Limitations and advantages of handgun sights
The real advantages I see to actually altering the front sights on handguns is for home defense. Even if you have a flashlight on or there is some lighting in your home, it’s still can have a lot of shadows and moving from room to room will give you areas where it would be good to be able to see exactly where your front sight is pointing. Hunting with a handgun or rifle usually means hunting in early morning with limited light and the same for late evenings in later afternoons. Hi visiblity sights should give you some advantages for speedy target acquisitions.
A lot of this is really going to be about conditions that you are shooting in, and it will also depend on how good your eye sight is in the first place, but traditional gun sights that are solid black can sometimes be hard to pick up in low light and even if they are being used in sunlight, they are too thin or too thick for a shooters taste. Depending on the type of shooting that you are doing sometimes the gun you have is a good format, but some changes need to be made to your rifle sights or handgun sights. Even today there are some red dot optics that I do not like because the dot is so big that it obscures the target and it makes it very difficult to shoot tight groups. Low light can make it even hard to see objects behind the the target.
Gun magazines are designed for the caliber or manufacturer that they are meant to. Some rifle or pistol magazines can work in different firearms, for instance, the Beretta Storm 9mm can take Beretta 92 magazines and you may be able to find capacities for your guns that pistol magazines aren’t usually for. Putting anything more than a 10rd or 15rd magazine in a 9mm Pistol can be awkward, but put a 20rd mag that works in your Beretta 92 into a Beretta CX4 storm is an advancemnet.
I have had an above average level of firearm training, but I am very much aware that I’m no expert. I think anyone that claims to be an expert tends to have the wrong attitude and will eventually fall victim to complacency. There is a pretty well known youtube video of an “expert” showing students about firearms as he ends up putting a bullet into his foot in front of a class of school kids. One of the most important things I have learned about close and personal fighting with firearms is rifle and pistol sight differentiation. On a rifle you can shoot a bullseye at 300yds with your ACOG, but at 6ft, you might end up putting a bullet 3 inches over a bad guys forehead due to the barrel and optic offsets.
My Sig 220 blasted its way through the first 8rds without a hickup. I did notice a mini cloud of lint around the gun, and maybe I should rethink some of the shirts I wear to try and prevent or reduce this, but I thought that lint can’t be any worse than dirt and these are combat pistols. I continued to put another 300rds of 45acp 230gr FMJ ammo and had a stopage. I had a friend tell me that the Sig Factory rep he dealt with says that the guns should run wet and that they are dependent on using more lubrication than something like a Glock. Although I’ve never gotten the bug to own a Glock, I guess I’ll have to acknowledge that Glock does have an edge over Sigs in this area. One thing I have considered doing is putting a little grease on all of my pistols, that way it won’t drain off as easily as CLP or similiar types of lubrication. That is something to think about for pistols.
There are a lot of Police trade ins and used firearms out there that can be purchased and 30%-40% below what NEW prices are. There are a few online FFL dealers that pick up the police issued Glocks and Sigs and resell them for under $400. I picked up a few that had a lot of holster wear but once I opened the action, they were hardly fired and they ran flawlessy. Most of the time this is the type of condition most Police trade ins are found.