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Night Sights - Aid or Hindrance? A discussion of Low Light shooting Night sights, as promoted by gun-writers and manufacturers, are a crutch for poor shooting, poor tactics and lack of practice for the vast majority of shooters. If a person consistently does their dry-fire practice and trains, the use of night sights can be a hindrance. I have shot a LOT of night shoot courses, inside totally dark buildings and outside under starlight, moonlight, and in dimly lit environments. If your draw and grip are instinctive, when your eyes are focused on the target, you will hit it well inside of 10 yards. When I shoot a match, I don't consciously see my sights inside of about 7-10 yards. On a first shot inside of 7 yards, my pistol does not even enter my sight plane before I fire the first shot. Why wait when you know you can hit accurately! Rear night sights actually slow me down. The brighter (more and closer) rear sights fix your vision on the rear sight decreasing accuracy. And yes I have tested this with myself and other shooters. AND I have discussed it at length with 2 eye doctors that shoot and one that does not. The spacing of the night sights (3 dot) are wider than the instantaneous cone of perfect focus. This makes your eyes move side to side some to get a perfect alignment. Most do not even realize they do it. Looking through the eye docs machine, you can see the eyes twitch with 3 dot night sights. With blade sights or single front dots, this does not occur. What I recommend to my students is to practice a lot without night sights and get their mechanics down so that they are instinctive. Now (for why I only want half of the bill) I do subscribe to the "better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them" theory. I recommend a small front night sight for carry. This offers the benefits: 1. can see the gun on the floor, in the nightstand etc. 2. Shooting from the shadows 3. Shooting from abnormal shooting stance/grip 4. There is an index to alleviate second guessing, Without the drawbacks: 1. Eyes fixed to rear sight which often results in poor peripheral vision and poor target ID. 2. Slower sighted shot since focus will be on rear sight. There are a LOT of parameters that go into shooting. I teach my students the grip, the draw, aim, movement and then ask them to do all 4 at once, they can't without practice. Same goes for shooting in low or no light. We have to understand all the parameters, how we will be reacting to stress, how our eyes work, tactical considerations, etc. I have what I think is the best of all worlds on my G27, the Tri-Lux H3. It is a single front dot, en-circled by red fiber optics. In bright light, you have a nice red ring, in medium light, you end up with a nice, but not distracting conventional sight picture. In low and no light, you have a nice front dot. The Heinie straight 8s are also very good. Some of the dot the "I" systems are compact enough the be effective. Big dots and 3 dot systems are definitely slower and introduce detractions to sighting and speed in most low and no light conditions. I forgot to add this part...If you don't train, don't practice, or don't know what you are doing, night sights can be a real benefit. I just want people to think through what they are doing in defense situations, how they equip themselves, and how they set up their defense guns. I am VERY opposed to any suggestion that is uni-lateral. I am opposed to the teaching/training philosophy at most of the big trainings orgs as well. Although I have trained LEOs and Federal Officers, I am 100% civilian. Maybe 10% of trainers are in the same boat. But, as such, I teach preparation, thought, individual decision making along with the shooting. This is not the same as what LEOs get trained, and necessarily so, they have a duty to be offensive in their tactics at times. Civilians have a duty to survive and assist other innocents in survival. It is very unfortunate that you can not practice live fire in low and no light... But here is what I do in addition to live night fire. I also give this info to my students and most have benefited from it... If you do not have one, get a .38 spl or .357 Mag revolver. The quality is not very important. I had a student get a used one at a gunshow for $40. Then get yourself a 50 pack of X-ring rubber bullets (Midway sells them) and 50 .38 spl cases. I use Dye-Chem (a chemical metal etcher) on the brass so as not to mix it up. Drill out the primer pockets, seat primers and rubber bullets and WALLA! you have the perfect low and no light trainer. I'll use tape and wire to hang targets from the ceiling with all the lights on. Clear the room of people and your spouses expensive breakables, still use all the correct safety practices, and then off the lights and clear the room tactically. I practice with just the gun, with gun and LED light, with flashlights, all kinds of things. I'll use up the 50 rounds and then wait a few days and do it again. As you advance, get your wife, friend, whatever to start setting targets so you don't know where they are. I practice taking my mag light, turning it on with the lens covered and toss/rolling it into rooms. After practice, you can get so you always roll it in facing away from you. Flashing with the LED, move engage, flash, etc. Then, after you get really good at home, get a shooting buddy to set up his house for you and go into that environment and try it again. Then, when you have fired maybe 700 times this way, go to the hobby store and get some florescent paint. I use one of the really small coffee stirrers, dip it in the paint and touch the front sight. The paint will fluoresce for about 30 minutes after being in light, so plenty of time to practice. I have tried a white dot and black-lights, but it does not work as well as the fluorescent paint. Then you can either cover it with tape for "no night sight" practice and take it off for "night sight" practice or just scrape it off and redo it each time. One warning, the wife hates it when the rubber bullets get stuck in the vacuum cleaner. I have used about 500 of them up in 12 years and I estimate I have fired them about 12,000 rounds worth. You may lose 5-10% per session to start. If you have kids, be very careful, you don't want them eating them. For less than the price of a set of night sites, you can set yourself up to practice no and low light shooting. As you progress, take notes. Soon you should see trends and adapt the sighting systems to your liking. You may in fact do better with one of the systems I don't particularly like, but the benefit is that you will KNOW what works best for you, not just hope that what someone else told you, that they have not tried and tested, works. Best wishes in your pursuits. |