not an expert on using a light with a gun in any type of situation, but I can definately see the usefulness.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Practice makes almost any tool useful.

(Do I go on too much about practice?)


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> No matter how "incorrect" your technique (according to someone else's standard), if it's _effective_ in stopping the fight you have suddenly found yourself in, then it turns out to be beneficial.


If a technique works, is it actually "incorrect?" Maybe it's just a semantic argument.



> Mike: Has the Army gone back to teaching one-shot-at-a-time marksmanship? Last I looked, it hadn't.


The Army is currently emphasizing an avoidance of collateral damage, but is only taking a slightly different approach than it did when I was in the first time (early '90s).

The rifle qual course is similar, with 40 rounds fired at pop-up targets from 75 to 300 meters. The only difference is now 10 rounds are fired from kneeling rather than all prone. Emphasis is on single hits - you get 40 rounds for 40 target exposures. You qualify with both the Aimpoint and the backup iron sights.

There is also a "quick kill" course fired at short ranges (under 25 meters), starting at Low Ready. This involves fast pairs fired from standing, with pivots from left and right.

Machinegun quals are the same as they always have been: unrealistic.

The Army does not emphasize long range marksmanship like the Marine Corps does, unless one is a squad designated marksman or a sniper. SDMs get ACOGs and a special class on longer-range shooting, which I think goes out to 500 meters. I'm okay with the emphasis on shorter-range shooting, since the vast majority of real-world enemy contacts occur under 100 meters. I think 500 meter shooting with an M4 for the average trooper would be a waste of training time.

The Marines on the forum will now flame me, so I'd better go get my Nomex ACUs. :mrgreen:


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Mike Barham said:


> If a technique works, is it actually "incorrect?" Maybe it's just a semantic argument...


Agreed!
Since I harp so much on practice, an expert on another forum gets on my case about having to make sure to "practice the correct techniques, not the 'wrong' ones."
I half-way agree with her, in that practicing the "correct techniques" leads one closer to mastery and effective skill application. However, on this forum (where I don't have to argue with her), I will maintain that mere practice, if well-intentioned and practical, is, in and of itself, a good thing regardless of "correct technique" or "wrong" ones.
Practice, _per se_, can't be bad.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Mike Barham said:


> ...I think 500 meter shooting with an M4 for the average trooper would be a waste of training time...


I agree. In fact, I think that it's a waste of time for even the good shooters.
The .223 is a close-range, carbine-type weapon. It is not a rifle, in the accepted tactical sense of the word.
Thanks for the information, Mike.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Steve M1911A1 said:


> The .223 is a close-range, carbine-type weapon. It is not a rifle, in the accepted tactical sense of the word.


Agreed. I tend to think of the M4 more as a big pistol rather than a rifle.

Regarding the correctness or incorrectness of a particular technique, it is of course highly subjective and varies from school of thought to school of thought. As one example, Chuck Taylor taught me the "correct" Weaver, but now I shoot from Modern Isosceles. But this Mod Iso is not the same as the "correct" Isosceles I learned from Mas Ayoob.

Whatever works to get the hits needed in the time frame allowed is "correct." Some ways may be more efficient than others, but pistolcraft is an evolving art, and we discover newer, more "correct" things as we go.


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## Steve M1911A1 (Feb 6, 2008)

Mike Barham said:


> ...Whatever works to get the hits needed in the time frame allowed is "correct." Some ways may be more efficient than others, but pistolcraft is an evolving art, and we discover newer, more "correct" things as we go.


Well said.
We agree completely.


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