Front Sight Focus! If you ever take a defensive pistol glass you’ll hear that phrase over and over. Front sight focus is an easy concept to understand. Is it easy in practice? It can be, with the right sights. Your front sight should be easy to see, and easy to focus on. We can help you there. A front sight with high visibility will make front sight focus more than a concept.

Choosing a Color

Handgun sights are an extremely personal choice since every person sees the world in a different way.

 In general, most human eyes pick up one color faster than any other, and that color is green. Therein lies both a solution and a problem. Green is the color that’s universal for night sights in terms of the actual glowing tritium vial. That’s great in when it comes to low light shooting and honestly it’s perfect. Now what happens when the sun rises or the light switch is flipped, or maybe you turn your weapon light on. Night sights can’t save you here. As concealed carriers we need to be ready 24/7.

You can’t quite see the glowing front and rear sight when the lights come on. If you’ve gone with some less than stellar night sights you don’t really have options.  If you’ve bought a high quality set of iron sights then you have a daylight option too. For example, Night Fision sights use a fluorescent additive in our ballistic polymer ring around the tritium. This gives you an easy to see and fast to pick up daylight option for combat and sport shooting.

Night Fision utilizes three different front sight colors for daylight shooting: White, Yellow, and Orange

White

White is often very easy to see in both bright and low light situations. You can see the sight quite quickly and as a passive color it’s very easy to focus on. The biggest downside to using white front sights comes in situations where fractions of a second are on the line. In situations that are moving fast the white front may get lost in a world of white. White is a common color in our living world. Not so much in nature, but in the world around you, especially in urban environments.

Yellow

The majority of our customers agree this is the best performing color of the three in most lighting conditions. Yellow is a lot like green, the human eye picks it up very quickly. In fact, the eye picks up on yellow almost as fast as it picks up on green. The only downside to yellow is its somewhat reflective nature. In super bright situations it can strain the eye for extended periods of shooting. Further, a lot of shooters will also experience wash out when mixing yellow with white rear rings. Consequently, combining a yellow front sight with black rings in the rear sight and have become one of Night Fision’s top sellers.

Orange

Orange is a high visibility color that is slightly below yellow and green on the eyes ability to pick it up. However, it’s still extremely fast, much better than just a tritium vial. It’s also less reflective and easier to focus on. When utilizing white rear sights this system allows the user to aim with precision or speed due to the contrasting colors. There isn’t the same washout effect with orange sights.

At the End of the Day

Of course there is always user preference. User preference when it comes to firearms is individualistic by nature and doesn’t care what color the eye picks up the fastest. Your genetics and personal experiences will help guide your choice. It is Night Fision’s mission to ensure you have an option that is perfect for you.

-Tommy Tips