No warm-up fire was allowed the shooters. Using timed fire beginning from the ready position, shooter No. 1 was asked to fire three shots with night sights, taking only the time necessary to personally feel comfortable that he was placing center-mass hits in the target. The point was not to shoot tight groups but to achieve adequate defensive accuracy for the given distance and lighting conditions. The exercise was repeated twice, and the times were recorded. Group size was measured after all the shooting was over.

Night sights are offered on many factory guns. SIG's Equinox has a Truglo fiber-optic front sight and a SIG rear sight with tritium inserts.

Now shooter No. 1 was given the gun with stock sights. The same course was fired with the same instructions: Go for center-mass hits, and use only the time necessary to reasonably guarantee them. Shooter No. 2 performed the same two tests, followed by yours truly. We did not shoot a slow-fire stage to obtain the smallest groups, for it was considered a given that a night-sight–equipped firearm would have a definite advantage there.

Before I get into the results of my informal test, I wanted to point out that I had never before fired a pistol with night sights in a low-light scenario. Other than the fact that the sights stood out like a full moon on a blanket of freshly fallen snow, I noticed some important things that I feel must be commented on.

MUZZLE FLASH!
When one is concentrating on the front sight, one's focus is directed exactly where the brightest part of the muzzle flash, which is visible to the shooter, is going to manifest itself. With night sights, the muzzle flash did not totally eliminate the ability of the eye to retain a constant sight picture. The flash did, however, cause havoc in picking up the darkened target silhouette for subsequent shots because after the flash, the light from the night sights was visually stronger than the image created by the silhouette. Imagine how badly the flash would have affected the shooter if the gun had been ported. Lesson? Ports really have no place on a defensive pistol.

With stock sights it was next to impossible given the amount of light I allowed for this test to make out the white dot and outlines before the muzzle flash. After the first shot was touched off, the muzzle flash destroyed any hope of recovering the pale white dot and outline for subsequent shots. In this instance, visually recovering the silhouette target was actually easier than with night sights.

I have one last comment about muzzle flash. Muzzle flashes can destroy or severely diminish night vision, and they will not illuminate any but the closest of targets and should not be relied upon for that purpose. I do believe they have a purpose, however. What they can do is allow the shooter to call his shot. At the moment of firing, the muzzle flash creates a strobe-like flash that perfectly silhouettes the position of the sights at the exact moment of the shot. It is then possible to instinctively make minor corrections for subsequent shots. Using this technique, I was able to call an errant shot during the phase where I was using stock sights. Sure enough, when checking the target later, I had missed the silhouette high and to the left just as I had predicted.