Night sights

[capncrunch]

Well, I don't want to be 'that' guy but I'm going to be - night sights are great to help you with alignment but a couple things I think are missing in this discussion here: RaneMan touched on one point: Natural point of aim. This should be a common exercise for anyone wanting to survive a CCW or weapon-retention incident. It's easy to do standing in front of a mirror, using objects in the confine of your house (with an empty weapon, of course). Repetition makes muscle memory and you'll be glad you did. Practice from any common carrying situation you find yourself in: from your CCW rig, in the car (where your neighbors can't see you of course), at home on the couch - wherever - use your imagination. Natural point of aim, as it was taught to me anyway, is picking an object you're going to "shoot", then closing your eyes, drawing your weapon and aim it where you think the object is. Open your eyes while holding your position, and look to see how far you're off. Adjust and repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. You may think it's retarded and you look silly but it DOES work.

Second: How about ID-ing your target? I lack the fortune of living alone and will always, at the risk of giving away my position, illuminate my target. It destroys their night vision, and will give me a chance to fire at least one well-placed round and seek hard cover if they're armed.

Muzzle flash - Several hours at the Santa Ana range when I qualified for my job showed me that the first round is the most likely to fly wild - hence the point of aim drills. Muzzle flash on a moonless night only served to illuminate my target - not blind me. Ported barrels are much more difficult to use, in my opinion, because they do hinder your sight with that vertical flash. Same can be said for aggressively compensated barrels. Regular semi-autos and some revolvers don't ruin your night vision from muzzle flash - as jj said their powders - especially in defensive ammunition - have been formulated to reduce muzzle flash. Some Federal employees detest the 40 S&W ammunition issued for carry for this very reason - formulated to minimize muzzle flash yet gives their Sig such wicked muzzle flip/recoil, that they'd rather carry ANYTHING else.

So, my long round-about way of answering the initial question on night sights for your weapon is this: whichever gives you the easiest target acquisition during the day is what you should go with. You'll waste time, and illuminate your own face under the right circumstances, fighting to line those puppies up at night. Natural point of aim, ID your target, and learn to use hard cover. "Simulated" night firing in Calibers can be helpful, unfortunately it has never been dark enough to be realistic where I live - but that's my possibly unique situation.

-Crunch

[RaneMan05TJ]

I agree....the only thing is....no matter whether it is day or night, under a stressful, adrenaline fueled situation, nobody will use their sights....you won't even remember that they are there

[uh...yep]

I dislike dots, and night sites. imho it's a waste of money. Anytime I get a new pistol and it has dots I immediately black em out with a birchwood casey marker. I use the front site to popsicle stick the target while aligned with the rear, but I pay very little attention to the rear sites at all. Little tips from Ignasius Piazza help out alot. I never been to any of his courses, but have read just about everything he has written.