Do I need new sights???

[bruce21b]

Hey everybody,
I got a question, I just did the conversion from a 32 to a 23, New barrel and mags. Do I need to change my sights also? Another poster on the 357 forum brought this up about different heights of the rear sights????

[cnarramoore]

I am getting ready to start a 357/40 gun and I am going with an Adjustable Sight.

[HSM ITH]

Darned if I know. How does it shoot?

[rivvy7071]

Get a good set of notch & post Heinie's & a Surefire 120 Lumen flashlight. Night sights are overated. If it is too dark to see the threat, your night sights are worthless & then you would be foolish to shoot. If it is light enough to see the threat, then you don't need NS. Deadly confrontations usually take place within 10 to 15 feet. When the s**t hits the fan, I guarantee you won't be thinking about, or trying to line up your front sight on the threat. Your focus will be on that threat. You will be 'point shooting.' This method requires some practice. It is more muscle memory than anything. In any competition shooting, whether it is IPSC or IDPA, on any target at 30 feet or less, experienced shooters point shoot. Try it. Just put a target at 10 feet. Draw & fire 1 shot as soon as the gun comes on target. You can also start at 'low ready.' Just focus on the spot on the target you will hit.
After you have put 30 shots in the 'A' zone, move the target to 15 feet, then 20, & finally 30 feet. Beyond 30 feet you may have to use the front sight. I have competed on many night stages, most outdoors, some indoors. Usually I use a Surefire 120 Lumen flashlight which is a great defensive tool. It will blind the threat. Even though these are practice drills, the adrenalin flows. Most targets are 5 to 30 feet away. After doing these drills for the last 15 years, my experience, & those of hundreds of fellow shooters is that muscle memory (practice)is king. We clear a house of threats as fast & accurately as we can. We find that our focus is on the target, not the sights in a simulated threat situation. If you are in a 'real' situation, do you honestly think you will have the time to or the focus to line up your sights on a moving, threatening target?


__________________


riverrat

[Coug]

Night sights are great for low light situations. If you are in the 15+ ft gun fight and you can't see your sights you are in serious trouble. The gentle glow of those sights could be the difference by which you survive. A responsible citizen doesn't blast away with unaimed or marginally aimed fire.

-Coug

[Poppa Bear]

Don't know if you need new sights or not. An idea came to me about my sights on my G22, if anyone wants to say it's not possible then explain away.

Out of the box my G22 shot low. Went a level higher on the rear sight, 6.9 I believe, to bring POA and POI in line with each other. Got to thinking about the reason for the low out of the box shooting, and wondered if the barrel to locking block relationship was such that the barrel was slightly higher than normal in the locking block? If so it would cam the barrel down slightly at the muzzle and require the taller rear sight to bring it back in line. So what would be the effect if you installed a new after market barrel or a conversion barrel? Would the relationship of the barrel to locking block be changed enough to thrown the sights off to a noticeable degree?

[Poohgyrr]

Bruce,
If you are talking about different points of impact between the two calibers, I believe Glock puts the same sights on both, so probably not. But go to the range and see what happens with you & your pistol.

If you are talking about how some folks say the plastic sights are fragile, well, the stock sights are cheap & easy to replace as needed. And steel sights are also easy to put on. So it is up to you, use whichever you want.

IMHO, sighted & unsighted fire both require practice to be good. When I practice, I'm good. When I don't I'm lousy. That is for both using the sights & not.... There is a time & place for both. Whatever people train to do, is what they will do when something happens- that is just my experience & I could be wrong. But in all honesty I doubt it. This is a personal decision. My personal choice is to prepare for the frequent, but also outside the average, shootout. Thugs are learnng to hide behind hostages (think family), which means a headshot- which for me, means sighted fire. Other times, unsighted fire can work. If life is good, we never have to do any of this for real............
:soap:

[steyrd straight]

Get a good set of notch & post Heinie's & a Surefire 120 Lumen flashlight. Night sights are overated. If it is too dark to see the threat, your night sights are worthless & then you would be foolish to shoot. If it is light enough to see the threat, then you don't need NS. Deadly confrontations usually take place within 10 to 15 feet. When the s**t hits the fan, I guarantee you won't be thinking about, or trying to line up your front sight on the threat. Your focus will be on that threat. You will be 'point shooting.' This method requires some practice. It is more muscle memory than anything. In any competition shooting, whether it is IPSC or IDPA, on any target at 30 feet or less, experienced shooters point shoot. Try it. Just put a target at 10 feet. Draw & fire 1 shot as soon as the gun comes on target. You can also start at 'low ready.' Just focus on the spot on the target you will hit.

At extremely close range (i.e. within 10 feet, for most people) the "speed rock" or similiar methods seem to work fairly well, and may indeed be the only type of fire that one can effectively use, especially when considering retention issues (someone knocking the gun away from you).

However, at ranges much longer than 10 feet, the situation becomes considerably more complicated. First of all, we have to establish what we mean by "point shooting." Some people are really talking about hip/cowboy/speed rock shooting, but it seems that we are talking about extending the arms and raising the gun to eye level (whether we are focusing on the front sight or not). These are two totally different methods of using a gun. The main reason that you would take the extra time in bringing the gun up to eye level is to use the gun or some part of the gun as some kind of reference point, whether you are simply using the outline of the gun, focusing on the target but keeping the sights in your peripheral vision, or using a perfect target shooter sight picture (which admittedly is not likely used in a close, dirty and desperate scenario). Many would argue that any of these constitutes a form of aimed fire, and there are a number of methods using less than a perfect sight picture taught by Cooper, Cirillo, Ayoob, et al.

The point of the matter is that if you are bringing the gun up to or close to eye level, I think it's safe to say that having a set of glowing sights on your gun cannot hurt, and can only help you shoot straighter and quicker, which is the goal, after all, whether on the range or at someone trying to kill you. It will also help you develop the long term muscle memory that you need to shoot better when you train.

As for other tools, keep in mind that a bright flashlight may indeed help you identify a target, but if the target is already shooting at you or has a gun drawn and threatening you or someone else, I think you might want to go for the gun first rather than the flashlight. :) Similiarly, you may or may not have time to deploy a gun-mounted laser in a self-defense situation. In any case, again, it would be nice to have something on the gun that makes it easier to line up, in any case, and tritium sights fit the bill well.

Try the MMC adjustable sights as they are the most compact of adjustable sight design, and easy to adjust for elevation. Definitely go with tritium versions, 3 dot, dot/bar, whatever floats your boat, they make different versions. The Heinie "Straight 8" sights are also excellent for both target and more practical applications.

[Lancelot]

Until you shoot it, you don't know and neither will we. But the stock answer is no. If it has the factory fixed sights on it, it should be fine. Glock only makes one front sight, but three different rear sights. (height) The standard is 6.5mm, and that would be true for both the 23 and the 32. You can swap out the rear if need be, no need to swap out the front.

But I highly recommend night sights. Its a good investment.

[Poppa Bear]

Found this link which should help: LINK (http://www.glockparts.com/main.php3?primNavIndex=3&)

[hanguknamja]

steyrd, and riverrat have the idea for ya. if u want sights just to shoot, you wont have to mess with the sights. the sights on both models are the same. in a defensive situation, a flashlight will be very usefull have the executive defender in my pocket always. try this, next time you can shoot outdoors at night, or if ur range is having a night fire IDPA type drill, pull a flashlight and shine while aiming, you cant make out your sights very well. nightsights or not. if you really want to have tritium, get a front sight, that'll do. and like rat said, if its too dark to id, not a great idea shooting. but steyrd makes some good pts as well. LE draw their weapons in situations that might get hairy, as civis we do not have that option, so only if... get my drift? but to answer your question, your stock sights are fine, and so were the 40 mags by the way