On the website where that pic came from, the guy discusses taking the scope apart and finding a vial of tritium...or whatever, in the tip. I dunno, I'm just passing on the info.  I think it's a StarWars prop site.  In an earlier thread RL describes no vials in the ones he took apart,





The page is hard to access.  I am looking at now.  Some  pics of the sight disassembly, but none of the vial, just a description.  I accessed the page by hitting the cached button.

Page is here:  Takes a while to come up

http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=singlepoint+sight+vial&d=4564301755976643&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=_a7PuD1SAbIbmsJjcEJA4BYyunlqTy2k

is it like a regualer red dot sight like a aimpoint? never aimed through one?

No , when looking thru a SP it's all black with a colored dot in the center.   When both eyes are open, the dot is visible on the target.
It's hard to explain.  Boywonder has some info down the page on this thread

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_123/518088__ARCHIVED_THREAD____Recharging_a_Singlepoint___Help_Request_11_29_.html&page=1

You have to have both eyes open for it to work.  You can't see through the device, as it merely displays the illuminated reticle.

RLR350 you'v been very helpful with your post re the SPs, also the reference back to the old AR15 thread re disassembling a SP sheds some light on where the tritium might of been located. Back to guessing that if a SP had tritium it was inside the tube and not in the red or green element. I read somewhere they were good for about 25 years which might of been a stretch, if there's a tritium vile in there by now it's long dead and it seems getting in there is going to be a project plus to install new tritium if it's available now.

Well, I reread all the threads and still only see references to vials.  Unless I missed it nobody has said they actually saw one.  Some of the pictures have been removed now, so maybe they were there.

The Star Wars thread clearly shows a red rod, like a fiber optic in the conical shaped single point that was opened.

I still don't see how a vial in the tip would create the sight picture described in the article.  I really don't think the tips were anything more than an early version of today's fiber optic.

I think we do know, assuming the letter from the maker posted earlier is true, that some were made with a light source, but as I described earlier it would have had to be in the tube not the tip.  Now this source could have been a vial or something else to create the green inverted bar described.

As for the picture of the green tip with something in it that was posted.  Was it cut out and found  to be a vial or just a defect or something else?

Even in the thread that talks about replacing a vial later on it says the replacement turned out to be for another optic, not a single point.

What does have me curious is if there was no light source then why did the Son Tay Raiders use them?  Did they hope for lighting from overhead flares?  Did they have the version described in the article? (Probably not if they were bought on the civilian market).

I guess anything is possible. I'm just pretty skeptical at this point.

Tritium (Beta...) has a half-life of ~12.5 years.

This is my take on the tritium illumination issue-
First, from what I have read Armalite handled the Military/Police market, and Normark handled the civilians.
It seems that there were issues with the importation of the nuclear material. This was 10 years before Trijicon reports having the first tritium gunsight. I purchased a tritium "Armson OEG" sometime before the summer of 1983 and it was loaded with warnings, as tritium was very new to gunsights. Tritium Singlepoints exist, but I believe there are very few ever imported, and I've never encountered one. (I became aware of the Singlepoint in the early to mid 70's, and have purchased most of the ones I've seen.) I have never encountered a shiny Singlepoint like the dual illumination one shown in the article. All of the Singlepoints I've encountered were Normark civilian versions with the exception of the SP241, which does not list an importer on the box or sight.

As posted earlier, the dual illumination version does not have the tritium in the front light collector. If it did, the bar would be visible in the day, which it isn't. Also, the dot would be visible in the dark, which it isn't. The tritium powered bar has to be a separate, complimentary, reticle system located in the sight.

Could Singlepoint have later streamlined the day/night sight by just putting a vial in the light collector? It's possible. (Personally, I like the bar reticle (inverted post) idea. Any illumination tends to kill your night vision. Even a dim tritium dot superimposed on a very dim target can obscure the target.)

The photos of the Son Tay raid look like the black crinkle Normark style sights to me. The photos aren't great, but they don't look like the early, shiny, Singlepoints.

I have no interest in retrofitting a Singlepoint with tritium. Let's face it, Singlepoints were obsolete the day the Armson OEG became available 10 years later. The Trijicon Reflex obsoleted the OEG, and while the Reflex is still a viable sight, modern Aimpoints and Eotech's have largely replaced them. Singlepoints are historic artifacts. Unless there's irrefutable evidence that they had tritium Singlepoints at Son Tay, I don't see a need for it.


Edited to add-

In the "Gun World" October 1970 article there appears to be two different types of SinglePoints. The SP on the revolver appears to be the earlier shiny military type with the Singlepoint logo on the top of the eyepiece like in this photo-



The other SP that's on the AR18 is definitely a "Normark style" SP with the black crinkle finish. It's also in a very early scope mount that's not made for a SP, as the rings are wider than the rear tube of the SP and don't fit correctly.

I think we could speculate that this was a transitional period between the two types, and since this article predates the Raid by many months, it's not a stretch to think that most, if not all, of the Raid SP's were the non-tritium "Normark" type.




Edited for spelling error...

I suspect that any of the early Single Points used Promethium (Pm 147) for night illumination.

Promethium was the first isotope used in a commonly issued system, the LLLSS (Low Light Level Sighting System) Front Sight Post which wasn't issued until 1972. Promethium is pretty nasty stuff and “may” account for the warnings on early versions of the OEG if they used that isotope.

The Army requested a proposal for the use of Tritium (H-3) to replace the use of Promethium in the LLLSS in 1978 as it was a vastly safer isotope. The earliest use of Tritium (H-3) marked sights I have encountered are dated in 1980.

Maybe relevant, or not.

Wpns Man

Son Tay Raid was on 21 Nov 1970, article re the Single Point sight was in the Oct 1970 issue of Gun World which might of hit the news stands or mailed to subscribers in Sept 1970. Given the time frame it was two months or less that the Army Special Forces had time to order a SP from ArmaLite test it and then order 49 more SPs for the raid. The Son Tay raid was prior to AEC limiting sale of the beta SP per ArmaLite letter dated 11 Dec 1970, as noted in the letter from ArmaLite US military was exempt. Who knows what models of the SP ArmaLite had in stock when the Army Special Forces placed the order. As I read it from the different source material that's been contributed here re the SP there was design/material changes from the first production models in 1968 going well into the 1970s. Reading the Gun World article again Major Keene stated that the SP at night could be activated with light generated from illumination flares and muzzle flashes.

Singlepoint info from the "Operation Kingpin" AAR-



There's plenty of info in this 448 page documement concerning the Singlepoint sight and the mount used in the raid.
There is no mention of the word tritium, promethium, radium, beta, nuclear, radiation etc. or any mention of, or reference to, an illuminated sight.
There is plenty of references to illumination flares.
There is significant discussion about how useful the Singlepoint was. If it possessed a form of self-illumination, I find it hard to believe that wouldn't have been mentioned.

Based on this, I do not believe that the Son Tay Singlepoints were illuminated.

ETA- The original call to Armalite for the first Singlepoint was 15 September 1970.

Fascinating thread - best one I've seen I think on the SinglePoint sight. My head is spinning though, trying to understand all the variations and early similar sights.

+1 Same here.  Best yet

I'm trying to grasp at how they used that "night" sight without illumination.

Lots of big aircraft parachute illumination flares.
The LUU-2 Flares put out nearly 2 million candlepower for 4 to 5 minutes.
That would be adequate illumination to use the singlepoint.

Mine (old as it is) does not "light up" in total darkness.  I've not experimented to see how much light it takes to see the red dot at night.  I put it on my XM177 clone when I replaced that rifle with the SIG 566R for my "in the corner of the bedroom rifle".  The 2.5 power scope that had been on the XM177 clone moved to a 16" carbine AR.

One question.  If there was a tritium vial/container in the red illuminator, wouldn't that make the tip towards the "target" glow red as well?  Maybe not much, but under the right conditions, it could be seen.

They are neat looking, but antiques and not as user friendly as modern "red dot" sights.

Funny thing is some of the raiders live down the street from me and have their reunions here.  I should make up a list of questions and go door knocking.

http://nwfdailynews.emeraldcoastphotoswest.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1120000&CategoryID=39879&ListSubAlbums=0

That might clear up some foggy areas, plus how cool would it be to meet a couple of those guys?  

Hal143 if you could meet up with the Son Tay Raiders and if they didn't mind answering our questions re the Single Point sights we would have the most definitive answers from the men that used the Single Points. Hal143 if you could bring a couple Single Points to the meeting and get photos of the Raiders inspecting the sights that would be a real bonus. My questions are what color or colors were the elements, did all the SPs have round clear domes and were any beta/tritium powered. How effective were the Single Points during the raid at Son Tay. Did flares and North Vietnamese muzzle flashes provide sufficient light to use the SPs effectivley.

Believe me I have been thinking about it.  But how do you walk up to a Son Tay Raider and ask him questions ?  I know where they hang, I just have to get up the nerve.
At least 3 live within a half mile of me, and several more have retired in Fort Walton beach and Shalimar, Florida.  I hope to attend the next reunion they hold locally at Hurlburt.  I've been thinking of this for a few years now.

I met one several years ago who told me that because of secrecy, many of the supplies were purchased by group members in civilian clothes at a local hardware store here in Niceville, about 10 miles from the training site at Duke Field.  That hardware store is long gone now but was called Carr Hardware.  I used to go there as a kid in the early seventies.  This was where the raiders bought many items such as rope, flashlights, bolt cutters etc., so as not to draw suspicions from official channels.  See Schemmer's book.

Carr Hardware was in the red circle:



No promises, but I'm working on it.  There's a lot more I want I ask other than if the SP's had tritium.  

If you decide to attend the reunion bring along a couple of SPs and casually ask if they remember the sights as a conversation starter. Tell them that there is a lot of interest today in what they did and the equipment they used, the raid hasn't been forgotten.

Absolutely.  Last years reunion was in Kansas City.  I have to snoop around and find when it will be in Fort Walton or Navarre again.  

Original Singlepoint 4 page brochure I just picked up.

Note- On the top, right, of page 3 it reiterates that the two Singlepoints available are 16 moa and 42 moa.
I've never seen a confirmed reference to an early Singlepoint that was 12 moa.

Yesterday I was digging through stuff and came upon my SP green frosted cone NOS.  Ser. # 13423.

I looked through the eyepiece and the green dot still works pretty good even in low light.  I moved it under a lamp for a better look and whamo !  The thing lit up like new......Move it away, it got dimmer.

I'm now convinced it's completely some kind of simple, non-illuminated, light gathering rod  or tip: completely dependent on external light.  At least until shown different.   This is a green dot.  It still works perfectly well for daylight conditions.

Hal143 my SP #12056 is also a frosted round dome with green dot and it still works quite respectably outside in daylight but inside or low light the green dot is very dim. Using a bright flashlight that I held up next to the frosted dome I was able to get a pretty good look inside the tube and I couldn't detect anything inside and agree that the illumination is only done from exterior light illuminating the green element on this model. I was wondering if the 4 page SinglePoint brochure that MASP7 posted was dated, guessing it might be early 1970s. The brochure is very helpful in explaining the operation of the SinglePoint sight and contributes to the base of info we now have available here on AR15. On a side note that may be of interest to ArmaLite Costa Mesa AR180 owners I finally saw an ad from a firearms distributor dated 1971 that listed available accessories for the Costa Mesa AR180, there it was 30 round magazine for $10.95.

Somehow I missed the post of the dealer's catalog.  That fills in a lot of gaps.  

So the consensus is ,   Red=Day and Green = Night ????

HAL143 in regards to day-red, green-night SPs it all depends on the model and year mfg making it difficult for any consensus with all the conflicting data. The box my green dot came in was marked "N" for what I'll assume to designate night. The ArmaLite SinglePoint article mentioned a SP sight for night but didn't elaborate. From all the info I have read in this thread the SPs changed over the years from the earliest models to later models having different design features. I just tried mine in a darkened room aiming the green dot SP at a bright flashlights narrow beam I was able to see the green dot. Reading more re the raid the raiders were issued "torches", probably very bright flashlights to light up the prisoner cells and guard quarters. Either using the red or green SPs like ours the illumination should of been adequate for their SPs to work, also muzzle flashes from the guards weapons would of been an illumination point for their SPs along with flares lighting up the compound and surrounding area.

The article posted on page one is the best answer.  It refers to a red dot (which would mean a red tip) by day and a green, vertical bar that shows up after dark.  The red dot disappears during the dark.  As you guys have experimented with and have seen the red dot disappears (so do those with green tips and green dots)  in dark because there is no ambient light.  The green, vertical bar (as I explained in an earlier post) has to be behind the aperture for the sight picture described to work.  I am surmising that the this green bar is what was "radioactive" on some models that were day and night.  However, as stated in one article these were not shipped to the United States, except military.

Since the SP used in the article had a red dot and night green vertical bar it shows that the night versions did have red tips, not just green.

I really don't thing the color of the tip designates whether it was a night version.  If anything, I'd say I have never seen anyone factually report a green tip that had night capabilities, therefore, green tip has only been shown to be a day version.  Unless I missed something this it what we know:

There were red and green tips.  The color of the tip produces the color of the dot in day time conditions.

There was a red tip with green bar.  The red dot disappears during the day and the green bar lights up at night.  The green bar has nothing to do with the green tip, they are coincidentally just the same color.

Son Tay Raiders in all pictures I have seen used red tips.  While they could have had the green bar/night capabilities, it is unlikely since they purchased them at civilian stores.  Nothing in the report linked earlier talks about night illumination within the SP when they were talking about it's performance during the Son Tay raid.

I am more convinced than ever that searching for radioactive material in any of the SP's is futile, especially as it relates to illuminating the tip.

Agreed Thank You.......Thanks Kobren for the info as well.

RLR350 I agree with just about everything you added except maybe a couple nit picking items as in the purchase of the raid SPs from a civilian store. The raid SPs were purchased from ArmaLite who exclusivly handled military and police sales both US/foreign. Normark handled the US civilian/sporting sales of the SP. I still feel there are some unanswered questions since we are lacking dates for some of the printed material we have here so it's difficult to know for sure when and what SP features were offered and available. The serial numbers are also tough to pin down with corresponding years of production. Hopefully someone from the UK that has access to the SP history will show up and settle things. As for ArmaLite it's anyones guess as to what they were doing during this period.

Still not satisfied I did some more searching and was reviewing Google image and found a photo from a website called theRPF for Star Wars fans/actors and a thread by RPF member Clutch dated 13Jan2011. I had seen the thread before but probably didn't read it closely enough, there was also a reference to a thread from AR15.com re disassembling a SinglePoint sight. The gist of it was Clutch was trying to modify a SinglePoint that had a round frosted dome and green element for a Star Wars "Blaster" that would have a clear concave lens and a thin red element. Clutch hacked it up some but it came out well enough to pass for use with his "Blaster". The Star Wars crowd may know more about the SinglePoints then we do.  If you check the photos and text closely especially at the bottom of the thread there is a photo showing the original round frosted dome and the green element that he removed from his SinglePoint with what other RPF members said was the tritium vile in the center of the green element. The serial numbers of the red and green SPs are intermingled but it appears that the green frosted round dome SPs end somewhere in the 13,000 range. This could be in conjunction with the NRC stoppage of import in Dec 1970 except for military sales. From what I can gather the round clear dome green element day/night SP was a later model from possibly the mid 1970s and none have surfaced. I can't say for certain but there's a very good chance that if you own a frosted round dome green element day/night SP when it was originally mfg it had tritium installed but if there after all these years it's as dead as a door nail. Anyways my round frosted dome green element SP works fine in daylight and looks authentic on my Costa Mesa AR180. Side note: Looking at the photo in the Black Rifle the SP dome appears to be frosted.

I saw that picture and am not saying it is or isn't factory.  I'm just not convinced that is a vial.  I can't even tell if it runs vertical or horizontal, but to me it is just as likely to be a hole or channel as it is something else.  Again, the basis for my thought is the statement in the article posted that described the sight picture.  If that were a vial, you would see a green dot both night and day.  The article states that the dot (they used red, but it just as easily could have been green) disappears during the night and a green vertical bar appears above where the dot was..  There are two things this tells me 1) if that were a vial lighting up the tip the day time dot would not disappear at night.  It would remain a dot lit by a vial., which is not what is described.  2)  Based on the aperture being a round hole (which creates the diameter of the day time dot) there doesn't seem to be a way to change into a vertical bar seen while looking through the scope at night. The dot or hole cannot change it's shape to become a vertical bar.  So, there was something on the back of the aperture wall that created the vertical bar above the aperture hole - similar to the old fluorescent hands on a watch.  You couldn't see them glow during the day, but at night you could.

However, I do realize that without having one in hand there is the possibility that there was some other way of creating it that I am not seeing.  But, the optic was so basic that anything overly complicated would not seem likely.  Also, this is just my belief and I do respect everyone's opinion.  I don't want to seem like I'm discounting everyone else's thoughts.

ETA:  The bottom picture would be both a lit dot and bar if the tip were lit up with a vial.

RLR350 don't get me wrong I respect your opinion and where your coming from based on the material we are presently working with but hopefully as more material  surfaces there could be the same or different conclusions drawn. I do agree with you about what you sited re the SP referenced and how it was designed to function. Where I differ is that I feel this is a later model from mid 1970s give or take. My belief is based on the serial numbers, I believe the round frosted dome green element SP is an earlier model from roughly 1968-1970 period. What bothered me was the purpose of the round frosted dome on the green element SP when at the same time the red element day SP had a clear dome? Why have two different color elements and two different domes in clear and frosted if they were only designed for day/dusk use? One answer to the inconsistent SPs might be that after the NRC restriction in Dec 1970 SinglePoint was now stuck with a large number of frosted dome green element SPs and their solution was not to insert tritium in the green element. What I suspect is that earlier in the late 1960s the round frosted dome green element SP had tritium inserted in the green element as pictured and the frosted dome was designed to minimizie the brightness of the green tritium element during daylight. Also I can't see any possible way to shut off the brightness from the tritium where ever it's located, if on the rear of the element in the tube or inside the frosted dome in the element, when not needed in sunlight. Another SP model appears later with the concave frosted dome and thin red element that's probably late 1970s to to early 80s along with a clear concave dome model with thin red element. My point is that from 1968 when first introduced the SPs went thru a number of design/model changes till they ceased production by the early 1980s when the Armson OEG was introduced.