I had some questions about the utility of night sights after acquiring and installing a couple of sets at a very good price.
My initial take was that they were useless in any situation if there was enough light to see the sights (you could simply use normal sights and get the same effect) and useless in any situation when there was not enough light to see the target (aligning your sights carefully is useless if you can't see the target). It seemed that an experiment was in order to verify the hypothesis given the support that night sights have from the shooting community.
Most ranges are not amenable to having people shoot when there is inadequate light but fortunately Double Naught Spy made Horn Hill Range available for an experiment.
At the appointed time 4 shooters convened at Horn Hill Range. I provided two very similar guns (both Glock 17s) one with night sights and one without. All the shooters used the same ammunition, WWB, to eliminate that variable.
The course of fire involved shooting at IPSC style targets (roughly life-sized targets shaped like an armless human torso with a head) made of steel and placed 15 yards from the shooters. Hits & misses were scored as were the times for each shot string. Shot strings began from low ready, the shooter raised the gun at the buzzer (set on a random interval) and engaged a target with a 5 shot string.
The first series was shot in normal light to provide control numbers to compare to the later low light numbers. The average shot string time was 2.96 seconds with a miss rate of about 9%.
The second series was shot at dusk (sunset was at 6:41PM and the series was shot between 7:05PM and 7:17PM) and was broken into two different tests. The time selected for the dusk/low-light series was chosen such that the targets and the night sights were clearly visible but the iron sights were not. One test was shot each type of sights and a second test using a flashlight with each type of sights. All shooters used a variant of the Harries technique and were allowed to select from a variety of flashlights available in order to find one that provided the best fit for them.
Shooting at dusk without a flashlight resulted in times that were 40% slower than the control strings shot in daylight. There was no appreciable difference in the times shot with the night sight gun vs the plain sight gun. BUT, the miss rate was much different. With night sights, the shooters actually improved their accuracy over the shot strings shot in daylight by a small amount--perhaps because the glowing sights forced the shooter to focus on the sights. But with plain sights the misses TRIPLED. Night sights really shine (sorry) when there is sufficient light to see the target but insufficient light to see the sights.
Shooting with the flashlight incurred a time penalty of approximately 65%. This is probably due to the fact that using one hand to hold onto the flashlight means that hand isn't available to hold on to the gun--slowing down recoil recovery.
Using the flashlight at dusk resulted in a degradation in accuracy compared to the control strings shot in daylight. Misses increased by about 100%. There didn't appear to be any significant difference in the type of sights used in low-light/dusk when the flashlight was employed. If anything the plain sights may have had an advantage.
So what about total darkness? It was pointless (even dangerous) to shoot either gun without a flashlight since the targets were completely invisible. Initial testing showed no difference between the two sight types in total darkness. In both cases there was the same time penalty for using the flashlight (about 65%) and misses increased over the daylight shot strings by about 100%. Pretty much the same results as shooting at dusk with a flashlight and not any significant difference between the sight types. When using a decently bright flashlight there was enough light reflected off the target to provide good backlighting to allow effective use of either plain or night sights.
However, the shooting didn't stop there. Given that we still had some ammunition and the batteries were still working in the flashlights we did a bit more experimentation on a less formal level.
All the shooters noticed during the formal testing that the smoke from the discharge was very distracting when a flashlight was being employed. Although the smoke was invisible during the daylight shooting, trying to shine a light through it made it not only visible but annoying and a hindrance to accuracy. The effect was something like shining headlights through fog and got worse the brighter the flashlight was. Some experimentation revealed that the most effective technique to combat this effect was to shine the light, not on the target, but rather onto the ground in front of the target where the light scatter would illuminate the target. That didn't leave much illumination to backlight the sights so the night sights were required for that technique.
This technique effectively transformed the situation back into the dusk scenario. The scattered light was sufficient to see the target but not sufficient to see the sights. With some practice this technique was quite accurate but there was still the typical time/accuracy penalty associated with the flashlight use.
Moving to a weapon mounted light would help with the time penalty associated with holding a flashlight in the weak hand (per the Harries technique) but wouldn't allow the shooter to aim the light to minimize backscatter from the discharge smoke.
Conclusions
If you use a weapon mounted light then night sights aren't going to provide a significant benefit except as a backup.
If you don't have a light (either weapon mounted or separate) your weapon will be useless when it gets really dark even if you have night sights.
Night sights provide a tremendous accuracy benefit in low light (when normal sights are not visible but the target is visible) but no detectable benefit in normal light. They can provide a benefit in darkness if used with a flashlight to indirectly illuminate the target. Without a flashlight or when the flashlight is used to directly illuminate the target night sights provide no benefit in darkness.
If you have a weapon mounted light or try to directly illuminate the target with a handheld light held close to your firearm, expect to have some difficulty with light reflecting back from discharge smoke after your first shot. This effect is worse with a brighter light.
If you use a separate light, shine it directly on the target for the first shot to provide a distraction to your opponent and to provide maximum illumination for backlighting your sights. You can make hits this way regardless of whether your sights are night sights or not. After the first shot, if you have night sights, you'll improve your accuracy if you shine the light down and use the scattered light to illuminate the target without reflecting back in your eyes from the discharge smoke. If you don't have night sights you'll have to keep illuminating your target directly to keep your sights backlit--and you'll just have to deal with the distraction of the reflected light from the discharge smoke.
Finally, if you've never had a chance to shoot in low light you should make every effort to do so. Simple little things like keeping the switch on the flashlight depressed can get lost in the mix of things that need to be done. I found myself in darkness a couple of times for a brief instant wondering why I had no light until I realized that I had released pressure on the flashlight switch.
Many thanks to Double Naught Spy for providing range facilities and to Ken W. and Mark R. for providing willing assistance in this testing & experimentation.
My initial take was that they were useless in any situation if there was enough light to see the sights (you could simply use normal sights and get the same effect) and useless in any situation when there was not enough light to see the target (aligning your sights carefully is useless if you can't see the target). It seemed that an experiment was in order to verify the hypothesis given the support that night sights have from the shooting community.
Most ranges are not amenable to having people shoot when there is inadequate light but fortunately Double Naught Spy made Horn Hill Range available for an experiment.
At the appointed time 4 shooters convened at Horn Hill Range. I provided two very similar guns (both Glock 17s) one with night sights and one without. All the shooters used the same ammunition, WWB, to eliminate that variable.
The course of fire involved shooting at IPSC style targets (roughly life-sized targets shaped like an armless human torso with a head) made of steel and placed 15 yards from the shooters. Hits & misses were scored as were the times for each shot string. Shot strings began from low ready, the shooter raised the gun at the buzzer (set on a random interval) and engaged a target with a 5 shot string.
The first series was shot in normal light to provide control numbers to compare to the later low light numbers. The average shot string time was 2.96 seconds with a miss rate of about 9%.
The second series was shot at dusk (sunset was at 6:41PM and the series was shot between 7:05PM and 7:17PM) and was broken into two different tests. The time selected for the dusk/low-light series was chosen such that the targets and the night sights were clearly visible but the iron sights were not. One test was shot each type of sights and a second test using a flashlight with each type of sights. All shooters used a variant of the Harries technique and were allowed to select from a variety of flashlights available in order to find one that provided the best fit for them.
Shooting at dusk without a flashlight resulted in times that were 40% slower than the control strings shot in daylight. There was no appreciable difference in the times shot with the night sight gun vs the plain sight gun. BUT, the miss rate was much different. With night sights, the shooters actually improved their accuracy over the shot strings shot in daylight by a small amount--perhaps because the glowing sights forced the shooter to focus on the sights. But with plain sights the misses TRIPLED. Night sights really shine (sorry) when there is sufficient light to see the target but insufficient light to see the sights.
Shooting with the flashlight incurred a time penalty of approximately 65%. This is probably due to the fact that using one hand to hold onto the flashlight means that hand isn't available to hold on to the gun--slowing down recoil recovery.
Using the flashlight at dusk resulted in a degradation in accuracy compared to the control strings shot in daylight. Misses increased by about 100%. There didn't appear to be any significant difference in the type of sights used in low-light/dusk when the flashlight was employed. If anything the plain sights may have had an advantage.
So what about total darkness? It was pointless (even dangerous) to shoot either gun without a flashlight since the targets were completely invisible. Initial testing showed no difference between the two sight types in total darkness. In both cases there was the same time penalty for using the flashlight (about 65%) and misses increased over the daylight shot strings by about 100%. Pretty much the same results as shooting at dusk with a flashlight and not any significant difference between the sight types. When using a decently bright flashlight there was enough light reflected off the target to provide good backlighting to allow effective use of either plain or night sights.
However, the shooting didn't stop there. Given that we still had some ammunition and the batteries were still working in the flashlights we did a bit more experimentation on a less formal level.
All the shooters noticed during the formal testing that the smoke from the discharge was very distracting when a flashlight was being employed. Although the smoke was invisible during the daylight shooting, trying to shine a light through it made it not only visible but annoying and a hindrance to accuracy. The effect was something like shining headlights through fog and got worse the brighter the flashlight was. Some experimentation revealed that the most effective technique to combat this effect was to shine the light, not on the target, but rather onto the ground in front of the target where the light scatter would illuminate the target. That didn't leave much illumination to backlight the sights so the night sights were required for that technique.
This technique effectively transformed the situation back into the dusk scenario. The scattered light was sufficient to see the target but not sufficient to see the sights. With some practice this technique was quite accurate but there was still the typical time/accuracy penalty associated with the flashlight use.
Moving to a weapon mounted light would help with the time penalty associated with holding a flashlight in the weak hand (per the Harries technique) but wouldn't allow the shooter to aim the light to minimize backscatter from the discharge smoke.
Conclusions
If you use a weapon mounted light then night sights aren't going to provide a significant benefit except as a backup.
If you don't have a light (either weapon mounted or separate) your weapon will be useless when it gets really dark even if you have night sights.
Night sights provide a tremendous accuracy benefit in low light (when normal sights are not visible but the target is visible) but no detectable benefit in normal light. They can provide a benefit in darkness if used with a flashlight to indirectly illuminate the target. Without a flashlight or when the flashlight is used to directly illuminate the target night sights provide no benefit in darkness.
If you have a weapon mounted light or try to directly illuminate the target with a handheld light held close to your firearm, expect to have some difficulty with light reflecting back from discharge smoke after your first shot. This effect is worse with a brighter light.
If you use a separate light, shine it directly on the target for the first shot to provide a distraction to your opponent and to provide maximum illumination for backlighting your sights. You can make hits this way regardless of whether your sights are night sights or not. After the first shot, if you have night sights, you'll improve your accuracy if you shine the light down and use the scattered light to illuminate the target without reflecting back in your eyes from the discharge smoke. If you don't have night sights you'll have to keep illuminating your target directly to keep your sights backlit--and you'll just have to deal with the distraction of the reflected light from the discharge smoke.
Finally, if you've never had a chance to shoot in low light you should make every effort to do so. Simple little things like keeping the switch on the flashlight depressed can get lost in the mix of things that need to be done. I found myself in darkness a couple of times for a brief instant wondering why I had no light until I realized that I had released pressure on the flashlight switch.
Many thanks to Double Naught Spy for providing range facilities and to Ken W. and Mark R. for providing willing assistance in this testing & experimentation.
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