It's struck me in recent days that I have never given the handgun express sight system designed by my friend Ashley Emerson a serious workout. This gaping hole in my firearms expertise demanded to be filled, so I decided to pit conventional post/notch sights against the express sights--both for accuracy at distance and for speed in-close.

Ashley Emerson first approached the idea of this design as a way of adapting the sights commonly found on African express hunting rifles to handguns. As Ashley put it, "This is what serious hunters use when they're expecting to run into something dangerous that jumps out at them at close range and tries to kill them. That sounds an awful lot like self-defense, doesn't it?"

Handgun express sights were originally offered for sale by Ashley Outdoors; currently they're available through XS Sights (xssights.com, 888-744-4880). Actually, the original "big dot" design is today called by XS the "standard dot" because it was soon joined by an even larger dot (which is today specifically referred to as the "big dot" to differentiate it from the standard dot, although I'll refer to this type of handgun sight generically as "big dot" since that's the common terminology). Both the standard dot and big dot are available with or without a tritium insert for low-light shooting.

Sights consist of a round white dot up front and a wide, shallow V-notch rear with a white, vertical line in its center. To align the sights, place the dot on top of the line so it looks like a lollipop. In close, cover what you want to hit with the dot. At distance, use the top of the dot like the top of a front sight post with conventional sights.

I've heard two common statements regarding big dot sights versus post/notch--one pro, one con. People say it's much faster to just sit that huge white dot in the center of the shallow V-notch than to have to look through a tight rear notch at a front sight blade with conventional sights. At the same time, I hear people say that big dots are okay in close, but they're impossible to use with real accuracy at any distance.

I have to say, right off the bat, I don't buy that "impossible to use at distance" stuff. I've seen footage in a Paladin Press video of firearms instructor/champion shooter Andy Stanford--a proponent of big dot sights on carry guns--firing at a steel plate 25 yards away with a big dot-equipped 1911 .45, running full power hardball, hitting the plate with every shot and not exactly taking all day to do it, either.

There is some truth to the "it's slow to peer though a tight rear notch" argument, but that holds water only if your post/notch sights have a tight rear notch. Decades ago, for some unknown reason, makers of "high visibility" (which aren't) pistol sights settled on front post and rear notch widths of .125 inch as standard. Thus you have a fat front sight blade filling a tight rear notch, generating a horribly cramped sight picture, with very narrow light bars on either side of the front blade when centered in the rear notch. This makes it very difficult to pick up the front sight fast and stay on it during rapid fire.