Tritium Sights - How Effective?

[ammoboy2]

Back in 2011 it was $18/lamp if they were Trijicon lamps plus shipping.

[Deitz83]

My eyes do not allow me adjust to the white dot on a white background. When looking at the front sight at an indoor range that has poor lighting. I loose the front site in the flash. I ordered this site yesterday (Truglo TFO Sights). I hope this solve my problem. I my eyes pick up red or green on a front site better than any other color.

[earlwb]

I had the Tritium sights put on my .357 Revolver back when I was a police officer years ago. The sights worked pretty good at night. But I never had to use them in a situation though. But after several years they faded out and turned back into normal sights. Since I don't do police work anymore, I didn't get a new set to replace them with. You need to factor in that you will need to replace the tritium sights every few years. If I remember after five years, maybe more soon, it depends on how long the sights were on the shelf so to speak. But I think that the one point mentioned earlier would be accurate in that once you fire your gun, you may lose your night vision for a while and thus the night sights quit working temporarily on you.

[dino9832]

I experimented with a lot of techniques prior to our night match at my club. The problem is seeing the sights and the target at the same time. All of the flashlight techniques I tried left the sights in the dark. What worked perfectly was a head light. I was able to see all of the targets and my sights perfectly, and I could use two hands on my pistol.

I like the idea of a headlight! That would be great for dealing with investigating what the dogs are barking at. I've seen some with red lights also for preserving night vision.

I wouldn't switch it on until I knew whatever it was wasn't going to shoot back..lol. In the dark, I usually don't use a light right away. Lights tend to focus your vision on one point. It narrows my peripheral. Once a target is acquired though, I need to see my sights.

[ammoboy2]

Lights hand the hidden attacker your position and blind you to everything not in the lights beam. A headlight would be suicidal and eliminate any night vision, forget loosing the sights post-shoot this is worse.

To get a feel for the advantage and limitation of tritium sights try using your sights outdoors at night in a controlled environment. As an example, you most likely are not going to be accosted under a street lamp but near the shadows. The indexing and accuracy provided by night sights is substantial. With the Christmas lighting now it is rather bright around even without streetlights but is still too dark at night to see your sights without tritium lamps in the sights. Even old ones provide some indexing capability, but new ones are awesome.

In the house is similar but with other safety issues, depending upon how much you control the environment and how may people live in the residence. For example my wife goes about the house with every light on, while I never turn on the lights at night. Consequently, I know if I have anyone moving around at night in the dark it is someone who doesn't belong there and the id becomes less important. This thread was not about dealing with intruders but the efficacy of tritium sights. They are very effective but your individual installation may generate other issues due to your installation options related to your weapon choice, some sights are better than others due to market place variety of offerings or limitations.