Night sights age

[vesan87]

I had some Meprolight tritium night sights installed the other day. Does anyone know how to tell how old they are? There is a marking on the package that says 11/07? What is the etiquette for a shop selling sights? How old can they be before its not ok to sell them? Does it matter? They only last 10 years right?

Thanks

 

[sianbrimons]

this will be interesting to see the response of the "wise elders" on this one, i had been told once that the sights will outlive me... i find this hard to believe... but will be anxious to hear the facts!

 

[RichardR]

From the date marked on the package it would seem that they are around 4 years old, anyway Tritium has a half-life of somewhere around 12-14 years, meaning that at around 12-14 years of age the sights will be half-as bright as they were when they were first made.

 

[Brandon]

this will be interesting to see the response of the "wise elders" on this one, i had been told once that the sights will outlive me... i find this hard to believe... but will be anxious to hear the facts!

I am thinking not. They will get dimmer over time to where you will hardly see them if at all at night.

 

[Plinkuh]

I had a Sig P239 with about 7 year old tritium tubes. They shone, but not brightly. It was still a helluva lot better than white-dots in a dimly lit area.

EDIT: They were almost like glow in the dark stickers or decals. That's about how bright they were at that point.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Half life doesn't necessarily mean they'll be perceived as only half bright. Your vision has a logarithmic response to intensity, so an actual halving of the intensity will be only "noticeable". There are a few more halves before it even becomes significant. I'd figure it would outlive you, if not your heir. But, even if that weren't the case, you'd want one, wouldn't you? I do.

 

[Plinkuh]

Fun Fact about Tritium:

Tritium is widely used in multi-stage hydrogen bombs for boosting the fission primary explosion of a thermonuclear weapon (it can be similarly used for fission bombs), as well as in external neutron initiators.

 

[Plinkuh]

Half life doesn't necessarily mean they'll be perceived as only half bright. Your vision has a logarithmic response to intensity, so an actual halving of the intensity will be only "noticeable". There are a few more halves before it even becomes significant. I'd figure it would outlive you, if not your heir. But, even if that weren't the case, you'd want one, wouldn't you? I do.

I agree. Regardless of how long they "last", I always like to have night sights equipped on all my pistols.

 

[partyboy6686]

I agree. Regardless of how long they "last", I always like to have night sights equipped on all my pistols.

I always have to have night sights on my daily carry.

 

[Plinkuh]

I always have to have night sights on my daily carry.

Not trying to be rude here Sir, or even to sound condescending, but be careful about one-line posts. Most Mods will delete them, due to the ruling of the classifieds. Just a heads up.

 

[Jeremy1066]

I put a set of tritium night sights on my S&W 1066 in 1994. Tritium sights are about the same as a person aging. When you see them every day, you don't notice anything different. But then one day 16 years later you look at them and say "what happened?" Yes, my sights still glow, but not nearly as bright as they did when they were new. Do they still make the gun easy to find and properly orient on the nightstand in the dark? Absolutely!!!

 

[zombiekilla]

I have the mepro's on my glock 23 gen 3. Put them on when I purchased about 5 years ago. I did look at them the other day in the dark just for giggles, they still look good and bright. I coupled these with a lasermax internal laser. The laser has since quite working and lasermax wouldn't fix it, but the mepro's are still going strong!

 

[shootersix]

i have meprolight's on my sig 239, the frong sight was burnt out, while the back sight glowed bright.i called meprolight and they shipped me a new front sight free of charge, now the front sight glows nice and bright while the back glows ( but not as bright)

now here's the best part...i didn't buy them new, a used sig came into the shop that i frequent, with the factory 3 dot sight's, a set of meprolight sights, and a set of the xs big dot sights(the xs's were installed on the gun) so the meprolight's "accidentally fell onto my sig"(i know darn the bad luck)

i noticed the difference after the install and called kimber america (the importer for meprolight) and a few days later a free replacement came in the mail

don't know if this will help you, but its what happened to me

 

[WebSnyper]

Half life doesn't necessarily mean they'll be perceived as only half bright. Your vision has a logarithmic response to intensity, so an actual halving of the intensity will be only "noticeable". There are a few more halves before it even becomes significant. I'd figure it would outlive you, if not your heir. But, even if that weren't the case, you'd want one, wouldn't you? I do.

hmmm... I have some night sights on my Glock 21 that are in the neighborhood of 19 years old (I need to review the paperwork for exact dates) and they are pretty much completely dimmed and need to be replaced. They aren't going to outlive me or my heirs.