Tritium Sights….Necessary on your EDC or not?

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Don’t have a carry gun. Have a nightstand shotgun. How else are you going to line things up in low light? Understand the light but isn’t a light a target as well? Notice the “?” because it is a bonafide question? I always thought darkness was my friend in my own house. Not that it is fully dark ever. And that identification was paramount always when protecting the home. I like my glow in the dark sights.
 
I have two that came with the pistols. If I were to have an option for night sights and a good SD flashlight for the same price I would buy the flashlight.

Not a fan of Tritium.
 
This is becoming one of those like "9mm or .45?"

Q: Tritium?
A: Yes, for sure. Unless you don't want to then just don't.

I shoot in low light and night a lot. Own lots of night vision, but have done plenty of rifle and handgun shooting without NODs, in white light, or no light. Partly because I started in the "what's a NOD" era, and spent lots of time in the not-everyone-has-night-vision era. Have trained a bit in it (student and instructor). I (therefore) have tritium on most of my handguns AND rifles.

I went through a period of trying fiber, bright paints, da-glow plastics even. Meh. Didn't work in all conditions, so aside from not that bright, the variability messed with me. I am back to very black with tritium. I am far side of the Yes To Tritium campaign, so even get bare tritium tubes to update old sights, install in hard-to-illuminate guns. Do it for friends also.

All my EDC guns (and serious rifles) have RDS and WML as well as tritium. Backups, finding them and indexing before you get fully up to the eyeline, odd lighting conditions, etc. Odd lighting is more often than not the norm; not getting people who think they will be able to shoot in their house and just flip on the lights. Power outages? Bad guys with flashlights?

Anyway, useful enough, never regretted it having tritium and it doesn't make me poor. Remotely careful shopping will get you tritium for only a few bucks more than quality irons. Sometimes I have gotten tritium cheaper than non!
 
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For those of us that hunt in low light conditions Tritium isn't something we would consider. It's a manufactures fad and nothing more.
 
shoobe01 said:
I shoot in low light and night a lot. Own lots of night vision, but have done plenty of rifle and handgun shooting without NODs, in white light, or no light. Have trained a bit. Both ways. I (therefore) have tritium on most of my handguns AND rifles.
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Years ago we discovered that using a handgun with tritium sights while using AN/PVS-5 night vision goggles was completely unsatisfactory. It was like having 3 burning flares on the top of the slide.
 
I am big on very, very dim rears, usually just Lumocolor (or sharpie) over them, and that works. Under NODs the one bright one is... almost usable. The range at which you get good hits is so short you might as well just flip em up and start blasting, adjust fire based on muzzle flash then :)

RDS is a game changer in this regard of course. Mine (J-Point if it matters since no one else uses that) even somehow work just as they are. Visible to the eye and also do NOT blow out the NODs.
 
I'm rather in the middle of this discussion.

On a couple of serious guns I have the Ameriglo Agent sights. In the daytime, the sight configuration is solid black rear and an orange front sight that is so orange it would wake the dead. In the dark, the rear sights have tritium dots visible that are half the brightness of the front sight's tritium. The rather dull rear sights help me find the back end of the gun, and the bright front sight is for target acquisition.

Now that said, I also have guns that have fiber optic front sights and black rear sights. They work out fine in reduced ambient light levels too.

So, Jeff, I have no flipping clue on front sight requirements.
 
dh1633pm said:
Don’t have a carry gun. Have a nightstand shotgun. How else are you going to line things up in low light? Understand the light but isn’t a light a target as well? Notice the “?” because it is a bonafide question? I always thought darkness was my friend in my own house. Not that it is fully dark ever. And that identification was paramount always when protecting the home. I like my glow in the dark sights.
Click to expand...

Lights on handguns is getting a little off topic but the short answer is no. Having been on both sides of white light FOF training, most people that get hit with a blinding white light after their eyes adjusted to the dark will not accurately "shoot at the light" that some trainers claim. Still, in good low light classes the training involves moving off the axis of return fire in case BG gets a shot off.
 
Needed? Nah, FO or gold dot would be nice too especially since I always have a light anyway.

But I usually end up with night sights anyway for one reason or another, front post size/shape, rear sight size/shape, what the gun came with, what I like, etc.

I'm colorblind so if I want to see the front sight post clearly I do have some specific preferences and there are/could certainly be some situations where I'll want to see that post clearly, quickly.
 
I can see my front room from my bedroom. I leave a small light on in the front room at night and can clearly identify a person in the front room from my bedroom at night. Last night I tried seeing sights on guns with and without night sights from my bedroom with the bedroom lights off. I could easily see night sights and couldn't see regular sights at all. I can't speak for everyone, but for me night sights on my nightstand gun are a necessity. I can't know if I'll wind up in a similar lighting situation, with me being in a darker area and an attacker being in an area with enough light to be identified while I'm out of the house, so I have night sights on my carry guns.
 
In a gunfight, lighting conditions can change, and night sights
fill that possible void in visibility; also for a nightstand pistol,
you could be firing at your night intruder "silhouettes",
and night sites afford a good aim.
 
Except that really good day sights, boot stomp night sights in 95% of practical applications. You give up a ton of performance for an extremely limited range of lighting, where night sights are handy.

Can you point shoot during that 5%? Yeah, most likely.

.125" is too wide of a front sight. .090 to .110 is optimal. .115 if you want a bead or thick bright fo rod.

You can use light green or clear fo rods on the front sight for a little more help in dusk conditions.

With a flashlight on, good day sights are preferred over a fat night sight, every time.

There's no excuse for a HD pistol not to be accompanied by a quality light anymore..........except that night house training is extremely expensive. (But worth it, and fun.)

I have one night sight pistol left. Front only. Everything else has a Uspsa sight setup.
 
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CDMCKY said:
In a gunfight, lighting conditions can change, and night sights
fill that possible void in visibility; also for a nightstand pistol,
you could be firing at your night intruder "silhouettes",
and night sites afford a good aim.
Click to expand...

Hopefully you’ve used some sort of light to verify those “silhouettes” need shot, lots of tragic stories of a kid or spouse getting shot on accident without good threat verification.
 
A front sight that is quick and easy to pick up is more important to me than a night sight. I prefer an arrange ring on the front sight. As it happens, Trijicon and Ameriglo both make sight sets that I like but that’s just a coincidence!
 
"identify target" = what exactly?

Must we be able to tell their sex, approximate age, skin color, hair color, facial features, etc?

Is it possible that we may be able to tell someone is a deadly threat, without them being illuminated to the degree we could "identify" them by the descriptors above?

If someone is charging at you whilst swinging a long straight object in their hand over their head screaming "I'm gonna ####ing kill you!", but they're back lit to the point you can't see your sights on their silhouette, are they not a threat? What would change your mind? A flashlight beam identifying a wild intensity in their eyes?

Tiny objects like handgun sights disappear to the human eye in reduced light conditions more easily than larger objects, like say a baseball bat, a stick of rebar, or a shovel. From my perspective, I'd rather be able to see my sights than not be able to see them, but wish I could.

Flashlights are great. I carry one. But when seconds count, I'd rather be able to see my sights without needing the flashlight as well. And tritium sights just aren't that expensive, so for me there's no good excuse not to.
 
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WrongHanded said:
"identify target" = what exactly?
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Your example is pretty clear cut; a visibly armed intruder in your house threatening you is an easy shoot decision. However there are many ambiguous situations that could be a “legal” shoot that wouldn’t be a “good” shoot. The dark figure approaching you in the hallway could be your kid sneaking in from meeting friends with AirPods on and can’t hear you, or the special needs kid or elderly neighbor with Alzheimer’s who got confused and thought your house was theirs. I’m saying that in most situations using a handheld or weapon mounted light to verify who is in your home before firing is a wise decision even if your actions would be legally justified under a castle doctrine.

You may live alone on a 1,000 acres in the middle of Montana with no neighbors for miles so anyone in your house is perceived as hostile but for the vast majority of people living in regular neighborhoods there is a highly plausible situation where someone is illegally in their house and doesn’t need shot. If you are solely relying on night sights for target identification something could go horribly wrong.

My night stand pistol does have night sights, it also has a Surefire X300 with a pressure switch.
 
bratch said:
If you are solely relying on night sights for target identification something could go horribly wrong.
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Well this is the problem, isn't it. People creating an either/or scenario where one need not exist.

I gave an example where night sights would be very helpful. Now someone else gives an example of how night sights alone would be extremely dangerous (like the kid in the hallway).

But you could make the same case for and against carrying a firearm. AKA, you could save your life, or use poor judgement and kill an innocent person. That's certainly possible. Which is why a gun is not the answer to every problem, but it's still nice to have the option available. Tritium sights are not the answer to every low light scenario, but they're right there glowing in the dark if you need them.
 
bratch said:
If you are solely relying on night sights for target identification something could go horribly wrong.
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I don't think it's possible to identify a target with night sights. Using them in the dark is still "shooting in the dark", except the person can see their sights and nothing else.
Perhaps they should be called "low light, in the shadows, rainy day" sights instead of night sights.
 
I've had one handgun with tritium sights; a S&W 1911sc. Yes, the sights were visible in the dark. Faintly.

I ended up selling it. Nice pistol, but I just have a thing for Colt 1911s and I never really warmed up to the S&W.

As for night sights, I have a CT laser on my carry piece.
 
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