I’ve been casually shopping these off-and-on for a few months. The pattern I’ve settled on is green rear/red front - and the two makes that seem to be most promising are TruGlo - and an unusual, triangular sight - the “Advantage Tactical” - made by a company named OuterImpact. Any experience with these, good or bad? The “Tactical” resembles Steyr pistol sights - VERY interesting!
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As my “night sights” have started to dim in the last few years I’m switching them to fiber optic in the front only as I go along. Haven’t missed a thing and if anything I’ve found sight acquisition definitely faster without the distracting rear dots.
I prefer the all enclosed metal body HIVIZ design and all my Glocks, my Dan Wesson 10mm 1911 and most my big bore revolvers (that have a replaceable front sight) have them now. Don’t like the ones where the actual pipe is replaceable. Seems to me like a potential failure point.
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I put these on one of my pistols. They are super bright green in daylight and the tritium takes over in low light. What I am saying is I like them!
I have another pistol with white dots on the rear and red fiber only on the front, i.e., no tritium. They are great in daylight. I can see the white dots in low light, but I lose visibility of the red fiber front sight in low light.
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I don’t care for straight fiber optic on a defense pistol. Doing dry runs in my house and doing low light professional training, I know from experience that there exist a great deal of real world lighting conditions in which one can positively identify an imminent deadly threat, but not have enough light on the pistol to readily make out fiber optic sights. Self illuminating sights (tritium) make the difference here…it is, I suspect, why they are near ubiquitous in LE/concealed carry circles.
Some people will go confidently with the intention that they will never utilize their defensive pistol in low light without always having and using an illumination device (weapon mounted light or hand held flashlight) which will always be functional and turned on anytime they need to see the sights (and also positioned in such a way as to illuminate the sights)
But, as you can tell by my post…I’d rather keep it simple and have sights that I can see because I can see them, in all lighting conditions.
(for bonus points, cowitness irons featuring a tritium front sight with a red dot sight and be double covered for everything with triple bonus points of only having one focal plane)
But if you don’t want to do an RDS and you do your shooting where it is well lit, or you can prepare your auxiliary light for the stage with a walk-through plan, the fiber optic really pops. I’d recommend a blacked out rear with a fiber optic front personally going that route though
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@KURT17 , do you ever take action on these discussions, or are they just acedemic? It doesn’t matter if they are just acedemic, I am just wondering …
I want to know what’s OUT there, along with practical options - I’ve been gone from shooting for a t least 10 years . And it’s damn near impossible to keep up with the market for what’s available, with the rapid changes going on - there’s so many hours when I can patiently sit and browse online.
Funny thing, the guy that convinced me to ditch the Tritium is a very senior spec ops guy and trainer who is in charge of the culling program for folks that want to be members of elite teams in his agency. Then it was confirmed by another senior trainer that works with all the letter agencies.
We talked about if for about 1/2 hour in each case and they gave me the logic and facts that made them and many others like them get away from 3 dot night sights and they made a lot of sense.
Like I said I have not missed them at all in training or real life. But the ultra bright FO fronts with plain black rear have made a BIG of difference in the speed in which I can get an accurate first shot.
But hey do whatever makes you sleep soundly at night.
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AND he said one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard.
“If you want to learn to shoot well and accurate skip the military, LE and spec ops trainers and look to a successful competition shooter to teach you. Just shooting, not tactics. Two separate skills”
The last guy HE took a class from is a record holder comp shooter and he took about 20 pages of notes to pass on to his team. This was about a month ago.
NONE of the comp shooters will ever have three dot sights on their guns.
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Absolutely.
Just don’t forget to ask the competition shooter what sighting system they use for stages that represent real life nighttime low light conditions in which there isn’t enough light to illuminate their FO front sight…whilst having plenty of light to identify the intruder in your home backlit in the hallway by the light from the other end (or whatever variable lighting condition)
Not everything that works in staged and planned competitions is necessarily best for concealed carry or home defense.
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If there is enough light to identify a BG there is enough light to see my FO front sight. If there is not enough light to see my FO front sight any identification of a BG is suspect at best.
But again, you do you. I’m not trying to convince you or even debate you, I have zero interest in either. Just passing on my experience and information same as you , and the other folks can decide what makes them feel comfy. Have a great day.
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We may have very different eyes, but, I’ve done plenty of walk throughs of my house and also low light classes and match stages where myself and all others present found realistic/real scenarios where that is not true.
The amount of light cast on your gun isn’t always going to be the same as the amount of light cast on the threat.
And, like, to make up a scenario, if a 6’4" man with a baseball bat was standing in my hallways at 3 AM, I wouldn’t need a whole lot of light to positively identify him, but I may want to quickly and easily see that little tiny (relatively speaking) front sight
At 3:00am in the morning, if I have to clear my house, I WILL have a light with me and I WILL see my front sight clear as day. There is zero chance of me going “exploring” looking for threats without illumination. That’s Ninja crap.
I guess your training is very different from mine. In any case I don’t need to see much of my sights to shoot a man sized target at hallways distances. That’s a slam dunk shot.
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Some people might know with certainty that in any self defense situation they will have a flashlight with them, and and be able to use it. I think I mentioned that above, but, the catch I guess this is…
…I am not one of those people. If you are, then, your opinion and experience on sights may well differ.
Rock on
Edit: But then if I was okay with relying on battery powered electronics to see my sights, I’d probably just run a red dot.
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I am running a red dot 
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Just curious in this scenario, if you dont have a flashlight with you to shoot with then you dont have flashlight to properly id a threat either.
And before anyone says you may have to just grab your gun you can and should stage a handheld with your pistol and even more reason to have a weapon mounted light on your home defense pistol. And yes you can see the outline of the sights if you run fiber optic. I run fiber optic fronts on my pistols with blacked out rears.
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I have been a competition shooter for a couple decades plus. I am a Grandmaster in USPSA. I have had the luxury to shoot with the best competition and some of the most elite soldiers around. For pure shooting no one and i mean no one is better than USPSA Masters and Grandmasters. Tactics, of course the military and LE is better. If you pay attention to most top shooters the teach some of the most elite units how to be more accurate and faster.
And yes almost ALL of is prefer Fiber front sights for ALL shooting. Thats just like 10-15 years ago when people said red dots on pistols would get you killed, lol.
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Note that I perceive a difference between
“have a flashlight on you”
and
“I will never be in a situation where I need to defend myself with my pistol where I am not actively shining a flashlight such that it illuminates the sights”
I always carry a ‘tactically capable’ flashlight and recommend so to others, though FTR I think a private citizen concealed carrier needing a flashlight to ID their imminent deadly threat is extraordinarily rare/unlikely.
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Thanks for bringing the reality of modern pistol craft to the debate!!!
And by the way if anyone is perfectly comfortable shooting at dimly lit shadows with their 10 year old night sights, that’s on them. I will never be in that position because I constantly learn, evolve and use/train with whatever tools are available to me to give me an advantage. I you don’t, then my opinion is that you don’t want to win bad enough, be it competition or SD encounters. Please by all means continue playing the odds.
BUT, when the question posted is what’s best, the answer will ALWAYS be what IS best according to my knowledge and experience, not what Joe blow with his nightstand dusty 5 shot S&W snubbie should or should not do…. They usually don’t take advice seriously anyway even when they ask questions. Everyone figures out what is good enough for themselves.
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Off topic wisdom:
I saw on another thread a pic of “14 flea 32auto” cartridge… What gun shoots that ammo?? Winchester wildcat?? Any help would be great. I’m thinking I might buy one. Looks fun to shoot.
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I guess that’s my major hangup. That’s…not what it is.
Pulled the rest out, it’s old news.
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