Work with a Fed LEO who has just been issued a CAR length A2.  He is considering putting the Trijicon tritium night sights on it and asked for my opinion.

Are any of you guys using these?  If so how do you like them?

Are there any zeroing issues with these?

What is the procedure for replacing the rear aperture?

Any help appreciated

Good question.  I'm interested too.





CHRIS

I use the Trijicon sights on my pistol, and wouldn't be without them.  Huge difference in low light/no light conditions.

The Trijicon literature says the warrantee is void if anyone other than a profesional gun smith installs them, so you may want to shell out the $20 or so to your local gun smith to have them put in.

There should be no zeroing problems other than the normal routine for iron sights.

The only reason I don't have them on my current AR is because I use a Trijicon ACOG which has tritium in the crosshairs & I don't want the front sight to glow in addition to this.

On any AR that has irons alone I would consider the night sights to be mandatory.

I have them on my rifles. They are easy to install. They now come with a front site tool which is helpful.

To install the rear site (IIRC)

1. Use small punch to remove roll pin in windage knob.
2. Carefully remove knob and note how the ball bearing rest in the detents.
3. unscrew the shaft holding the rear site on.
4. Put new site on shaft
5. Put ball bearing on appropriate detent, replace windage knob and gently replace roll pin (hardest part).

The only issues I have had with the trijicon is that the front site post is pretty fat and that can make it difficult to "zero" at a long distance. At 100 yards it completely blocks an IDPA silhouette. Also the large aperture (with the tritium showing) is pretty large.

I have a front sight on my rifle - but currently not on my carbines (which will be soon recitified).

You don't need the tritium rear sight - most of us find it anoying anyway - just use the large 'ghost ring' aperture and you'll be good to go.

BTW I saw one post that said they don't have them because they have an illuminated sight.  I thought the same way too until a lecture about night sights from Giles Stock.  It boilded down to this: If your irons are 'backup sights' don't you want to be able to use them at any time (day or night)?  Especially as FBI indicates 70% of gunfights occur at night?

If the irons are backup - I'm going to make sure my backup's will be useful 100% of the time - Trijicon's for all my ARs...

I have a set on one of my weapons. I like the rear sight as it ensures that you've got good cheek weld and that you're looking though the ring and not over it or along side it in complete darkness.

I doubt that I would ever have cause to shoot someone in complete darkness but it does help me get settled and locked in sitting in the safety of complete darkness before moving out to engage a target. I'd rather have a red dot of death dot sight but the irons are a good back up.

You could get by with just the front sight if you practice enough with one rifle to get the feel down good enough.

I did mine myself.  I agree with the steps above except for step 1

1. Use small punch to remove roll pin in windage knob.

INSTEAD, do not completely drive the pin out.  Just drive the pin out enough until it clears the center shaft, but the pin is still hanging in the knob.  This will make it much easier to reassemble as opposed to having to try to start the small pin into that small hole.

The only noght sights (for the AR) that I have tried is the XS-SIGHTS (formerely called Ashley Express sights).  I like these XS Sights a lot.  I use the Big Dot model with the same-plane rear aperture.

[url]http://www.expresssights.com/tactical_sights.html[/url]