I am always glad to see a  well established manufacturer continue to refine their products as well as move forward with new ones.  From what I saw XS Sights is doing just that.  The big dot sight is certainly nothing new.  I have been using one is some form or another for almost 10 years now.  Upon stopping in at the XS Sights booth it was instantly apparent they had made some improvements since the days mine were installed.  Some of those improvements were visible, while others were at work behind the scenes.

Bright eye attracting colors.

After a brief physiology lecture about rods and cones (did you know that there are actually 3 types of cones for our eyes to see color? Neither did I.) it was very apparent that the people designing these sights weren’t just picking their colors at random.  In fact, they selected colors that were in a certain wavelength as to be visible to the greatest number of people regardless of what type of cone was most prevalent.  XS has also taken great measure to ensure any cleaning solvents the sights may be exposed to during the cleaning of the firearm will not adversely affect the sights color or performance.  This is a good step to alleviate the problem fiber optic sights experience, which is degradation when exposed to solvents. Long story short they are putting a lot of thought into their product development.

Orange is also available

So if XS has things covered in the daytime with their bright colorful sights, what about at twilight or in darkness?  They have a plan for that too.  The nighttime solution has long been tritium (which may cause cancer in California, but the proper use of may cause acute lead poisoning in an assailant).  For the hour between bright light and darkness (when tritium becomes visible) XS has integrated a photoluminescent (glow in the dark) material.  Bear in mind this is way brighter than the stick up stars you used to have on your ceiling when you were a kid.

Photoluminescent ring for twilight hours.

When I ask how this additional features would affect cost I was told that the prices had actually come down for these sights, due to the increased volume XS is producing.  Finally I was told XS is constantly increasing the number of firearms they produce sights for, so if you have wanted these for a while, but have a firearm they don’t make sights for stay tuned to their website https://www.xssights.com/Default.aspx because more are coming.

I really liked their offset AR sights