• Sights for your 1911Selecting a sighting system for your 1911 that best fills your needs can become a frustrating experience, until you learn the ins and outs of what's available. There are more choices on the market than ever before and most of what's out there is worthy of consideration. The trick is to figure out what works best for you. Because Everyone's vision is different, one sight may not work as well for you as another; or you may find one design that truly works better for you than the rest. Try out all of your buddies’ guns. You may be able to mark off a number of things from your list of possibilities without spending a cent. Modern sights for 1911 pistols are divided into two categories, "fixed" and "adjustable". Fixed sights are characterized by having no moving parts, being rugged and durable and being somewhat difficult to adjust or re-adjust for different ammo. Adjustable sights are less durable, having many small parts; but are easily adjusted and re-adjusted. Both have their place on a 1911 pistol, depending on its intended use. Regardless of what sights you order, when you receive your pistol, the front and rear sights will be zeroed and secured with Loctite, unless instructed to do otherwise. For the sake of clarity, we’ll begin this discussion with rear sights first, and then front sights. The classic notch and post configuration will be the pattern discussed in this article.
Fixed Rear Sights
Two of the most popular fixed sight installations are the Novak Lo-Mount and the Heinie Slant-Pro. They are both available to fit a variety of different guns, but for now we will only concern ourselves with 1911 installations. Both of these sights require their own special dovetail to be machined into the rear of the slide to allow the sight to be mounted. Developing a following of it's own is the XS Systems Express style sight. A couple of other fixed rear sights worthy of consideration are the King-Tappan and the Heirloom Precision Retro, both fitting the stock rear dovetail on your 1911
Wayne Novak of Parkersburg, WV designed the Novak Lo-Mount rear sight and manufactures it. It is installed as OEM standard on many high-end factory custom pistols like the Springfield Loaded models and Smith & Wesson autos. It has been closely copied on other pistols such as Les Baer and Wilson Combat. The "wedge-shaped" profile and beveled corners and edges of the Novak Lo-Mount make it a very "carry-comfortable" sight. The notch is of adequate size at .125" wide by .105" deep. The notch is situated in a "shadowbox" like recess in the rear blade giving it good protection from damage. Novak's Lo-Mount rear sight is available in either plain black, or a three dot or bar-dot pattern of either white dots or tritium lamps. One other very nice feature is that Novak also makes a "tall" version of this sight that is approximately .050" taller than the standard sight. This tall version was developed for use on Officer's ACP-length guns but is also found on longer guns that have had match barrels fitted that now shoot a little lower than they did originally. Several sight manufacturers make a copy of the Novak sight or a version of their sight to fit the Novak dovetail. Novak makes a version of their Lo-Mount that fits the rear sight cuts on both the SW1911 and Kimber 1911 pistols. They also make a smaller version to fit the 1911 factory dovetail. Since it is original equipment on several factory produced pistols, the Novak sight cut is certainly the most prolific on the market. Almost everyone makes a rear sight to fit the Novak cut, including Heinie, 10-8, Wilson, Champion, Yost Pro Grade and others.
The Heinie Slant-Pro (or the Original) is another very popular rear sight, designed and manufactured by pistolsmith Richard Heinie of Quincy, IL. Heinie developed this sight as an alternative to popular adjustable rear sights because of breakage encountered with the adjustable rear sights, when they were subjected to the high round count of IPSC competition. The sight features a large flat blade that is serrated at 40 lines per inch. The blade is not as wide as a Bo-Mar blade, but is basically as tall. The rear notch is machined to .125" wide by .125" deep, which makes it the deepest rear notch on the market. Many experienced shooters appreciate the fact that this extra deep rear notch helps to provide a sharper focus on the front sight, making the Heinie their sight of preference. The machining required for mounting is different from any other sight, i.e. once your slide is cut for a Heinie, nothing else will fit it. This is also true of most other sights. There is also one more machining step to mount a Heinie than to mount a Novak. The Heinie sight is adequately rounded and beveled for concealed carry use, although maybe not as comfortable as a Novak, for some people. Heinie makes a rear sight with his blade's characteristics married to a base that will fit the ubiquitous Novak sight cut, making for a very nice rear sight. Heinie makes a version of the Slant-Pro to fit Kimber rear sight cuts, both fixed and adjustable.
The sights made by X-S Sighting Systems, developed by Ashley Emerson, mimic the old express sights from big game rifles. They are generally available to fit in the factory rear sight cut and are sold as a system of front and rear sights. The rear sight features a very shallow vee notch with a white painted line and/or vertical tritium bar pointing to the bottom of the vee. The front sight for 1911's generally requires machining a front dovetail. The front sight is a round-topped post featuring either a small white dot and/or tritium lamp or a large one. These systems are advertised as being very fast to acquire the target and get your shot off. The system's proponents state that the claims are true; the detractors typically claim that you can't make a quick accurate shot at anything more than a few yards. I've not used the system enough time to be extremely opinionated, but my initial impression is that it isn't as accurate as a true notch and post system and isn't any faster.
The King-Tappan sight was designed in 1973 by the late survival expert and author Mel Tappan and is manufactured by King's Gun Works in Glendale, CA. It, like the X-S sight is a system of front and rear sights. The rear sight uses a shadowboxed notch with a white bar below the notch. The front sight uses an underlined yellow dot. The rear sight has slightly rounded outside corners that can maybe use a little more rounding. In it's heyday, it was the fixed combat sight to have on your 1911. Thirty plus years later, it's still a viable choice.
One of the newest kids on the block is the "Retro" rear sight manufactured by Ted Yost of Tempe, AZ. It's a design that has been made by other pistolsmiths over the years, but has never been readily available as an off the shelf item. It features nicely rounded outer corners, a good deep notch, and serrations on the rear of the blade and is locked in place by setscrew. The Heirloom Precision Retro can be mixed and matched with almost any front sight. It's a simple, yet elegant design that does everything it's supposed to. It's quickly becoming one of my favorites.
John's Picks
It's hard to go wrong with a Heinie or a Novak; I've seen either used as a carry sight and either used as a match sight. I like bar-dot or Straight 8 patterns mucho better than three dot configurations, simply because there's less stuff competing for your visual attention in the sight picture. If you want a sight that is better than GI, but still fits that profile and dovetail, try the Retro from Heirloom Precision.
Adjustable Rear Sights
Adjustable rear sights are normally adjusted by turning a screw to move the rear blade side to side for windage changes or up and down to change elevation. Once set, it's not uncommon to leave the settings alone for years. Adjustable rear sights can be subdivided into two groups, fully screw-adjustable and those that are screw-adjustable for elevation and drift adjustable for windage. The Bo-Mar BMCS is the original fully screw adjustable rear sight that all others must measure up to. Others have joined the marketplace with similar sights; often fitting the same sight cuts as a Bo-Mar does. The Novak "Extreme Duty" and the MMC Adjustable Tactical rear sights represent the partially screw-adjustable group.
The "Grand Dame" of adjustable sights is the Bo-Mar BMCS, which will celebrate it 50th birthday in 2007. Bo-Mar Tool & Manufacturing Co. is located in Longview, TX and is owned by Bob and Mary Korzeniewski. The Bo-Mar adjustable rear sight was originally developed for pistols competing in bulls eye pistol matches. It was mounted in a rather high fashion in the original rear sight cut, requiring a really tall front sight. As the new sport of combat shooting evolved, pistolsmiths of the day started mounting the BMCS lower into the slide to enable a front sight height that was more reasonable and the provide a more durable and protective mounting. The BMCS is one of the most durable adjustable rear sights on the market. It is also the most widely copied. Some of the copies are good products and some are of lesser quality. The BMCS features screw adjustability for windage and elevation with fine, repeatable clicks on each screw. The blade is serrated at 50 lines per inch on the lower portion and the notch measures .110" wide X .090" deep. The blade is available with the top corners either square or beveled and in plain black or with a tritium bar below the notch. Sad to say, but as mid 2007, BoMar went out of business and all existing stock has been sold out.
In the category of Bo-Mar clones, the Caspian, STI and Wilson are worth considering. The Wilson fills a unique niche in making a version of their sight that has a base long enough to use on a Colt Gold Cup, that will "cover" the original Elliason sight cuts. Bill Wilson also makes a version of their sight that has a unique mounting system, via a under lug that fits a machined slot hidden by the sight body. Champion Gunsight Co. makes a clone that has been used as OEM equipment by several top 1911 manufacturers. They also have a version having a slightly deeper rear notch, which I have used and like a lot.
A holdover from the early days of combat shooting is the Smith & Wesson adjustable sight from their "K" frame series of revolvers. The S&W K sight makes a nice compact adjustable sight when low mounted on a 1911. It's blade and notch are not as prominent as the others mentioned and it's mounting is less durable than a sight with a dovetail mount. To make the installation, the windage body of the sight is either "buried" in a cut that aligns with the original dovetail, or the original dovetail is welded up (or otherwise filled) and the new body cut is made at the rear of the slide. It's a must that extra shear pins be installed to help absorb the forces exerted on the sight's mounting on top of a reciprocating slide. For these reasons, the S&W K sight has pretty much fallen from favor with aficionados of the 1911, although it's occasionally seen on "retro" guns. The blades on S&W pistols are so thin, that they aren't suitable for installation of tritium lamps, combined with an auto pistol installation. Blades are available in plain black and with a painted white outline.
The MMC Adjustable Tactical rear sight is made by Miniature Machine & Tool Co. of Las Vegas, NV and was the first of the "partially screw-adjustables" on the market. MMC wisely decided to adopt the popular Novak dovetail for mounting their sight on 1911 pistols. As mentioned earlier, the MMC is screw-adjustable only for elevation changes. To make changes for windage, one must move the whole rear sight from side to side in the dovetail. The sight is locked in place in the dovetail by a good sized allen set screw. Turning a allen-headed cam (accessible from the left side) will raise or lower the blade to make elevation changes. The elevation changes made by each step in the adjustment cam are different from step to step. The rear blade sits between two side wings for protection. The sight picture is a little bit different from most because the side wings stick up on each side of the blade rather prominently. The notch is .125" wide by .110" deep and the blade's face is unserrated. The MMC is available in a wide variety of combinations of tritium dots, bars, painted lines and of course, plain black.
Fairly new to the market place is the Novak Extreme Duty rear sight. It shares the "wedge shaped" profile, similar to the Novak Lo-Mount. Like the MMC, you have to drift it side to side after loosening a setscrew to change the windage. The elevation screw on the Novak is a slotted screw that is click adjustable and makes repeatable consistent changes from click to click. The sight picture of the Extreme Duty is very similar to the MMC, with the side wings sticking up on each side of the blade. The tops of the side wings are more rounded over than those on the MMC. The sight fits slides already machined for a Novak Lo-Mount, after making one additional cut in front of the dovetail. The Extreme Duty is available in plain black, painted white dots, tritium three dot or tritium bar-dot patterns.
John's Picks
For an adjustable sight, it's hard to beat a Bo-Mar BMCS style sight in a deluxe box cut mount. It is available with a tritium bar and all it takes is a screwdriver to adjust it. The MMC & Novak are worth considering if you have a gun already cut for a Novak and you want to add a degree of easy adjustment. I'd suggest that you try them out on a friends gun first to see if you like the sight picture.
Adjustable vs. Fixed
Some people will have adjustable sights installed on their carry gun, but I personally wouldn't. The possibility of breakage goes up with adjustable sights, due to the small parts involved. The harsh reciprocating motion of a slide can take its toll. Don't get me wrong - they don't fall apart after six months or a few years, but the potential is there for an adjustable to fail; where is not with a fixed sight. The up side is that should it fail, it's not likely to stop the function of the gun. It may get a little tough to shoot the eye out of a gnat at fifty yards, but the gun will probably still function. And don't think that adjustable sights are the only ones that can break, you may find your fixed rear sight having moved way off to the side of the slide one day. You need to check it's position and periodically give is a hard push to see that it remains still. If you can move it, the easy fix is a drop of loc-tite in the dovetail. Front sights can break off and can walk out of their dovetail too. I like to use loc-tite and a 1/16" roll pin on my front sight blades.
Harrison Design Hard Use sights
The HD-001 rear sight for the 1911 pistol fills a unique need in the firearms marketplace. It allows the owner of an existing 1911, equipped with a low mounted BoMar BMCS rear sight, the option of replacing it with a hard-use fixed rear sight with features better suited to tactical and self defense use. This is accomplished by the unique two-piece design, which allows the HD-001 to be mounted in both the "Deluxe" box cut and the "Standard" open cut. The rugged hidden lug joining the dovetail base to the sight body makes this sight more than adequate for hard-use service. See the "News" section of this web site for more info and pictures.
Sharp, snaggy corners have been eliminated by the fully radiused design. The forward face of the blade has a squared-off shoulder that allows properly trained personnel one-handed operation for malfunction clearance. Faster target acquisition is possible, thanks to a wider rear notch, allowing more visible light into sight picture. The sight’s design allows a minimum of .030" windage adjustment in each direction, creating the ability to correct for roughly 3" of error at 20 yards. Machined from bar stock and Made in the USA!
Retail $85.00 + $4.80 postage by Priority Mail
Front Sights
Front sights for 1911's are available in two different mounting configurations; dovetail or stake-in. Both methods have their place, although dovetail offers some advantages. The stake-in front sight is secured by a square shaft or "tenon" that extends downward from the sight blade, through a square hole or "mortise" in the top of the slide. The tenon is swaged from underneath to in effect rivet the sight to the slide. Not a bad system of attachment, but not large enough to always secure the larger front sights, when the manufacturers started making the sights larger, so as to be more visible. M-1911 pistols were originally designed with a very small set of sights, front and rear. Because the front sight was so small, it didn't need a very large tenon to secure it to the slide. The original size of the tenon was .058" x .058". When Colt began producing the Series '80 pistols, they enlarged the tenon size to .125" x .125" to strengthen the attachment.
Dovetail mounting became popular with the advent of custom ‘smiths installing compensators on the 1911 during the early days of IPSC competition in the 1980's. The front sights were relocated forward of the slide to ride on the compensator body and dovetails were used to attach the custom made sight. The dovetails used were both cross dovetails that were cut from side to side and front dovetails that were cut front to back or back to front and usually were left blind, not breaking through the other side. The front dovetails were very elegant and attractive, but the sights were more expensive to make and the installation was more complicated. The cross dovetail has become the standard front sight mounting system in use today.
The cross dovetail that we use today has never been standardized for size and placement on the slide by the industry. This has led to the creation half-dozen or more sizes for the pistolsmith to deal with. The two most popular sizes are Novak's .330" x .075" x 65 degree dovetail and Heinie's .300" x .060" x 60 degree tapered dovetail. Novak's sights come with the blade pre-drilled for a 1/16" roll pin. I think of the roll pin as more a way to center the blade in the slide, rather than to be the sole means of retaining the sight. My goal is to cut the dovetail to a size that allows the sight to freely enter the dovetail, but require a degree of force to move it to the center of the slide. At final assembly after test firing, I add a drop of Loc-Tite 272 to the dovetail to enhance the strength of the joint.
The front sight, regardless of it's mounting can be customized to suit the owners needs and tastes. In the majority of cases, I use a dovetail sight with an over-sized blade known as a "blank" to make these custom front sights from. I can machine the width, height and profile to dimensions specified by the customer or can make suggestions based on my experience. The height will be dictated by test firing the gun, but in general, I try to go no shorter than .175" tall. I machine the top with a slight slope towards the front to sharpen the sight picture and machine a radius on the front corner to reduce snagging. The normal width supplied on sights is .125" wide. I'm frequently asked to narrow the front sight to help the shooter acquire a quicker sight picture and see the sight more clearly. A commonly asked for width is .110", but narrower blades can be done on request. Profiles can be machined to an undercut post, a post, an improved ramp and a speed ramp. The profile that I recommend to most customers is an "improved ramp" which is cut at about 75 degrees. I also recommend serrating the rear face of the sight blade at 40 or 50 lines per inch to eliminate glare.
Fiber Optic Front Sights
We are all taught early-on that the front sight is of paramount importance in the sight picture. Of the three elements of the sight picture; target, front sight and rear sight; the front sight is what we are taught to focus on. As we get involved with sports that reward us for shooting quickly, we try to utilize any advantage that will let us see the sights quicker. The fiber optic front sight was developed with that in mind. For years, shooters and manufacturers painted different colored dots and inserted pieces of colored plastic or metal into the front sight blade to make it more noticeable. Some ideas worked better than others.
Thanks to the advent of light-transmitting fiber optic plastics, we now have a front sight illuminator that can really grab your attention. The fiber optic sight typically has a piece of .040 to .080" diameter fiber optic rod inserted into a hole drilled lengthwise through the sight blade. The center section of the sight blade is usually cut away to expose the fiber optic rod to light. The light enters the rod sides and is reflected toward each end. This gives a sight picture with a glowing red or green dot centered in the top of their front sight. The bigger the rod, the more exposed the center and the brighter the light, the brighter the dot glows. The color of the dot and the intensity in which it glows can be varied to suit the tastes of most shooters.
As with most things in life, you can also get too much of a good thing. It's possible to get the rod glowing to the point that you no longer have a distinct illuminated dot, but a burning glob of fuzzy color that obscures the sight picture, rather than enhances it. I'd suggest that you start with a smaller rod, around .040" to test the concept of a F/O sight. Fiber optic rods have a nasty habit of breaking and falling off the gun at the wrong time; generally while you're shooting. Treat them like batteries; change them before they break. They'll only last so long before they absorb enough residue from firing to become dim. They are not night sights; they only work from the ambient light present.
Dawson Precision and Brazos Custom are both heavily into fiber optic sights. They both make a variety of options in different dovetail sizes, different heights, widths, and rod sizes. Brazos also makes a F/O sight that really appeals to me, called the MicroDot Lightning Rod. It has an extra sight post at the rear with a small hole drilled through it for the glowing rod to be seen through. To me, this fixes a problem that I've always personally had with F/O sight; the size of the dot being inconsistent because you alter it when you melt in a replacement rod.
Tritium Night Sights
All of the players in the 1911 sight market make their product with tritium filled lamps in one configuration or another. Each lamp consists of a glass cylinder filled with tritium gas inside an aluminum cylinder. The glass cylinder's glow is seen through a sapphire lens. I use lamps supplied by Trijicon in my custom night sights, with the exception of the "bar" installation in rear sights.
There are two widely used patterns of lamp placement, three dot and bar-dot (Straight-8). I have a strong opinion about night sight patterns: bar-dot is better by far, than three dot. I believe that the three-dot pattern puts too many items into the sight picture, which all compete for your attention and focus. By putting the rear sight illuminator below the notch, you still have adequate points of reference for aiming in diminished light, but the daylight sight picture stays relatively uncluttered. The only part of the tritium lamps that you see in a daylight sight picture is the lamp in the front sight, which can be useful, even in daylight on targets that are very dark. Front night sights can be installed in one of two ways. You can have the front sight blade serrated and a plain lamp installed, or you can have a white ring around the lamp, but it can only be done to a non-serrated blade. You are also limited to how much you can have the front blade narrowed. Trijicon will not install a lamp in a sight with less than .015" wall thickness; therefore, I limit the width reduction to .115 with the plain lamp and no reduction if you want a white ring. Honestly, I’d rather open the notch width in the rear with night sights.
Gold Bead and White Dot sights
I install a lot of 14k Gold beads in front sights, as well as White dots made from pure white synthetic rod. I think they offer a way to give the shooter a contrasting bit of color in the front sight with none of the negatives of the fiber optic (breakage) or the tritium (doesn’t offer much contrast in daylight and has a limited lifespan). Either material will last forever and give good service. If pressed for my favorite, my eyes like the white dot (.062" diameter) better than the Gold Bead (.082" diameter). To me, the appearance of the White Dot stays more consistent in varying light conditions than the Gold Bead does.
Maintenance
The only thing your sights require to give years of service is to keep them clean. Avoid any use of harsh cleaners to any sight with fiber optic, tritium lamp, colored inserts as they are all retained by adhesives or made of a material that will dissolve in the harsh stuff. A rag wet with gun oil is all you need. Occasionally, check any setscrews to be sure they’ve not loosened. If you find one, remove it and put a drop of blue loctite in the hole, then run it back in and tighten securely.
