Excellent points Dean. Good video as well. My preferred layout on my main carry (G19) is supressor height night sights, a green dot Holosun, and a weapon light. Strobe is a bonus.
I generlly agree with your sentiments. There is, however, one case where you might actually use night sights to shoot. It might be a dim location (i.e., you can see figures, but without significant definition), you have heard shots (so you know there is a threat), you use your hand held light for a second to light up, recognize and blind the threat (i.e., you now know for sure he is a bad guy and that he has a gun), turn off your light, take a couple of quick steps off the X to confuse the bad guy, and then shoot from the darkness. It's a rare tactical situation, but night sights would be valuable in such a case. Otherwise, you are 100% right. You will light up your sights anyway the moment you turn on your light.
Nice, Dean, This is what I've discovered as well. You must have a light of some kind for target illumination and the night sights get you ready for alignment. Oddly enough, when I'm outdoors where their is no other light pollution or close reflective surface, my night sights are still slightly visible. Those conditions are not met often but it does happen.
You make an excellent point that I hadn't considered. As soon as I picked up my Yugo M59/66, the first thing I did was replace the tritium vials in the night sights. On a battle rifle in a battle situation, you have a mission that might involve engaging the enemy at night, but you know who your target is already, so the night sights make sense. In your home defense example, not so much. Still, my go-to nightstand-bump-in-the-night pistol needs night sights, a laser and an illuminator. And a bayonet.
Does anyone else have a problem with weapon mounted lights? Old training dies hard and I was always taught you don't want to point a weapon at anything you not trying to destroy. If I can't see it until the lights are on, how do I know if I want to shoot it? I had a light mounted to my AR but didn't like flagging stuff to see in the dark. Small hand held lights are very powerful now days. YMMV. Love my night sights. Wouldn't go back.
Disagree, red dot/green dot technology has gotten to the point (especially with enclosed emitters) where they are extremely advantageous and have very few downsides. Unlike any type of night sight or fiber optic sight, a red dot is fully visible even when PID’ing a target in the dark. Even in an environment that isn’t pitch black, red dots are faster in dark environments. And since red dots only align 2 focal planes instead of 3, you can focus your eyes on the target instead of your front sight, which definitely aids in speed, no matter the lighting condition
@@nhwarrior8777 I agree with this but I would like to toss in supressor height night sights that cowitness the dot. That way if the dot dies for some reason we have options.
What about red/green dots??? Same thing. This rant is kind of pointless, because we already know that target identification requires a light of some sort.
"If you are shooting, and you can see those dots, you are doing something wrong". "having night sights without a weapon light gains you nothing" False in many scenarios. My point here is going to be to get people to hopefully think of staging their home in a way to use light to their advantage, rather than to downgrade the usefulness of lights. I mean, fine, extoll the usefulness of having lights. But this statement as an absolute is factually, and logically, incorrect and easy to disprove for anyone that has ever been anywhere in the dark and even played hiding go seek as a kid at night, or just walked around in cities where dark alleyways allow people to see you on the sidewalk long before you see them. Your statements would carry more weight outside of the home environment, but in the home, it's often quite easy (with a little thought) to stage your home turf in a way that makes ambushing a threat without weapon lights that give away your position fairly easy and more sensible. Many people in these discussion ignore how our eyes work, quite simply. You can easily use light differences and the time it takes our eyes to adjust as we transition from a lighter spot to a darker one to your advantage. Have you ever been in a dark spot or corner while looking into a lighter area? Because it's quite possible for you to be looking into an area well-lit enough to ascertain the target without being clearly identified yourself, and without utilizing the absurd lumen explosion of most lights, which immediately give away your position and startle everyone (including a perp who may have his finger already on the trigger and pointed in your direction). May work if there is only one threat. If there are two, or three, you likely die before you get the third shot off. It is quite possible for me to stand in a dark room of my house, look out into a room that has some lighting and clearly see anything there, while being difficult or impossible to see by someone in that already-lit room or hall. My night sights show up, still, because the room I'm in is dark, and that semi-lit room is quite bright for my eyes to identify what's in it, as my eyes are adjusted to the dark, but it's not so bright I lose all of the glow, and those dots do help me make sure I've got alignment since there's no light behind me. Someone standing in that room or hall would strain to see me. It is often easy to stage your house this way so that any entry ways have night lights bright enough that they make it impossible to see into the other dark rooms until you get your eyes adjusted. By the time they make it that far, their soul is leaving their body. I can see my night sights, too, and it doesn't take 10 million lumens to accomplish that because my eyes are adjusted to the dark. In fact, shining a very bright light, suddenly, indoors, can also disorient YOU if you have been hiding in the dark with your eyes adjusted to the dark. Unless you have your walls painted black,, brown, or purple, immediately a lot of light is going to reflect right back at you. If your walls are white, and the intruder is partially obscured around a corner, they may instinctively hit you before you actually identify them. Remember, intruder doesn't care about trigger discipline or being certain of his target. He's just going to shoot in your direction while you're still trying to filter out the glare off the walls coming back into your own dilated pupils. Not smart. He may be high just carrying the gun in front of him with finger on trigger. The same concept is even true in the day time. If I am in a deeply shaded set of woods next to a meadow at noon, I can easily identify people in the meadow long before they will naturally see me. If I am in my garage in the daytime, I can see the delivery man walking up long before he sees me, simply because his eyes are adjusted to more light and I'm standing in the shade. The idea you must make yourself a target moments before firing in all settings is oversimplification. If the perp is coming down the hall at you, in the dark, finger on trigger, and he's already on edge (he certainly will be), the shotgun blast resulting from him being startled by your light means your 0.5 seconds to acquire and ascertain target in full lighting is a 0.5 seconds that never initiates for you. Remember, the perps are not practicing trigger discipline nor taking the same 0.5 seconds to make sure they know what they're shooting at. Yes, he's disoriented, but he got a shot off. He's temporarily blinded, and you have a hole in your body. I'd say that means you lose. Again, not saying lights are never useful. And I'm not saying you shoot in the dark without knowing what you're shooting at...but not having a light and not ever being able to be sure of target are not mutually exclusive. Kids home from college should be aware of certain things, and you should utilize an alarm system that those kids can disarm. There are multiple factors at play in a good home defense strategy. But the idea that night sights are not ever useful without deploying the weapon light is overly simplistic, and ignores many factors and settings, including the physiology of the eyes. Where lights would be most useful, actually, is away from your home turf, where you don't have opportunity or time to plan. You're still going to give away position, but in such a setting staging an ambush location is usually not going to be an option, so losing that advantage, knowing where you are going matters, and it's better to give away position from some distance than to walk right into their ambush 5 feet away from their barrel. That said, I've been on a friend's property that I'd never been to before, and we had an airsoft duel, and I successfully ambushed him on his own property by using light differences to my advantage outdoors just as I've explained above. Used no light. Saw him coming and identified his position before he could see me.
Excellent points Dean. Good video as well. My preferred layout on my main carry (G19) is supressor height night sights, a green dot Holosun, and a weapon light. Strobe is a bonus.
excellent video, really excellent. Recently retired LEO after 34 years city and state, perfect!
I generlly agree with your sentiments. There is, however, one case where you might actually use night sights to shoot. It might be a dim location (i.e., you can see figures, but without significant definition), you have heard shots (so you know there is a threat), you use your hand held light for a second to light up, recognize and blind the threat (i.e., you now know for sure he is a bad guy and that he has a gun), turn off your light, take a couple of quick steps off the X to confuse the bad guy, and then shoot from the darkness.
It's a rare tactical situation, but night sights would be valuable in such a case. Otherwise, you are 100% right. You will light up your sights anyway the moment you turn on your light.
I say yes.. doesn't hurt, and it can definitely help. Especially in low light environments
Nice, Dean, This is what I've discovered as well. You must have a light of some kind for target illumination and the night sights get you ready for alignment. Oddly enough, when I'm outdoors where their is no other light pollution or close reflective surface, my night sights are still slightly visible. Those conditions are not met often but it does happen.
You make an excellent point that I hadn't considered. As soon as I picked up my Yugo M59/66, the first thing I did was replace the tritium vials in the night sights. On a battle rifle in a battle situation, you have a mission that might involve engaging the enemy at night, but you know who your target is already, so the night sights make sense. In your home defense example, not so much. Still, my go-to nightstand-bump-in-the-night pistol needs night sights, a laser and an illuminator. And a bayonet.
There are many tools at our disposal and the task determines what we need to use
Informative, succinct, and eloquently explained. You guys are awesome!
Does anyone else have a problem with weapon mounted lights? Old training dies hard and I was always taught you don't want to point a weapon at anything you not trying to destroy. If I can't see it until the lights are on, how do I know if I want to shoot it? I had a light mounted to my AR but didn't like flagging stuff to see in the dark. Small hand held lights are very powerful now days. YMMV. Love my night sights. Wouldn't go back.
Don't point the gun at eye level. A low ready is more than adequate to illuminate a room.
Excellent points! Thanks!
Laser light combo , first push on switch is lazier , second time then both are on
Sensible explanation. As soon as you illuminate the supposed target, the night sights become iron sights.
Never really saw the point of night sights. As soon as you add a light and red dot it’s really unnecessary
it makes more sense to have night sights or at least illuminated front sight instead of a red dots on a ccw pistol
Disagree, red dot/green dot technology has gotten to the point (especially with enclosed emitters) where they are extremely advantageous and have very few downsides. Unlike any type of night sight or fiber optic sight, a red dot is fully visible even when PID’ing a target in the dark. Even in an environment that isn’t pitch black, red dots are faster in dark environments. And since red dots only align 2 focal planes instead of 3, you can focus your eyes on the target instead of your front sight, which definitely aids in speed, no matter the lighting condition
@@nhwarrior8777 I agree with this but I would like to toss in supressor height night sights that cowitness the dot. That way if the dot dies for some reason we have options.
@@hghhvcggvcf9500yeah I run supressor height sites on mine as well, even though I prefer the blacked out ones 😆
This is only true if you’re a fud that doesn’t know how to shoot with a red dot
Can we get Allan back?
next week
I have seen a video with Rob Leatham where he gave the advise in self defence shooting dont use the sights at all.
What about red/green dots???
Same thing.
This rant is kind of pointless, because we already know that target identification requires a light of some sort.
Green dots are typically harder to see outdoors
"If you are shooting, and you can see those dots, you are doing something wrong".
"having night sights without a weapon light gains you nothing"
False in many scenarios. My point here is going to be to get people to hopefully think of staging their home in a way to use light to their advantage, rather than to downgrade the usefulness of lights.
I mean, fine, extoll the usefulness of having lights. But this statement as an absolute is factually, and logically, incorrect and easy to disprove for anyone that has ever been anywhere in the dark and even played hiding go seek as a kid at night, or just walked around in cities where dark alleyways allow people to see you on the sidewalk long before you see them.
Your statements would carry more weight outside of the home environment, but in the home, it's often quite easy (with a little thought) to stage your home turf in a way that makes ambushing a threat without weapon lights that give away your position fairly easy and more sensible. Many people in these discussion ignore how our eyes work, quite simply. You can easily use light differences and the time it takes our eyes to adjust as we transition from a lighter spot to a darker one to your advantage.
Have you ever been in a dark spot or corner while looking into a lighter area? Because it's quite possible for you to be looking into an area well-lit enough to ascertain the target without being clearly identified yourself, and without utilizing the absurd lumen explosion of most lights, which immediately give away your position and startle everyone (including a perp who may have his finger already on the trigger and pointed in your direction). May work if there is only one threat. If there are two, or three, you likely die before you get the third shot off. It is quite possible for me to stand in a dark room of my house, look out into a room that has some lighting and clearly see anything there, while being difficult or impossible to see by someone in that already-lit room or hall. My night sights show up, still, because the room I'm in is dark, and that semi-lit room is quite bright for my eyes to identify what's in it, as my eyes are adjusted to the dark, but it's not so bright I lose all of the glow, and those dots do help me make sure I've got alignment since there's no light behind me. Someone standing in that room or hall would strain to see me. It is often easy to stage your house this way so that any entry ways have night lights bright enough that they make it impossible to see into the other dark rooms until you get your eyes adjusted. By the time they make it that far, their soul is leaving their body. I can see my night sights, too, and it doesn't take 10 million lumens to accomplish that because my eyes are adjusted to the dark.
In fact, shining a very bright light, suddenly, indoors, can also disorient YOU if you have been hiding in the dark with your eyes adjusted to the dark. Unless you have your walls painted black,, brown, or purple, immediately a lot of light is going to reflect right back at you. If your walls are white, and the intruder is partially obscured around a corner, they may instinctively hit you before you actually identify them. Remember, intruder doesn't care about trigger discipline or being certain of his target. He's just going to shoot in your direction while you're still trying to filter out the glare off the walls coming back into your own dilated pupils. Not smart. He may be high just carrying the gun in front of him with finger on trigger.
The same concept is even true in the day time. If I am in a deeply shaded set of woods next to a meadow at noon, I can easily identify people in the meadow long before they will naturally see me. If I am in my garage in the daytime, I can see the delivery man walking up long before he sees me, simply because his eyes are adjusted to more light and I'm standing in the shade. The idea you must make yourself a target moments before firing in all settings is oversimplification. If the perp is coming down the hall at you, in the dark, finger on trigger, and he's already on edge (he certainly will be), the shotgun blast resulting from him being startled by your light means your 0.5 seconds to acquire and ascertain target in full lighting is a 0.5 seconds that never initiates for you. Remember, the perps are not practicing trigger discipline nor taking the same 0.5 seconds to make sure they know what they're shooting at. Yes, he's disoriented, but he got a shot off. He's temporarily blinded, and you have a hole in your body. I'd say that means you lose.
Again, not saying lights are never useful. And I'm not saying you shoot in the dark without knowing what you're shooting at...but not having a light and not ever being able to be sure of target are not mutually exclusive. Kids home from college should be aware of certain things, and you should utilize an alarm system that those kids can disarm. There are multiple factors at play in a good home defense strategy. But the idea that night sights are not ever useful without deploying the weapon light is overly simplistic, and ignores many factors and settings, including the physiology of the eyes.
Where lights would be most useful, actually, is away from your home turf, where you don't have opportunity or time to plan. You're still going to give away position, but in such a setting staging an ambush location is usually not going to be an option, so losing that advantage, knowing where you are going matters, and it's better to give away position from some distance than to walk right into their ambush 5 feet away from their barrel. That said, I've been on a friend's property that I'd never been to before, and we had an airsoft duel, and I successfully ambushed him on his own property by using light differences to my advantage outdoors just as I've explained above. Used no light. Saw him coming and identified his position before he could see me.
Do you have a job or did you type this out from mommy’s basement?