night sights - time to replace?

[stan]

my dad gave me his glock 21 for my 21st birthday a couple months ago. it has trijicon night sights on it, but to me they seem very dim even in total darkness. i think he bought the gun around 2000 or 2001. would that make them old enough to be dimmer than normal? and is it difficult to replace the night sights on a glock 21?

[Creampuff]

The half life of tritium is about 12 years, so you may be near 50% of the original brightness.

[Cokebottle]

Green lasts the longest, but I remember reading that they should be replaced at around 5 years.

[Cokebottle]

The half life of tritium is about 12 years, so you may be near 50% of the original brightness.

Think db... 50% is probably closer to a perceived 25% or less.

[Creampuff]

Think db... 50% is probably closer to a perceived 25% or less.

Yikes..I could get banned from candlepowerforums for forgetting this!
I am a flashlight junkie, I should have remembered that...


Yes:

Luminous emission is not the same as the perceived brightness.

[stan]

well how bright are tehy supposed to be? they seem REALLY dim to me

[socalshooting]

well how bright are tehy supposed to be? they seem REALLY dim to me

Can you sufficiently use it in low-light/total darkness? That's all that matters.

[MILLITIAof1]

lol

Yikes..I could get banned from candlepowerforums for forgetting this!
I am a flashlight junkie, I should have remembered that...


Yes:

Luminous emission is not the same as the perceived brightness.

[wamphyri13]

Good enough. Get new ones. You can install them yourself. On Glocks, it's easy.

[MILLITIAof1]

well how bright are tehy supposed to be? they seem REALLY dim to me

bright enough to work at night.

[Creampuff]

Sorry I got sidetracked by my own post .

Give your eyes a little bit of time to adjust to a dark room. Take it into a dark closet, if they don't pop out at you, its probably time to change them. All my sights are easily visible in the dark.

Just think, if you need it for a home defense scenario, and you are struggling to see them in the dark..they are not bright enough.

[GunFan]

I just replaced the night sights on my G19 (Gen2). It's like night and day. The shop where I purchased the sights replaced them while I waited. It took him 10 minutes.

[SPE]

Trijicon has a 12 year warranty on their green and yellow sights (5 years for orange), so you may want to see if you can get warranty replacement.

[HCz]

The half life for green, as far as I know is 10-12 years. But for practical purpose, it is recommended that you change it out every 5-6 years.

Trijicon has a program where you can send the slide and pay for tritium viles. Might want to look into that. Your sight probably is under waranty, but I don't think you can change one under it(I'd be gladly proven wrong on this one)