sights. I'm now of the opinion the stock SL sights will have to be changed. Since I'm new to this forum I was wondering whether there is a favored tritium site (trijicon?). If so, do you folks know what size will fit the HK45? Any assistance appreciated.
Found this bit on-line: For those of you who are thinking about your options for low-light/night-sights, here's some excellent info on the difference between Tritium (H3) vs Super Luminova (SL). Repairing watches is my business, so I'm very familiar with the characteristics of both. FYI SL, the brightest non-radioactive material available, was invented by Seiko of Japan in the 1990's.
On the positive side, Tritium is radioactive and doesn't need to be charged beforehand in order to glow in the dark. On the downside, it has a limited lifetime that it's glow is useful. When new it's half life is about 12.5 years, which means that it's good for about 6 to 7 years before it needs to be replaced.
SL should last a lifetime, but the downside is that it needs to be *charged* beforehand by exposing it to a bright light source for a few minutes.
So how do they compare in brightness?
SL is much brighter than H3 for about the first 20 minutes and is still quite a bit brighter than it after 1 hour. After about 80 minutes in the dark their intensity is about equal. Because the glow of H3 remains constant, and because the SL continues to lose intensity until it is again exposed to a bright light, by the end of the night the H3 will be glowing a lot more brightly than the SL.
See the link below for more info and a graph of their respective light output vs time. You can click on the graph for a larger picture.
One thing to keep in mind is that the brightness of both is also greatly influenced by the amount of luminous material. So tiny dots of either are just not going to glow as brightly as large dots, regardless of how fresh the H3 is, or how long the SL has been exposed to a bright light.
Found this bit on-line: For those of you who are thinking about your options for low-light/night-sights, here's some excellent info on the difference between Tritium (H3) vs Super Luminova (SL). Repairing watches is my business, so I'm very familiar with the characteristics of both. FYI SL, the brightest non-radioactive material available, was invented by Seiko of Japan in the 1990's.
On the positive side, Tritium is radioactive and doesn't need to be charged beforehand in order to glow in the dark. On the downside, it has a limited lifetime that it's glow is useful. When new it's half life is about 12.5 years, which means that it's good for about 6 to 7 years before it needs to be replaced.
SL should last a lifetime, but the downside is that it needs to be *charged* beforehand by exposing it to a bright light source for a few minutes.
So how do they compare in brightness?
SL is much brighter than H3 for about the first 20 minutes and is still quite a bit brighter than it after 1 hour. After about 80 minutes in the dark their intensity is about equal. Because the glow of H3 remains constant, and because the SL continues to lose intensity until it is again exposed to a bright light, by the end of the night the H3 will be glowing a lot more brightly than the SL.
See the link below for more info and a graph of their respective light output vs time. You can click on the graph for a larger picture.
One thing to keep in mind is that the brightness of both is also greatly influenced by the amount of luminous material. So tiny dots of either are just not going to glow as brightly as large dots, regardless of how fresh the H3 is, or how long the SL has been exposed to a bright light.
