Night Sights: Heinie vs Meprolight

[BytorJr]

Does anybody here have experience with both the Heinie slant pro straight eight sights (say for a P2000) vs the Meprolight 3 dot sights?

Just curious to know experiences because I'm looking to buy something new and I'm seriously thinking Heinie, though the gun I'm looking at I get a better overall deal with the Meps. Also, more and more, I'm hearing from instructors that the 3 dots make people shoot worse, and low and behold, if I blacken my back white dots out, I shoot better too. This is why I'm considering the Heinie sights. But, is there something special about installation; sending it to them it's like 220 bucks!!!

Of course, i guess I could sell the Meps at a later time...duhh, why didn't I think of that :)

[bhale187]

I love the Mepros, but then that's probably because I am use to the 3 dot sighting. The Heinies are supposed to be easier for the eye to quickly line up, and I don't doubt that, but to me it was not worth the effort of retraining myself to use them.

My mepros on my USP are 10 years old and you can only barely tell the difference in brightness between them and the brand new set on my P2000sk.

[5FL8AX4]

meprolights are brighter and use a bigger capsule than heine. oh, and they are cheaper

what does that say? mepro is the clear winner with value.

but what about your "sight acquisition"?

yes' its true for alot of people. with the heines, you only have two dots to line up on the vertical plane instead of 3 dots on the horizontal. in dark situations, where there is no visual reference of the firearm, lining up sights can be confusing at times. but the vertical sights are better and simpler for this IMO. but you need to practice with a new system always to become effective. also, as i usually reccomend, get a yellow front sight and keep the rear ones green. the color difference will help reduce acquisition time even more than just having the straight eights by themselves.

and practice point-shooting

[givo08]

I think Heinie straight 8's or some other vertical dot system with a wider rear notch like warren tacticals (not available for H&K's) is much faster than 3 dot. In fact, my split times were almost cut in half by switching from factory 3 dot to heinie straight 8's on my 45c. It made that much of a difference in quick sight/target acquisition.

[Tango374]

You ever concider XS Sights?
http://www.xssights.com/store/handgun.html

About $110

[Solidgun]

If Heinie 8 are available for all HK guns, I would definitely switch to that system for all my carry guns. But it is only available for the USPs, which I do not carry. I have it on my 1911 and target acquisition for me is easier than 3-dot system.

Edit:
It appears that they have these for HK45 and P30s now

[smfoushee]

If Heinie 8 are available for all HK guns, I would definitely switch to that system for all my carry guns. But it is only available for the USPs, which I do not carry. I have it on my 1911 and target acquisition for me is easier than 3-dot system.

Edit:
It appears that they have these for HK45 and P30s now

Their also available for the P30 and P30L, already ordered mine. :D

[ARKAY.357]

Does anybody here have experience with both the Heinie slant pro straight eight sights (say for a P2000) vs the Meprolight 3 dot sights?

Just curious to know experiences because I'm looking to buy something new and I'm seriously thinking Heinie, though the gun I'm looking at I get a better overall deal with the Meps. Also, more and more, I'm hearing from instructors that the 3 dots make people shoot worse, and low and behold, if I blacken my back white dots out, I shoot better too. This is why I'm considering the Heinie sights. But, is there something special about installation; sending it to them it's like 220 bucks!!!

Of course, i guess I could sell the Meps at a later time...duhh, why didn't I think of that :)

I've wondered in the past how this works. If the rear sights are blacked out, to what do you reference the front sight in low light or dark conditions?

Is there a certain technique, or is the method simply intuitive?

Thanks for any info;

ARKAY

[Solidgun]

I have always thought that darkened rearsight only helps in daylight conditions and target acquisition is faster when target shooting in this consition as the round dot upfront shows up round in the rectangular notch.

[mourneblade]

Their also available for the P30 and P30L, already ordered mine. :D

I have Heine sights on both my P30 and HK45. The HK45 has the slightly wider rear sight that they call QWIK. I like them a lot, although I had a three dot system on a glock and didn't mind that either. The Heine sights are of nicer finish than the Meprolights I had.

[NiceHK]

I have Heine sights on both my P30 and HK45. The HK45 has the slightly wider rear sight that they call QWIK. I like them a lot, although I had a three dot system on a glock and didn't mind that either. The Heine sights are of nicer finish than the Meprolights I had.

Which rear sight do you prefer? I plan on acquiring the straight 8's for the p30L and have been wondering which rear i should get. Anyone else with an opinion please share.

[Solidgun]

One sight I would like to see for HK pistols is Suresight. They have these for Glock, S&P, XD and I have heard a lot of good reviews. But I am not going to bother putting them on my Glock as I do not carry Glocks.

For now, I would settle for straight 8 on P7....if they made it.

[mourneblade]

Which rear sight do you prefer? I plan on acquiring the straight 8's for the p30L and have been wondering which rear i should get. Anyone else with an opinion please share.

They both seem fine to me, but I guess Jeff Cooper would say the wider one. :)

[NiceHK]

They both seem fine to me, but I guess Jeff Cooper would say the wider one. :)

Jeff Cooper preaches "The Flash Sight Picture". Could someone elaborate why a wider notch on the rear sight may allow for better use of the flash sight picture technique.

[BytorJr]

Somebody addressed my comment about darkening out the rear sights. That's strictly with "white dots" and no tritium. I experimented with it and found, indeed, my sight picture was much better and I didn't focus (bad) on the rear sights which I usually catch myself doing occasionally.

I guess though, the Heinie's are not available on the P2000 so it may be a moot point. I didn't get a chance to call today and verify since I was making sure the old internal optics were working and couldn't see much the rest of the day after that :).

[GJM]

1) Jeff Cooper disliked three dot sights, and to my knowledge did not use tritium sights. The sights that he specified on the Gunsite Service Pistol were plain black, with serrations on the front sight.

2) Last I spoke with Sarah at Heinie, the tritium sights they had for the HK 45 were slip style, that relied on the tension of the screw to hold them in place. To me, the fit of the sight in the notch should be the belt, and the set screw the suspenders. Anyone know what the status of their HK 45 and P30 sights is in this regard?

[givo08]

Which rear sight do you prefer? I plan on acquiring the straight 8's for the p30L and have been wondering which rear i should get. Anyone else with an opinion please share.

The answer to this question should be partially based on what firearm you have, because the shorter your sight radius is, the narrower your rear sight is. For example, if you get the 0.125" rear sight notch and the front sight is 0.115", on a gun with a 5" sight radius you can see a lot more daylight/space around the front sight when looking through the rear sight than having this same set instaleld on a 3" sight radius gun. The closer the front sight is to your eye, the wider/larger it will appear, and the more of the rear sight it fills up.

I prefer to keep my sight picture relatively the same on any pistol, so I'd personally stick to the 0.125" rear notch on >4" barreled pistols, 0.140" on compact/mid size barreled pistols, and 0.156" on subcompact. I have a 0.156" on my G19 and a 0.140" on my HK45c (which both have about the same sight radius), and I think the G19 sight is way too wide and the HK45c sight is just perfect. I'm considering replacing the G19 rear sight with a 0.140" version. Of course this is all personal preference, and you may find that you like the 0.156" rear notch on a 6" barreled pistol.

[givo08]

You ever concider XS Sights?
http://www.xssights.com/store/handgun.html

About $110

XS sights are horrible for any kind of precision shooting > 10 yards. You can do searches of opinions from multiple "high speed" users of like Bruce Gray and other competitive shooters, and all of them are very negative towards XS sights.