What kind of sights are needed for a SD gun?

[rimfirematt]

Looking at a glock, the sights on them are pretty plain and that white ouline around the rear sight doesnt look right. And My biggest complaint is that they are not adjustable.

How are you supposed to shoot and train with a gun if the sights do not point at the actuall bullet impact?

This gun will be for self defense. Hopefully only used at the range for practice. Should I look into adjustable sights? Remember where to aim when pointing the gun? Not worry about it as long as I can hit a pie plate at 10 yards?

[tananaBrian]

Glock sells different height rear sights for elevation adjustment, but I'll bet ya that you don't need to adjust elevation. You didn't say, but I suspect you are talking about windage adjustment. The front sight dovetails in and can be adjusted by driving it left/right within the dovetail. The sight will move. I layed my G19 on leather, then drove the sight to the side by tapping it with a used brass casing and hammer. Glock sells a front-sight adjustment tool that is probably easier to use however. And I'll bet that if you call them, they'll likely ship you different height rear sights and maybe even an adjustable (elevation and windage) rear sight. Someone else I know called and got that stuff for free. BUT before you do anything, make sure you shoot the gun off of sandbags tha support both the foreend and the butt of the grip to make sure it's the gun sights that are off, not your shooting. And if your gun is shooting waay off, like 12 to 18 inches off to one side or the other, then have a qualified gunsmith take a look at it. Most Glocks shoot right on, right out of the box. Remember, it's a 20-30 foot gun, not designed for long-distance shooting. You should be able to get 2" (or so) groups at these distances when shooting off the sandbags. Oh, and given the usage the gun was designed for, I don't see any compelling reason to go and get adjustable sights... it's just one more thing to get out of kilter. I believe in fixed sights for self defense guns.

Good luck,
Brian

[Amigo Will]

Bullseye shooting at twenty fives yards is nice and if your SD gun does that good.Most SD will happen at about seven yards or less though and your Glock sights should be fine for that,center mass is the target

[JOAT]

It's actually the rear sight that's in the dovetail, but otherwise it is easily adjusted for windage as stated by Brian. If you need elevation changes, they have different heights for the front sight post available at a cost of about $2 each.

The Glock adjustable sight isn't worth the effort. You still have to drift it in the dovetail for windage and the height adjustment is a small screw with different thickness flats on it giving you a couple fixed heights as you turn it from one flat to the next. This raises or lower the rear notch based on the rigidity of the plastic pushing back down agasint this screw. I always thought it was a pretty cheesy way to do sight adjustment. Add in the fact that the adjustable plastic rear sight can actually be broken off during one-handed malfunction clearance procedures and it is clear that the Glock adjustable is for recreational use only.

As a rule of thumb, most right-handed shooters need to have the rear moved slightly to the right, while most left-handed shooters need it a bit to the left. Best reasoning is that the unique trigger pull of a Glock causes the shooter to pull the gun slightly as they are pulling the trigger. It can be a very difficult thing to get a perfectly straight trigger pull on a Glock, and when you're talking short range combat shooting, it doesn't matter as we're only looking for a 6" group. You'll only really notice it when you're trying to do 1-hole drills at longer ranges or knock down a steel at 50 yards to impress your buddies.

There are only a couple upgrades that I found worthwhile for combat Glock sights over the standard fixed sights. One is tritium nights. The Glock version night sights are pretty good and they are bargain priced when you buy the gun with them pre-installed. They are 3-dot, but otherwise just a steel duplicate of the original plastics. Various aftermarket nights are just as good and better.

Another upgrade that I found very interesting was the triangle sights. There are a couple versions out there and instead of putting a post in a notch, you rest the front triange onto the back truncated triangle (forming a complete triangle when aligned). It is a very fast aquisition and being a triangle shape the sight doesn't block out as much of your view of the target. My caution would be that this type of sight is so different than what we normally use that you should spend many hours training with it before placing such a gun in SD service.

[2PawsRiver]

Sights are great, but for self defense you should concentrate on shooting instictive or just looking over the top of the weapon. Self Defense will most likely be low light, fast, and close.

[rimfirematt]

A freind brought up a good point about a self defense gun, especially how they relate in a people situation. They are needed to fire over one shoulder while getting out of the situation.

And if something was charging, yah you arent lining up the sights.

[JOAT]

In fact, a common technique is to put a piece of black electrical tape over the rear sight so that you cannot use the sights at all. Then you practice using the overall outline of the gun, not specifically the sights, to align the gun at close range targets (always inside of 7 yards). You learn to "feel" the alignment of the gun by the way you are holding it and the rough outline while you remain focused on the target.

To summarize the features of good SD sights...

Foolproof (nothing to break, no adjustable thingies)
Rugged (can you rack the slide by hooking the rear sight on your belt, jeans, or boot?)
Snag resistant (rounded and/or low profile for concealed carry)
Work in low light (when most SD encounters occur)