Just thought I would add something about night sights from the perspective of somebody with aging eyes that may in fact be transitioning from one type of sight to another out of necessity.
I have a P30 newly acquired that I am just falling in love with.
Anyway, having previously been pretty well acclimated to using 3 dot sights I decided to try to track down a set of Trijicon 3 dot night sights and thought that the yellow rear/ green front combination would be most helpful in my case. This combination is very hard to find in inventory. I had never been able to try a combination set before. Figured the combination of colors for night and the white borders around the lamps for day would be tough to beat for me.
However I could not help but give the Heinie straight eights a look because they are popular with HK owners here for one thing.
So I got a set of those as well. I can return either or sell either depending on what I go with. So I was OK with at least giving myself a chance to experience both at least to the extent that I could.
Some comparisons that might matter to folks:
- The "eights" have serrated surfaces and the Trij does not. Trij does not offer their HD's for the P30 and to some extent I wondered if I would have liked the HD's
- The Trij sights have white borders around the lamps and the eights do not
- The Trij paperwork says they are also cushioned by rubber as well as being encased in aluminum for an extra measure of durability. Eights have Trij lamps so I do not know how much of a Trij lamp is included in the Heinie version. I would guess the Aluminum casings must be there but I do not know that.
- The Eights I have are with the Standard Eights opening in the rear sight and I think the openings are the same width. However the Trij channel is extended the full length of the rear sight while the Heinie opens up big time just after the front surface and does not really have the long channel of the Trij rear sight.
- The Trij rear sight is both noticeably shorter from the slide to the top of the sights and the rear sight is substantially longer than the Eight's rear sight.
- As you guys probably know the Eights have little set screws for both the front and rear sights as an added measure to snug them to the slide. Frankly seems like overkill to me but what do I know.
So I set the two pairs of sights up on surfaces allowing for the same separation between front and rear that would be there if I had them mounted to the slide and leveled them in an effort to see how they looked to me in comparison. Not really the best way to do it, but OK for my purposes I think.
What I found may be a bit of a surprise if only to me. It seemed to me that at least for my aging eyes, the Eight's approach did allow for faster target acquisition as I spent less time in dealing with two points of reference instead of three. In daylight I did not find the white borders on the Trij sights to be as helpful as I thought they would be. There is so much going on with the Trij sights as a consequence of the lamps and the white borders and having three points of reference and all of that stuff competes for my attention when I am just trying to find the target. That I think was an issue for somebody who is aging and starting to have some issues with vision.
I am quite sure that if I go with the Eights I am going to paint the front sight orange as others have done. Although at least for lighted shooting the closer I get to plain iron sights the better things seem to get.
I left my little test bed as it was, waited for nightfall and turned out the lights. Here when looking at the variant color Trij 3 dots I do think that the variation in color and lamp intensity is a benefit over standard 3 dot systems. You can find your sights quickly and focus on the front sight is faster for me than it is with 3 dot systems of one color and one intensity even if the rears are smaller than the fronts. However when I compared that to the Eights, the Trij sights still seemed to be giving me more information than I needed and forcing me to process more information than I really needed. However I would recommend the yellow/green Trij sights over the all green. They are hard as hell to find in stock anywhere and in part I had to give these a try because I found a pair in inventory which is just about impossible. I was just happy to find a pair to be honest.
I would say that the Eights were definitely better for me in lighted conditions even before painting the front sight and marginally better for me in night conditions. Not sure how to value the fact that the Trij sights are definitely shorter as I don't see either as a potential holstering problem. Others might be better able to comment on the height of the two models if there is a comment worth making. I do like the way the Eights open up quickly as opposed to the funnel or channel of the Trij sights but this is where my little test bed fails me as not being able to bring the pistol up with the sights actually mounted, I can not tell if the Eights would be faster or not because they don't have that long Trij channel. I think they would be especially at night when you first have to find that front dot (presuming you are going to use the sights at all).
To be fair to Trij I really think these are very nice night sights and I think my "view" of these differing sight designs is as much based on my aging eyes and their ability to "see" and acclimate to what they are seeing as anything else.
Hope this is some help to folks especially to those that are in the same sort of spot that I am in. I am likely to send the Trij sights back where I got them and they were the only set I found anywhere and the last set they had. So, PM me if you want the name of the dealer where I got them and if you want you can likely save yourself the wait in trying to find these. I will likely call and get an RMA from them tomorrow and they will likely have them back in one week. the wait is four weeks at best for these.
Please feel free to comment as I did not want to post something that felt like a "take it or leave it" factual post. Everything here is from one man's view (pardon the pun) and I would encourage more information or better information always.
I have a P30 newly acquired that I am just falling in love with.
Anyway, having previously been pretty well acclimated to using 3 dot sights I decided to try to track down a set of Trijicon 3 dot night sights and thought that the yellow rear/ green front combination would be most helpful in my case. This combination is very hard to find in inventory. I had never been able to try a combination set before. Figured the combination of colors for night and the white borders around the lamps for day would be tough to beat for me.
However I could not help but give the Heinie straight eights a look because they are popular with HK owners here for one thing.
So I got a set of those as well. I can return either or sell either depending on what I go with. So I was OK with at least giving myself a chance to experience both at least to the extent that I could.
Some comparisons that might matter to folks:
- The "eights" have serrated surfaces and the Trij does not. Trij does not offer their HD's for the P30 and to some extent I wondered if I would have liked the HD's
- The Trij sights have white borders around the lamps and the eights do not
- The Trij paperwork says they are also cushioned by rubber as well as being encased in aluminum for an extra measure of durability. Eights have Trij lamps so I do not know how much of a Trij lamp is included in the Heinie version. I would guess the Aluminum casings must be there but I do not know that.
- The Eights I have are with the Standard Eights opening in the rear sight and I think the openings are the same width. However the Trij channel is extended the full length of the rear sight while the Heinie opens up big time just after the front surface and does not really have the long channel of the Trij rear sight.
- The Trij rear sight is both noticeably shorter from the slide to the top of the sights and the rear sight is substantially longer than the Eight's rear sight.
- As you guys probably know the Eights have little set screws for both the front and rear sights as an added measure to snug them to the slide. Frankly seems like overkill to me but what do I know.
So I set the two pairs of sights up on surfaces allowing for the same separation between front and rear that would be there if I had them mounted to the slide and leveled them in an effort to see how they looked to me in comparison. Not really the best way to do it, but OK for my purposes I think.
What I found may be a bit of a surprise if only to me. It seemed to me that at least for my aging eyes, the Eight's approach did allow for faster target acquisition as I spent less time in dealing with two points of reference instead of three. In daylight I did not find the white borders on the Trij sights to be as helpful as I thought they would be. There is so much going on with the Trij sights as a consequence of the lamps and the white borders and having three points of reference and all of that stuff competes for my attention when I am just trying to find the target. That I think was an issue for somebody who is aging and starting to have some issues with vision.
I am quite sure that if I go with the Eights I am going to paint the front sight orange as others have done. Although at least for lighted shooting the closer I get to plain iron sights the better things seem to get.
I left my little test bed as it was, waited for nightfall and turned out the lights. Here when looking at the variant color Trij 3 dots I do think that the variation in color and lamp intensity is a benefit over standard 3 dot systems. You can find your sights quickly and focus on the front sight is faster for me than it is with 3 dot systems of one color and one intensity even if the rears are smaller than the fronts. However when I compared that to the Eights, the Trij sights still seemed to be giving me more information than I needed and forcing me to process more information than I really needed. However I would recommend the yellow/green Trij sights over the all green. They are hard as hell to find in stock anywhere and in part I had to give these a try because I found a pair in inventory which is just about impossible. I was just happy to find a pair to be honest.
I would say that the Eights were definitely better for me in lighted conditions even before painting the front sight and marginally better for me in night conditions. Not sure how to value the fact that the Trij sights are definitely shorter as I don't see either as a potential holstering problem. Others might be better able to comment on the height of the two models if there is a comment worth making. I do like the way the Eights open up quickly as opposed to the funnel or channel of the Trij sights but this is where my little test bed fails me as not being able to bring the pistol up with the sights actually mounted, I can not tell if the Eights would be faster or not because they don't have that long Trij channel. I think they would be especially at night when you first have to find that front dot (presuming you are going to use the sights at all).
To be fair to Trij I really think these are very nice night sights and I think my "view" of these differing sight designs is as much based on my aging eyes and their ability to "see" and acclimate to what they are seeing as anything else.
Hope this is some help to folks especially to those that are in the same sort of spot that I am in. I am likely to send the Trij sights back where I got them and they were the only set I found anywhere and the last set they had. So, PM me if you want the name of the dealer where I got them and if you want you can likely save yourself the wait in trying to find these. I will likely call and get an RMA from them tomorrow and they will likely have them back in one week. the wait is four weeks at best for these.
Please feel free to comment as I did not want to post something that felt like a "take it or leave it" factual post. Everything here is from one man's view (pardon the pun) and I would encourage more information or better information always.
