Sometimes a pistol you’re thinking of purchasing is available with either fixed or adjustable sights. I was talking to a lady last week who was considering two guns in the case and who decided she’d prefer the one with adjustable sights, because it was ‘better’.
Not so. For most of us, and for most of the time, fixed sights are very much better than adjustable sights.
If you are choosing a pistol to use for target shooting, and which you’ll carefully transport always in its protective case, then there is a case to be made for adjustable sights. And if you have a rifle that you’ll be shooting different loads through, at widely varying ranges, then adjustable sights are essential.
But for home and/or self-defense purposes, adjustable sights are not only unnecessary but may actively be a bad thing and detract from the ease with which you can use your gun when needed.
Six Reasons to Choose Fixed rather than Adjustable Sights for Your Pistol
First, it doesn’t really matter if the sights are slightly out of alignment on a gun that you’ll be using at large targets and short distances. You’ll probably be snap shooting at the ‘center of mass’ of an oncoming attacker – someone who is already way too close to you, and closing the remaining distance rapidly.
This is not a carefully aimed shot to start with. You’re going to be instinctively pointing and pulling the trigger as fast as you can rather than carefully making sure you have the correct stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, breath and trigger control.
You have a maximum of one, possibly two seconds, in which you need to stop this attacker. Sight alignment is the least of your worries.
Second, adjustable sights are more delicate than fixed sights. If you are carrying your pistol, particularly in a hip type holster, you will for sure bump it against things from time to time, and with the sights being one of the bits that stick out, the chances are you’ll be hitting the sights against other objects from time to time. That is okay for fixed sights, but not so okay for adjustable sights – a few bumps and blows and knocks and you’ve not just bumped them out of alignment, you’ve damaged them so they now wobble loosely or sit on an angle or something.
To put it another way, adjustable sights are something that can more easily ‘go wrong’ – either by accidental damage or just from the stresses inherent in being mounted on the gun’s slide and the strong recoil and spring forces it experiences every time you fire the pistol.
Competition shooters love to adorn their pistols with all sorts of ‘enhancements’ – if they work, the enhancements may improve their chances of winning a competition, and if they don’t work, the worst the shooter has to experience is not winning.
But defensive shooters want a gun that is as simple as possible – the less complex it is, the less that can go wrong, and the more reliable it may be. Because we – the defensive rather than competition shooters – are relying on our gun to save our life, not win a competition, and the downside we face is similarly extreme.
Third, it is extremely rare for factory fixed sights to be appreciably out of adjustment to start with. You just don’t need any adjusting capability. The only thing most of us can do with adjustable sights is ‘un-adjust’ them and make their aiming point worse, rather than better.
Fourth, adjustable sights are often slightly bigger than fixed sights, and may stand proud of the gun a bit more, making it slightly harder to conceal and easier to catch on things.
Fifth, if the sights are indeed larger, they can make fast sight picture acquisition more difficult than with lower seated sights. A big rear sight obscures your picture of your gun’s barrel, and the rear sight can hide the front sight, making it difficult for you to know if the front sight is to the left or right of the rear sight’s notch. Or maybe it is neither to the left or the right – maybe it is too low. These ‘sight acquisition’ issues are not nearly so problematic with small low-rise type fixed sights.
Sixth, if you have a gun with a short barrel, the sight radius – the distance between the front and back sight – is so short to start with that fine accuracy is never going to be possible.
So – do you want adjustable sights on your next defensive handgun? Hopefully not!
For More Information
For more information, please refer to our detailed series on choosing a pistol.