Current (and former) Tavor owners I would appreciate your input here. I'd like to get some money together to get an 18" Tavor, but do not have currently and will not be able to get any scopes or RDS any time soon if I do so.

If I had to rely only on the folding sights for the time being, are they solid enough/durable enough that I won't have to worry about them breaking or getting chewed up/messed up somehow? I wouldn't be dropping the gun off cliffs or throwing the thing into the dirt or anything crazy like that....for the time being I'd just need some solid iron sights to be able to shoot out to 200 yards with (my range has some 16x18 steel plates set up--currently this is the farthest distance I am allowed to shoot).

Are the Tavor folding sights durable enough/good enough by themselves for my stated purposes above until I can get a RDS or scope, or should I really just wait till I can get an optic first?

I'd say no for long term they are bare bone backup sights. I'd at least spring for a primary arms red dot.

I don't think they will break from regular shooting but they are meh you have a a2 style front post with tritium and a small rear peep. Both are on pretty long and slender posts so I would make sure you fold them down when not in use since durInf storage or transport it wouldn't be hard to snap them off in my opinion.

they are very simple &  fully adjustable. Not sure how much abuse they could take.

I'd second what he said. The irons are good enough for range use but fold them down when not in use. Doubt they would handle a bad fall well. Personally for me, they are good enough as back ups, I'm just not a fan of the sight picture, I've been tempted to pick up some AR type BUIS but I've been happy enough running an Aimpoint Comp M2 and not worrying about it

Lets think time lines..... If you are looking at buying a Tavor and are on a tight budget. If in the next few months if the people decide for some reason Hillary is looking like a good choice and our rights as gun owners start showing up on her black list more and more. Your Tavor will slowly become more and more out of reach. If I were you I would buy the gun first. Then make sure I had at least 5 good mags for it. So it comes with one that leaves you 4 more so under $50 bucks.

After that you can take a small breath and we all on arfcom will give you a internet high five. Next up is getting some Ammo, a good red dot is a need on this rifle but worthless if you have nothing to feed her. Get a box of 1000rds should be around the $350 mark at most places.

After those are achieved you have the next few years to save up and get a optic of your choosing. The factory sights are great for what they are designed for.  If you have to run them for a while as your primarys who cares. It will give you time to master them. I will say as stated above I would keep them folded down for any kind of transport or were they have the potential of getting rocked hard or dropped. They are probably not the most robust but can't be any less rugged then standard poly magpul flip ups.

And if you can lock down the gun, check out some of the starter red dot sights for around the 100 mark or 50 used. My buddy runs a primary arms t1 look alike and a vortex sparc and both have done great for him for well over two years.

Sorry that was me rambling on a little but get the gun first.... Just my $0.02

Couldn't have said it better myself

They're adequate, and have tritium in the front. They aren't what I'd want to rely on forever though.

As said above, get the gun first. Secondly, you can't go wrong with a Primary Arms mini red dot, those things are built like a tank. The new ones have something like 50,000 hours of battery life as well.

My priority list would be,

Gun
10 mags and enough ammo to fill them twice, so 600rds.
Optic
As much ammo as you can afford, or a loading set up, primers, powder, projectiles, and a tumbler. You'll already have brass, and you can still pick up bras at the range for free in 5.56/.223, so you should never buy new brass. You can get about 7-10 loads on AR brass depending on the headstamp, and looking at the condition of the brass from the Tavor it looks to be easy on it, so I'd say you'd be real close.

After that, buy a combat proven optic.

Then, more mags and ammo, or components.

That's a good Idea shit just run a set of dd fixed sights they come up now and again for under $100 that would be a solid set up until you could score your red dot