Just for the sake of discussion,

Whats a scenario where tritium sights are going to be beneficial to plain dot sights or serrated sights?

If its truly dark, seeing my sights wont make any difference if I cannot see my target. When I am using a light, I can see my sights anyway. Even in ambient light I can usually see regular sights. Where does the tritium play a beneficial role?

Thanks.

Probably the top Glock up grade. I've put them on two Sig and five Glocks. Besides looking cool, they have a purpose in low light conditions.

I have put them on my CZ, my Sig p229 came with them, and I just ordered a set for my Sig P320 CCW...as stated above they glow even in low light conditions.  even with a light out in front , I feel I can get on target faster and more accurately with them.

Most of my handguns have them, I'm not considering my first set or anything. Just curious as to when they are supposed to offer a distinct advantage.

I'm trying to think of a situation where you can see your target but not your sights.

They are designed for low light not no light.  This is why a weapon light is very beneficial along with night sights.  No scenario will ever ben a perfect situation but the ability to bridge the gaps in all them is just that a benefit.

Regular and FO sights are great in bright sun light, night sights are great in dim or dusk conditions, and a weapon light is there for no light.

Try shooting a night competition or taking a low light no light training course you will see the benefits and cons of each.  After taking my first no/low light training course I changed over to two dot night sights because 3 dots under stress were difficult sometimes to align quickly especially when the WML were restricted and only night sights were allowed.  2 dots in a straight 8 were much easier to work with for my brain and how in functions or personally my second option would be a single front night sight black rear or FO front with a WML.

Differential lighting.  Just because the target is lit doesn't mean your sights are.

I had a hunting experience a few years ago.  I was using an AR15 with iron sights.  It was dusk, I could make out the pig I was aiming at, but my black front sight disappeared on his dark hide.  I guessed at where I needed to be and made the shot.  Then I went home and bought a tritium front sight post.

I put a set of Americlo  iDots on the M&P EDC.....WORLD of difference all the way around.....well, the Apex helped too.

I find my target, much much faster, and I actually hit the sumbitch ( for the most part )....6" steel disc at 10 yards, from a draw, concealed.

^This^
It's pretty easy to imagine a number of HD and SD scenarios where this would be the case.  Best of both worlds IMO is fiber optic + tritium.

You can see your gun on the nightstand when it's completely dark is a good advantage with tritiums.

Yup... i don't mess with the fiber optics tho.

1992. I had night sights on my personal Glock, others shooting night qualification course didn't.
They were catching lightning bugs and smearing the glowing abdomen on their front sight.
I have night sights on carry guns ever since.

I rarely if ever find myself in a situation where it is pitch black. I do find myself in many dark situations where I can see my night sights and make out my target. In the same light, I cannot see my regular, non tritium sights.

I carry daily. Any gun I carry at night has night sights. I want as many advantages as possible, and there are many situations where night sights are advantageous, but ZERO where they are a disadvantage.

Yup. Black sights on a dark target isn't easy to deal with. Serious shooters of yore would put gold beads or similar on the front sight to avoid this problem.

Are they useful to you? Maybe not. I tend to not be out at night, and my HD guns have red dots and lights. The tritium sights on my CZ will probably never be needed.

My guts tell me I'm more liable to have an intruder or be attacked in public at night. I want every advantage I can get should that happen. I find that it's a distinct advantage being able to line up my sights with confidence at night.

The difference between pointing the handgun and actually aiming the handgun should be obvious to everyone. I have Trijicons on most of my handguns and would never consider switching them back.

It is not that hard to align sights against a lit target.

You put the front in the notch and call it done.

At Gunsite we even practiced using the muzzle flash of the first shot to align the sights for the second.

The biggest issue for most is finding a way (place)  to practice.

Learn how to hold a flashlight in your off hand.

It is NOT that hard.

Push the big button on the base of the light.

You do NOT need to illuminate the sights.
Just the target.


You are very likely to be almost with contact distance especially inside your house.

Learn to fire from a retention position (gun close to you).

The muzzle should be barely forward of YOUR body.
Push your elbow back and do not push the gun out.

With me its like having a Trijicon scope; its just cool. I like night sights on my HD/carry guns. True, if its pitch black and you can't see the target, no sights will help, but that is rarely the case. So, is it actually worth $150 for a luxury you probably will never actually need and which is going to dim over 20 years to where it may not really be useful anymore? That is entirely up to you. I've always been nuts over anything that glows in the dark; watches, gun sights, scope reticles, toys when I was little, whatever, so for me its a big YES!

Night sights are another tool in my tool box just like the handgun itself.  

Yes WML will wash it out in darkness but lights are mechanical and mechanical things fail.

Your gun is a mechanical thing also.

I actually have a spare for both the gun and the light

The gun is a little smaller, and the light uses a single 123 battery.

And this is why I have wondered why nobody has a set of upgrade sights that simply have holes in them. On something for home defense where a light is mounted and likely to be used, simply allowing the light through the sights as something like 3 aligned dots would probably work extremely well. Am I way off the mark?

The one disadvantage of night sights is their limited life and cost of replacement. Because they use tritium and it's a radioactive substance the administrative and hazmat issues working with it are considerable. They degrade over time and after ten years are relatively ineffective.

One alternative is the use of superluminous paint which when charged by daylight or a 30 second application of hi intensity light will last for hours. However - in a holster, the front sight doesn't get that exposure and no one has the time to do it in extremis.

What can and will change things is a set of sights with LED's. How those are going to get power and turn on at the appropriate time is something else but its not impossible, it's a matter of technology. Another more advanced concept is a reflex optic small enough to mount on the rear dovetail. Those are already out there with auto on when held level. If they can do that, housing the battery in the sight, then powering another LED in the front sight post isn't a major problem. A small rib will do it.

Well, I'm waiting. My new to me 4566TSW has worn out tritium night sights and if I'm going to spend $125 to get them renewed I'd rather go LED. I can say with a high degree of reliability that this stuff isn't rocket science, it's simply a matter of consumer demand. I'm surprised some company doesn't offer them already.

Don't forget the USB port to recharge them and a variable output sensitive to ambient light.

It's $125 for 13 years of use.  Not that big a deal when a case of ammo is $200.

I agree with you that it isn't difficult to align the sights against a lit target.

But you have to light the target and that adds a level of complexity that is often not needed if you're using tritium sights.  Assembling an argument for how you can work around a lack of tritium sights does nothing to reduce the value and benefit of having tritium sights.

In a true self defense shoot, as opposed to a law enforcement situation, lighting the target under extreme stress and time pressure adds to the tactical problem, and carrying a light or weapon light adds to your every day carry load.  

A weapon light adds bulk to the pistol or revolver and works against both comfort and concealment - and when you consider that you need to carry it all the time, but will likely never use it, this is something of a problem.

If you choose a light, you need to be aware that regardless of what light technique you use, a tactical light will add significant time to draw and fire on your assailant.  For example I can draw from concealment and put two rounds center of mass in low light conditions at 7 to 10 yards in about 2 seconds with Tritium sights.  Unless I already have my light out and pointed downrange,  I can't come close to that speed engaging a target using a tactical light.  

In that regard, I prefer to have tritium night sights and then carry a tactical light  when (and only when) I anticipate a need for a tactical light.



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Part of the problem is that people confuse what makes sense for an armed citizen with what makes sense for a law enforcement officer when the tactical roles, needs and equipment are not the same.  


LEOs go into dark and scary places looking for bad guys, investigating complaints, noises, etc.  They do it because they have to do it and that requires different tactics and equipment than an armed citizen engaged in concealed carry.  Because of this need to go looking for trouble in defense of property or others well beyond the scope of an armed citizen, LEOs also have the legal latitude to draw a weapon if the potential threat warrants it and go in with both light and weapon at the ready.  

An armed citizen on the other hand should be using decent situational awareness to avoid those same dark and scary places and in general should be using good SA to avoid situations where they are likely to encounter an imminent threat and the resulting need to draw a weapon.  Armed citizens who go around acting like LEOs more often than not find themselves in some legal trouble.   Ask George Zimmerman.

The practical problem for an armed citizen is that the large capacity semi auto, spare magazines and light needed to approach the level of equipment an LEO might use in a low light shoot leaves them with a near Batman level load out, and usually isn't truly concealable.   It's also a pain to carry during your total waking hours and over time most reasonable people scale it back to a more reasonable level of carry.

You can get great night sights for under $100 on ebay. $10 a year is expensive? You can barely get a box of ammo for $10

Quote for truth. Tritium isn't for total darkness. Tritium is for when you need to line up your sights, but cannot make them out.

Trit front and black rears on all pistols.

Another twist - if you happen to live in an NFA state and keep a can on your pistol, and don't have night sights...good luck aiming, even if there's a smidge of light to identify your target with. Black sights against a black can, you're never going to be able to pick them out. (This assumes you don't have suppressor height sights, and also assumes you don't have an eccentric can)

Night sights are ultimately really cheap insurance, and it's not like they have any faults. They're not going to make things worse...there's pretty literally no downside to having them, so why not get them?

Yep, just getting rid of the plastic is nice

This, try walking around your house at night with irons in and out of dark rooms.  You'll realize quickly tritium sights help.

What Fin said !!!          JD

Cause you KNOW you can shoot whatever is moving in your house in the dark.

And I do realize some actually can.
I live alone with a smaller dog now.

She would be going ape shit anyway.

i have lights on all HD guns

Absolutely on a defensive handgun....but I dislike the 3 dot setup in green/green, a green front with a yellow rear is easier for my eyes to pickup for a  3 dot but I still prefer a post and dot so you can "dot the I" for a defensive gun.  

While you don't see them much anymore I'm kind of tempted to try out a set of XS dot sites.  I thought they were dumb back in the day, but now I see that there's some very valid points to them on a defensive gun and can be quite quick I'd imagine.  

Opinion #1:

Life of night sights:  Take the rated advertised life.  Divide by two.  Round down to the next even digit.  That is the realistic useful life.  They are dated for a reason.  Visible perhaps, but bright enough to use for only much shorter periods.  Never buy older dates.

Example:  10 years.  10/2=5=4 years. Then replace.

Opinion #2:

Priorities:

-1st:  Learn point shooting:  a high index with one or two hands and a retention position for off the muzzle.   Requires ammo and time.  Skill goes anywhere gun goes.
-2d:  On a home gun, a laser/light combo.  You cannot shoot at what you cannot identify.  Or you are an idiot.  Wife, dog, kid, daughter's boyfriend sneaking out.  Costs $ and works one handed.  Kinda bulky CCW.
-3d:  Night sights.  Preferrably with fiber optics.  Useful daytime and real dark.  None really useful in mixed transition lighting.  Carryable.

Or the Israeli method:  Bright yellow electrical tape on the left and right sides of the muzzle flats.  Gun up.  See rear of slide on target.  If see tape, turn left or right to not see tape, pull trigger.

A Tritium front sight helps me in "low" light situations. I use a weapon mounted light on all my HD pistols. Having the front sight tritium helps me pick up on the front sight and in regards to it's orientation a good bit better than the pistol I have set up the same way; only without a Tritium front sight. Tritium rear sights are nice but for me aren't as critical as having the front sight Tritium. If you are going to run a TLR-4 or something like it with a light and a laser then by all means skip the Tritium sights all together. YMMV...

I think front is very helpful in low light.  Tritium on the rear can give too many dots to keep up with if you find yourself in an exciting situation.      JD

I have hundreds of dollars worth of dead or nearly dead tritium iron sights.  Were they worth it?  Meh....

However, I'm totally digging the Tru-Glo TFX tritium/fiber optic sights that I now put on all my new pistols.  Best of both words.

Exactly how large are the rooms ni your house?

What is the longest shot you COULD encounter?


Leaving the scene if you are not in your house and far enough away to be safe is always the better option.

If you are threatened at close range will you actually need to use the sights?

Or get a weapon light...

Weapon light > night sites.

The use of night sights is just another tool in the box to give you as much of an edge in as many situations (you won't be able to plan for every situation that's why they're called unexpected) as possible. In low light situations night sights are a must have for all of my pistols. In the event your flashlight dies (damaged by accident) or the battery unexpectedly goes out, or you drop it, etc. then the night sights still gives you an edge that regular sights don't. Try out your non tritium sights inside your home in the evening with the lights off or just light from the TV set. Try those same un-illuminated sights outside in low light (not total darkness) and see if you feel confident in your ability to hit your target. It just makes zero sense to not have tritium night sights. It's like going out deep sea fishing and saying let's leave the life preservers at the dock because I'm a good swimmer. Then your boat sinks and you get the cramps.

Great post!  And hopefully it will "illuminate" the dim light bulbs in people's heads that still think that needing something and not having it is "better" than having something and not needing it! Just because you have a flashlight doesn't mean that you don't need to have tritium night sights on your weapon. Flashlights can go out and batteries can too.

Well stated!

With the exception of my J-Frames I have them on the guns (including my AR with a tritium FSP only) that I keep for defensive purposes.
As has been stated here, they're critical in low light.
In the pitch dark I'll be using a light and that washes out the glow in my experiences. But I still like having them because the light isn't constantly on and I can keep a sight picture when using the light intermittently.
I also like them indoors any time of day, I pick them up much faster than just dots or a black FSP.

I also like having them when the gun is on my nightstand while in bed. To me it's very reassuring to glance over and see them glowing nicely in the dark.

Cheers!
-JC

Go to Gunsite and learn how they overlap.

Im rocking a gold bead and plain rear.

Not worried and don't feel disadvantaged