Night sights

[Crimson Mister]

I'm looking at adding night sights to my Kimber Eclipse and my Sig 226 rimfire set up. I have night sights on my Pro Tactical and my .40 S&W conversion for the Sig and I really like them. I had an occasion to shoot at a varmint the other night with a Smith M10 but even with a flashlight on the critter I couldn't pick up the front sight so I'm thonking I want to add the night sights to all of the handguns that I can.

The sights on my Sig seem to be brighter than the ones on the Kimber Pro and I'm wondering if it is just a different brand or if it's because the Kimber is a couple of years older.

Any opinions on what mfg. makes the best sights?

[rockbilly]

In my opinion night sight are a waste.  Generally, especially in a SHTF situation you can't see them well enough for them to be effective.  My choice would be a set of Crimsom Trace grips for the guns.  Very effective in total darkness and gives one the option of hitting the target without bringing the gun to the same firing position used with iron sights.  I can literally shoot from the hip and hit a pint water bottle at 40 paces in total darkness using the CT grips on my Sig.  And shooting from the hip at night not only gives a better field of view, it also alows you to see things other than the target.

Try a set of CT grips and I am sure you will agree.

[Crimson Mister]

Try a set of CT grips and I am sure you will agree.

I'm color blind of red and green. I've tried a laser many years ago and ended up selling it for about 50% of what I paid because I couldn't see the little dot. The night sights I have are green but green looks white to me so they show up well in the dark.

The problem I had the other night was I could not find the front sight against the black backdrop even when it was illuminated by a Maglite. At 5 yards or less I don't think they would be necessary but neither would a laser. Beyond that a little extra help finding the sight would be a good thing.

[SHOOTALL]

Age causes the sights to dim , Always check the date on used guns some say about 8 years is the useful life . Some i had got dim in 4 , still worked so-so but dimmer .
Nite sights don't need battires and don't have a light line leading back to the shooter . You also don't have switches to confuse with triggers in high stress situations . I feel it better to learn to use sights , if they light up after dark so much the better . CT grips are ok ( i have them on one gun , it also has NS ) they allow those who don't or can't pratice have a chance of hitting something not a bad thing . But they do fail from time to time .

[Savage]

Yep, agree with Shootall on the laser grips. I think they would be fine in addition to night sights. Some flashlight techniques do a good job of illuminating standard sights. You might want to look into that. I have had good service out of Meprolight and PT night sights. Tried the Trijcon (sp), found them to be too dim for my liking. The Meprolights are the brightest I've seen, and remain my first choice. They would be a good choice for the Kimber and Sig.
Savage

[mcwoodduck]

I sent S&W a letter a few years ago asking if they could dove tail the fixed sighted revolvers and use the same sights they do on the autos allowing for low profile night sights like Novak or other brand sights.
I thought it would make things easier for machineing.  Cut the dove tails into the new guns and add fixed sights to fixed sight models, add adjustable sights to adjustable models and if you want to add nite sights then there are both fixed and adjustable models.

[SHOOTALL]

I had a mod. 19 with night sights in the late 80's from the factory . BTW what did they respond with ?

[mcwoodduck]

It was part of a revolver design that i called out for a K or L frame stainless revolver with a rail on the bottom, round butt, dove tail night sights, 3 or 4 inch heavy barrel in 44 S&W Special. and the ability to use a full moon clip or not.
Never heard back from them but 5 months later that announced the 669 model.  So they got the L frame, 5 shot, 44 Spl in 3".  not the other items I thought would really sell the gun.
I thought a 44 special would be a great gun for personal or home defense with the nite sights.
Thought the full moon clip would be a benifit for house, if you do not want to keep the gun loaded in the house the full moon clip would be a good accessory.  i also wanted the gun to work with out them.  Figured a fast reload was a + for the IDPA guys as well.
I thought the rail for a light on a 4" model would be good for the house gun.

[SHOOTALL]

Sounds like a good gun !

[Crimson Mister]

Never heard back from them but 5 months later that announced the 669 model. 

A 5 shot 44 special in an L frame sounds great. I can't find a picture of it though. Got a link?

[AtlLaw]

A 5 shot 44 special in an L frame sounds great.

It's thinking like that that has caused me to end up with my Taurus Medium (L) frame, 2 inch barrel, stainless, 5 shot 44 Mag.!     After I finally gave up trying to find the Stainless S&W 44 Spl. that is... 

[mcwoodduck]

See if they would just have listened to me and gone the extra few items I asked about everyone would have wanted one.
No I do not have a link to it.
S&W stopped making them a while ago.
I was not able to get one.

[torpedoman]

the trijicon i have on my pistol are 5-6 yrs old and still look like on coming headlights in the middle of the night  when you get it out to check what thaty noise was.

[Fairshake]

There can be no shtf if it's totally dark!! Think about it, who are you going to shoot if it's totaly dark? You can do a test yourself by going into a blacked out room or dark country road. Now you can have an available light shooting and that's the one people talk about. While training at night as a cop firearms instructor I will tell you to try it and see where your shots go. They will be high and over the target. You have a tendacy to shoot high at night. It takes 25 minutes for your night vision to be at it's best and one shot to take it away. Most all people that have a gun by the bed for protection never fire that gun in the dark. They assume that they can and that is what may get them killed. We started doing night training in the 80's after a Supreme Court descision that cops should train at night as that is half of the patrol time. I'm not saying that all civilians go into night training but just be aware that it's not a given talent and requires some extra steps. Oh and remember that you don't have to be like in the movies and search your own house with a flashlight, you may turn on the light switch!

[Savage]

Rarely do any of us find ourselves in total darkness, at least not in a normal urban or home environment. Power outages or other unusual events excepted. As the target must be identified, some sort of illumination is required in addition to night sights or lasers. It has been my experience that in night training, using night sights and illumination techniques, scores actually went up. I believe that is because of the sharper focus on the night sights under these conditions. I use night sights on all my firearms that might have to be used in a social situation. Haven't used lasers, but they should work well for shooting out of position where the use of conventional sights might not be practical.
Savage

[SHOOTALL]

FS have you ever seen the lights go out ? We trained shooting at targets after you saw the target the lights went out .

[mcwoodduck]

Fairshake,
I like the night sights on handguns because I can keep the lights out.  And while the house at night is still pretty well lit I know the layout of my house and where the furniture is and know not to bump into it.  the three glowing dots are a fast way to aquire my sight picture in low lights when a black gun and black sights on a dark shape may take too long to line up.  I also do not have to worry about how to and what to do with the flash light.  My club in did a night pistol shoot where you had to use a flash light and the results were suprising.  guys that shot really well could not figure out how to hold the gun and the light to illuminate the target.  there is an ad vantage of blinding the target with the light.  But that all goes to technique.
When shooting at steel targets I found that winning was a matter of seconds and with each miss being worth 5 seconds in time a miss or just having to take an extra second to line up the sights will drop you from first to 5th in a heart beat.  And anything that will allow me to line my sights up on a target faster and be able to hit the target may be the difference between 1st and second place.  While i am not exactly a competitive person I still like to win and most definatly do not want to come in second in a gun fight and will use every advantage I can.