XS Big Dots

Recently, I decided to upgrade my sights to my M&P9c since it is my carry gun. I wanted a night sight since, statistically speaking, attacks happen more often in low light conditions. Basically it breaks down to two choices: Tritium or Fiber Optic. The Fiber Optics are nice, but require some type of ambient light, so I decided tritium would be the ticket for me. Tritium, for those that don't know, is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen,which glows a light green color. For the record, it is low energy emitting and perfectly safe. I looked at several companies that offered tritium night sights including Trijicon, TRUGLO and others but they were basically just 3-dot sight with tritium inserts.  The XS sight system, with its "Big Dot" gave a unique approach to how the sights are used in a defensive situation. I have never used these sights before, but after reading reviews by James Yeager, Range Time Tactical and several forums, I made me decide to try them out.

The XS Big dots incorporates a single tritium sight, inside a thick white dot for the front sight, while the rear is a shallow "V" with a thin white vertical stripe (the company offers a tritium rear stripe on certain models, the M&P does not). The reason these are so much different, is to allow a faster, more defensive minded sighting system. Think about it... on your 3-dot system the front sight can hide behind the the left or rights sides of the rear sight. In a defensive (read: emergency) situation, with low light, are you going to be able to quickly decipher which dot it the front? Also, 3-dot systems make the front sight look small. The XS systems solves this problem by allowing your eyes to easily acquire the front sight. Since the rear is low cut and only has a centered stripe and front sight has a large white circle with a tritium center, your eyes naturally find that front sight. Quickly acquiring your front sight translates to quicker target acquisition. I like to put it like this: Find the golf ball and put it on whatever you want to hit, and you'll hit it.

I installed the sights a couple weeks before my 2-day training class. I will say the first time at the range was weird and took a minute to adjust. Basically inside of 15 yards, the center of the dot is the point-of-aim. At about 25 yards and up, the top of the dot was the point of aim. I put about 50 rds down range before taking the gun to my class. At the end of the 50 rds, I wasn't 100% sold.

That all changed during my class. The first day we shot about 350 rds on paper, so I became a lot more comfortable with where to aim the pistol. But the second day, we started shooting steel and doing moving/running drills where we transitioned from one target to another. Geez, were these sights fast! As soon as I drove out the pistol, my eye instantly focused on the front sight, making my first shot and follow up shots so fast. I saw other guys struggling to get the proper sight picture before making their first shot. I felt I was on target faster than the guys running 3 dots. Below is a video of my class with two drills where I have my go pro attached to my head. You can see on the steel targets how fast after the draw I was able to make the first shot.

I would say the XS sights are not as "accurate" at longer distances. The 3 dot system would be better for competition style shooting, giving tighter groups at 25 yards and up. But, for a defensive handgun, where your average conflict is within 3 yards and 3 seconds, the XS sights are far superior. The install was fairly simple and I am going to hopefully write up a DIY on the sight install in the next few weeks.If you are interested in getting a better sight for your carry gun or even your house gun, I highly recommend you give the XS sight system a try.