Poll: Night Sights on home defense gun essential?

Are Night Sights Essential on a Home Defense Gun?

  • Yes they are essential and I install them on all home defense guns.

    Votes: 42 27.6%

  • No they are nice to have but not essential.

    Votes: 110 72.4%
  • Total voters
    152
  • Poll closed .
W

WVsig

New member
Well I made the mistake of letting the wife shoot my Wild West Guns Browning Hi Power the other day at the range. She now wants to replace her P228 with my BHP. Well I managed to talk her out of my WWG custom and into my new to me custom which I believe is an older 1978 MKII Novak build.





There are 2 issues, first it has the old style thumb safety. I can swap that out with a C&S wide safety myself but it also wears the older style Novak sights but they are not night sights. I can send the slide off to Novak and have the sights replaced with night sights. $145 for the sights + $35 for install plus shipping back to me.

There was a time I believed that every defensive gun should have night sights on them. The more I shoot them in have realized that there is a limited range of light or lack of light in which they really help. IMHO that is low light. Not no light not daylight.

The more I have shot these days I have changed to believing that it is more important on a carry gun then a home defense gun. I am more likely have to use a gun in a carry situation in a low light situation vs a home use situation. House guns sit next to a flashlight which will used in a night time home defense situation. I do not always have a light on me when carrying. That said have and do carry guns which lack night sights as well.

This is not about the $$$. My gut call on this one is simply to send it off and have the Novaks installed. In the end $200 door to door is not a huge amount of money but I am wondering what other people think. Are night sights essential for a home defense gun? Are they as useful as they are marketed to be?
 
Nice to have... But not essential.

In the lighting that night sights work best, target ID is difficult... Heck it's difficult to know the person is an actual threat in that light unless they are actively attacking, close by, or verbally communicating hostile intent.

When they are close in, sights are not really needed anyway.

So it's a only limited situations that they are useful, and at the ranges defense usually happens, say within 15ft... a decently good shooter can point pretty instinctively and make effective hits center mass in low light.
 
I'd personally spend the $200 on a class, or a laser pointer and some ammo for the range, but that's me. I reckon, if I have to use a handgun in self defense, the target will likely be very close, and I'll be just as accurate with no sights at all provided I've practiced a lot even dry-firing. A laser pointer is a better option IMO, though it does take practice to use since you are now focusing your eyes on the target, not the sights.
 
JeffK said:
I'd personally spend the $200 on a class, or a laser pointer and some ammo for the range, but that's me. I reckon, if I have to use a handgun in self defense, the target will likely be very close, and I'll be just as accurate with no sights at all provided I've practiced a lot even dry-firing. A laser pointer is a better option IMO, though it does take practice to use since you are now focusing your eyes on the target, not the sights.
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Lasers are IMHO worthless. They look tactical cool but have an even more limited use spectrum then night sights IMHO. You should be focusing on the front sight not a laser dot on a target. I have always learned to shoot the front sight not the target. Clearly YMMV

She has taken classes and ammo is not a problem but I tend to agree classes are money well spent. :cool:

marine6680 said:
Nice to have... But not essential.

In the lighting that night sights work best, target ID is difficult... Heck it's difficult to know the person is an actual threat in that light unless they are actively attacking, close by, or verbally communicating hostile intent.

When they are close in, sights are not really needed anyway.

So it's a only limited situations that they are useful, and at the ranges defense usually happens, say within 15ft... a decently good shooter can point pretty instinctively and make effective hits center mass in low light.
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This echos my school of thought.
 
Not everyone can focus on the front sight especially in low-light conditions, and if it hasn't happened to you yet I promise it will. :D When night sights are visible in low light, to my eyes they are a giant blurry blob, completely worthless unless I wear reading glasses that make everything beyond about 3' blurry. However it's easy to focus on a target that is now illuminated by a bright red or green spot.
 
Not everyone can focus on the front sight especially in low-light conditions, and if it hasn't happened to you yet I promise it will. When night sights are visible in low light, to my eyes they are a giant blurry blob, completely worthless unless I wear reading glasses that make everything beyond about 3' blurry. However it's easy to focus on a target that is now illuminated by a bright red or green spot.
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I guess I just prefer a hand held flashlight to illuminate a target and see the front sight. As others have pointed out at sub yard ranges which is likely what you are talking about in the house solid technique and muscle memory will allow someone to get good positive hits even without the sights. I understand that vision changes and loss alters what tools one chooses to deploy. ;)

Also one of my big pet peeves about lasers and weapon mounted lights is having to point the muzzle gun at an object in order to illuminate it. In a high stress situation this can be detrimental IMHO.
 
I've never been a big tacticool guy but I did buy a TLR-2 with the green laser for my home defense pistol. It was a lot of dough to drop on a firearm accessory but I have no doubt I will be hitting center mass quickly in the event of a home invasion and the strobe effect to illuminate and disorient the poor bastard seems pretty useful to me as well.
 
On a home defense gun I don't think they're essential. In that arena I'd prefer a light, either weapon mounted or hand held or in my case both. That said I don't see them as a detriment at all. Lights are electronic and are much more likely to fail than a tritium tube is to break. If it's a hand held light it could get knocked away from you and having at least some point of reference is a plus. I get the point, haha, about point shooting and I can do it myself but I tend to err on the side of I can't predict every eventuality so I do have night sights on both home defense and carry guns. That being said I have far more handguns than are "essential" to begin with so I don't always only go with essential.
 
Thank you for this thread. I was considering adding night sights to my home defense pistol but now I realize I don't need them. Practice and fundamentals are more important.

I remember night qualification, years ago. I remember the muzzle flash leaving lingering eye spots which made re-locating the sights difficult and slow. I did not have tritiums at that time, but I wonder, looking back, if those flash spots in my eyes would have been confused for the night sights or if the night sights would be easier to find in the midst of the light floaters.
 
Not essential~ If the threat is from the East, I will point my scatter gun (former State Patrol 8 round pump) to the East or whatever direction is applicable. :)
 
Essential ...no / but as I get toward my late 60's and my eyes get worse and worse most every year....any little edge ( like night sights, fibre optic front sights, battle sight in the rear, etc...)....that help me aquire my sights a little quicker - helps a lot .....

.... so I put them on any gun that I intend to carry or train with tactically.
 
Theye are nice & useful

I have both with and without night sights. It is very easy to find the one with the night sights in the dark, and it is easy to line them up in the dark. I would defiantly buy guns with night sights given the option. They are on a Sig, and they are nice and bright. I really like them.
 
Do they offer an advantage in low light conditions? Absolutely. Are they essential? Not even a little. People were successfully using guns to defend their homes at night long before night sights were available. Personally, I would rather have my 12" Maglite. I can illuminate whatever I want with it, and it makes a pretty good weapon in its own right. I used to carry it with me when I was a pizza delivery driver. Company policy said I wasn't even allowed to have a pocket knife (of course almost all of us carried them anyway), let alone a gun. A flashlight, however, was encouraged for night shift drivers, so it gave me an option for self defense that was not against the rules. Now it lives on my nightstand right next to my gun.
 
I think a hand held or weapon light is far more effective than night sights, I don't see them being useful enough to drop the cash on them personally. I would even say a laser would be more useful than night sights in low light conditions.
 
nothing is "essential" the question to ask is if they give you an advantage?
also they arent meant as a substitute for a light, but they do augment a light very well....
 
Nite sights and lasers are gimmicks not something to depend on. Can't see the target by the time nite sights are useful, laser has a battery surely to be dead at the worst time. Learn to use a gun and have a plan at least have a plan altho a plan can go south pretty fast.
 
I'd say not essential, since you can generally have access to immediate light sources like the wall switch or a flashlight, and frankly MORE useful on a carry gun because you might be out and about where a threat is occurring in a low light situation.

I'm also in the camp that you need to be able to have enough light to positively ID who you are shooting.

So, they are a nice upgrade but not essential.
 
I have them on most of my handguns and a couple of long guns. They definitely have a place, and not just in the dark. You always have sights, even in shadow, against dark targets, etc.

No doubt a good flashlight to go along with them is the way to go. Just like a compass, map, and GPS work best as a package, so do night sights and flashlights.

Ive tried lasers a couple of times, and find them about useless. They slow me down and confuse more than anything else, and take your focus away from what it should be on.
 
I agree with the point that the question asked should be "do they give you an advantage" and furthermore "how much of an advantage". Firearm ownership/Carry is all about advantages. IMHO they give you an advantage. An often overstated advantage, but an advantage.

I usually have them installed on my guns. When I get around to it.
 
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