At fifty my eyes are only going to get worse! I love red dots! My Scorpion is set with a brace, a WML and a Sig Romeo5 RDS. It's primarily a range toy but I've used the Sig on it long enough to be pretty confident in it (plus the irons cowitness through the tube). Not sure if it's a "serious" enough gun to warrant buying an Aimpoint or Trijicon sight for it.

My Bren 805 however...I do run an Aimpoint on that one. It's set up as my serious HD firearm. IMO there are lots of great RDS for plinking and general shooting but a short list of truly battle-worthy optics. Aimpoints work best for me and my eyes. I've got astigmatism but it bothers me the least with Aimpoints, and even though the dot will distort when my eyes are fatigued it doesn't really impair my ability to gets accurate shots quickly.

My AR is currently set up with a magnified optic. I used to run an Aimpoint on it but I prefer the Bren 805 so the AR has been relegated to range gun use mostly.

I was at a buddy's place last week and tried his Beretta ARX with a RDS. Very impressive! It wasn't a top-tier optic but as proof of concept I was very intrigued. Red dots do for pistols what they do for rifles, and I think they're a legitimate game changer. Now I just have to decide which sidearm to get milled. The top contenders are all HKs; my USPf9, VP9 or P30S. My normal carry gun is a P2000 but I'm not sure if I'd go the RDS route on that one or not. It has a V2 LEM but I'd like to send to back to the mothership to get the V1 LEM dropped in. The VP9 would be a good candidate as it's the easiest to shoot well. My USP has a match trigger so it's actually the easiest to shoot well I guess but it's a bit bulky to CCW every day.

Phaedrus... I had a similar problem trying to decide which slide to have machined... I picked up a Gen 5 G45 on Glock's Blue Label program they opened up to DD214 holders (still good till Veteran's Day)... I had a new set of Dawson fixed sights added to the G45 so went with the older Gen 3 G17... I have started shooting another G17 with a Vortex Venom for Steel Challenge, and get a lot of .22lr practice time in with the Venom sighted Advantage Arms conversion unit for the G17

Does this mean that the standard factory post and notch sights on my S&W 357 Mag Highway Patrolman are no longer state of the art, and possibly obsolete??

Hikermor... I still have a flip phone, so no... I tried to find a 3" M13/65 round butt but couldn't for years... I had to make my own from a M10 that I added a 3" barrel..

I've been playing the gun games for a lot of years, and it is good to see the impact and ideas competition adapted firearms have on people that carry them for a living

Good input. At age 66 my eyes definitely are not what they used to be, especially so in low light or darkness. This will be set up for serious defensive use, so am looking to make it pretty much military grade tough. That one reason I settled on the DD5. Marty builds really reliable firearms that won't let you down.

Hahaha! I don't want to be the bearer of bad news! No, it's been 25 years or so since those sights have been SOTA. The advent of tritium sights has probably made them 'obsolete' in the strictest sense. Most of the sidearms that I use for CCW have night sights which I think are a bit of an advantage, and at least one that doesn't have them wears a WML.

Obviously plain old sights do the same thing now they did during the Civil War. IMO it's not so much a case of them being obsolete as a case of having better options. The key word being options as in optional. I have found through experience that it's easier to shoot quickly and accurately with a RDS. In competition I think most guns have had them for a decade and a half.

Lastly I realize that no all gun owners are 'gun nuts' although I would probably fall into that latter category.

Post and notch sights are pretty close to being state of the art for reliability and ruggedness. And they're pretty awesome for lack of bulk and complexity.

I strongly prefer tritium sights (and have standardized on them for defensive pistols) but for me it's about rapid sight acquisition in moderate-to-low lighting conditions.

In true low-light shooting with handheld lights or a mounted weaponlight, the light shining off the target and backstop will wash out the tritium, leaving you with essentially a black post and notch.

Let's just say, hypothetically of course, that you are giving advice to a geezer with an antique 357 six shooter What sort of ugrade would provide useful capability in low light situations and not be excruciatingly expensive?

Some of us might need useful activities in between fire alerts....

Hikermor... a good light would be my first recommendation, preferably one that can attach to the barrel, and if not a hand held light and shooting support position that keeps your hand away from any cylinder gap escaping gases,... a P60 hand held size (similar to a Surefire 6P, LED powered by 1860 or 2xcr123)

I looked for production mounts for SW K and N frame (couldn't remember what a M27/28 is)


I'm not recommending this particular product, but something like this copy of a GI M16 mount (ideal if you could find one) a couple of wraps of tape to protect your barrel, and a clamp on mount that could take a 1913 (Picatinny) rail, or a 1" flashlight body

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tactical-Barrel-Mount-Adapter-25-4mm-Ring-Rail-for-Scope-Sight-Laser-Light-Torch/401840058042?hash=item5d8f88aeba:g:Q~kAAOSwx6Za8Bwi

25+ years ago there was a place that would drill out and retrofit tritium vials into fixed sights but I don't remember the name. If yours are fixed sights there may not be a lot of options. Older sidearms, especially wheelguns, were designed before lasers, night sights, optics and lights became fairly common. If your sights are dovetailed in then you probably have some options.

If a laser interests you at all then there are grips that have the laser mounted inside. I'm not big on lasers but a buddy of mine has a RDS and laser on his Beretta APX and it does seem to work well.