The author compared his Warrant Tactical Series-Sevigny Competition blade sights (left) with the "big-dot" sight from XS.

The solution, of course, is a narrower front sight combined with a wider rear notch for more generous light bars. My favorite fixed sights for a carry gun are the Warren Tactical Series-Sevigny Competition design (WTS for short).

The "Warren" and "Sevigny" in the name are Scott Warren and Dave Sevigny, both USPSA Grand Masters and IDPA Masters, both of whom have won the IDPA nationals in the past. And I don't mean they just won their division of competition (though they did, of course); they had the high score of all divisions combined. On top of that, Warren is the head firearms instructor for the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. Sight width on these sights is .115 inch up front and .150 inch to the rear, for an excellent, highly visible sight picture.

Fellow Handguns scribe Dave Spaulding has pointed out that the human eye takes more notice of brightly colored objects than dark objects. Dave is a fan of brightly colored front sight blades. I am, too. Thus the crowning touch to the sights of any gun I carry concealed comes from a 99 cent bottle of daylight fluorescent orange nail polish applied to the front blade.

For years my carry guns have been Glock 9mms. At the time of this article, that equaled a lightly customized Glock 17. In addition to WTS sights, my G17 has also been fitted with a New York Trigger, and I had the trigger action polished following the procedures set forth in the "Making Glocks Rock" DVD from the American Gunsmithing Institute. The trigger pull is now five pounds even. I tweaked the magazine release button spring slightly, making the button easier to depress (it's a bit stiff on a stock Glock) and installed one of Lane Pearce's grip frame plugs.

Ladder tape (the stuff found on the treads of aluminum stepladders) has been applied to both sides of the grip, plus a small strip under the trigger guard and on the backstrap. Unaltered ladder tape is too rough to allow my hand to slide into place on the draw, so I actually blunt its texture with a file after cutting to shape and before application.

I find ladder tape superior to skateboard tape because the latter is made of paper (it's basically just sandpaper with adhesive on the back) whereas ladder tape is much more durable.

For this testing, rather than firing one gun with WTS sights, then having to remove those and install big dots to test both sight systems, I asked Glock to send me a second G17, then set it up exactly like my own but with an XS big dot (I went for the larger version with tritium insert) instead of WTS sights. Trigger pulls after massaging this gun also came in at five pounds even. Thus I wound up with two essentially identical Glock 17s for this test, the only difference being the sights.