New sights

[Guns-up.50]

Hey everbody I'm new here and was just wondering if i could get some opinions. I am in the process of building my first custom gun(Colt series 80 Gi Rep). I have already done most of the internal components(trig safety hammer ect disscon ect). Right now im looking at 10-8 for the rear and a target dot w/ tritium for the front . These sights need to be cut in so i was just wondering what you all think before i do it .....

Sorry if this has already been asked i couldnt find it


Thanks .. Justin

[Gunut]

allot of people would go with the same idea .
I cant think of a better setup

[Ttwwaack]

Since both dovetails need to be cut the easiest way would be to select youy rear sight and go with a blank front sight so that you can adjust them to your prefrence; i.e. POA/POI, 2" High or a 6 oclock hold. Once you've established your front sight height you can either send the slide out to get night sight lamps installed or order the correct height front night sight. I heard rumor that 10-8 was going to start manufacturing lamped rear sights and the only source for them currently is the 10-8 website/store, as they haven't hit the other retailers yet. If the lamped sight is unavailable through 10-8, your only course is to send the slide out for lamp installation.

For the front site blank, use a MGW blank front sight .330 x 65 (Novak Style) dovetail available through Brownells. They are basically the same as the Novak and about $8.00 less.

[PhilM]

After reading many posts, on many forums, I just replaced my rear two dot night sight with a 10 - 8 .140, while retaining the front night sight. Front sight acquisition as well as accuracy was greatly improved. This is really personal preference. I found that my 52 year old eyes struggled with the three dot, especially outdoors. I hope this helps.

[TXBob]

The recommendation from the competitive world over at the Brian Enos forums is fairly close to this. The big thing is to try and setup so you have roughly 1/2 width of the front sight as "space" or "light" on either side of the actual front sight (when viewing) to help with target pickup. Its a complex formula for front sight width versus rear notch width, but there has been a lot of discussion about it. The general consensus is factory front sights are too wide, and rear notches too narrow for quick target acquisition--be very specific in what you want as the default widths are usually not optimal.

(I cannot take credit for the original work--this is courtesy of the Brian Enos forum community--I checked the math at one time--a little trigonometry is all it takes).


FS = RS / RR * FR / 2 (solve for front sight)

RS = FS * RR / FR * 2 (solve for rear sight)

FS = ideal front sight width
RS = rear sight opening
FR = front sight radius (distance from eye)
RR = rear sight radius (distance from eye)

Many people have strong preferences on the front sight width (.090 for long range/.140 for close in work), but what you can do is take your particular front sight and then solve for the read sight opening.