Get Some Fiber In Your Diet!

Squinting? It might look cool on Clint Eastwood, but it’s not cool when you’re looking for the front sight on your pistol. If it takes you a second to find it when you bring the gun up, it could be that you’re dealing with aging eyes (like me). But it could also be that you aren’t really using the best sights in the first place.

Now, if you’re a gun enthusiast this probably isn’t exactly earth-shattering news…but the OEM sights equipping many new pistols aren’t necessarily what you would call optimal. They’ll get the job done in most cases, but the bottom line is that upgrading your sights is one of the single best, easiest, and least expensive modifications you can make to a handgun. (Disclaimer: What follows is my opinion about what works well for me, and what doesn’t. You may have different results and different opinions, and that’s fine. You do you.)

The plastic OEM sights found on Glock pistols are often the first things to be upgraded (and rightly so).

As the title of this article implies, I am personally partial to front sights with a fiber optic insert. Although there are tons of different iron sight configurations available, my favorite arrangement is a fiber optic front sight paired with a plain black rear sight. Allow me to explain by first explaining why I dislike some other common sighting setups.

One of the most common OEM front/rear sight combinations found on new guns today are 3-dot Novak (or similarly styled) sight sets. I’ll cut right to the chase here…I hate these things. I find that when a gun equipped with three identical (usually white) dots comes into my eyeline, it can take a moment to sort out which of those three dots indicates the front sight. (You know…because there’s three of them, and they’re all the same.) This can be a real problem when speed is important, such as in competition…or in a self-defense situation. At the very least, the first thing I do when I get a gun with white 3-dot sights is to grab a Sharpie and black out the rear sight.

Pick a dot…any dot.

In addition to the common painted white dots, there are other 3-dot setups which in my opinion are not much better, if at all. For example, my duty gun (a Glock 17) is equipped with 3-dot tritium night sights (and I hate them). This leaves us with the same problem as white dots in daylight (three identical dots bouncing around out there), and I would contend an even worse problem in limited light situations. To begin with, I don’t think night sights are all that great anyway. If you have enough light to identify your target…which you always should, because you are always using a quality white flashlight during times of low light…then you don’t need what are essentially lighted sights. A flashlight which is bright enough to properly ID a threat will also be bright enough to allow you to see your sights. But if you were to attempt to line up three tritium-lit dots in a low-light environment, you are going to have even more difficulty sorting them out in the dark than in the daylight (you know, to shoot that threat that you can’t see all that well). If you really feel like you must have night sights, keep it to the front sight only.

Three glowing dots in the dark? Not an improvement.

Then there are 3-dot setups which use one color for the two dots on the rear sight, and another color for the dot on the front sights. They may use either paint or fiber optic inserts to achieve this, but the effect is the same. While you now have colors to help you differentiate between front and rear sights, this is still an arrangement which requires your brain to do some sorting at a time when you’re trying to go fast. This might be an improvement over three identical dots, but just barely. If anything, I’d suggest that using differing colors for front and rear sights is tacit admission that knowing which dot belongs in the middle is actually kind of important, and an issue which ought to be addressed.

Let’s see…orange means front sight, that means it goes in the middle, right?

But fear not…there is a solution. Get rid of the three dots! If you need to shoot quickly, you are most likely in a competitive or defensive situation where rapid acquisition of the front sight is priority one. To that end, the ability to quickly pick up your front sight visually (and know it’s the front sight you’re looking at) is the primary consideration when selecting your sight system. In my opinion, the best arrangement to achieve this is a plain black rear sight, coupled with a fiber optic insert front sight. For what it is worth, I am partial to sights from Dawson Precision. (No…I’m not sponsored, and I’ve paid full retail for everything I’ve ever gotten from them.)

What you will find with this configuration is that as your sights come into view, available light collected by the exposed fiber optic rod on top of the front sight will cause the dot created by the bulbed end of the insert to really pop, even on cloudy days (on sunny days, it will look as if it is actually lighted!). The fact that the rear sight is plain black isn’t a big deal, because you shouldn’t be focused on the rear sight anyway. Actually, I find that the plain black provides contrast to the brighter front sight and help make it that much more obvious to the eye. Then, once the fiber optic dot of the front sight is in view, you can then refine your sight picture as necessary for the shot you are making. I find this setup to be much easier (and quicker) for my eyes and brain to sort out than common 3-dot arrangements.

So if you want a better look at your front sight…stop squinting and get some fiber in your diet!