Monday, July 11, 2011

XS Range Report

So I got hte gunsmith to put the XS Sights on my Commander.  Here is the range report, as promised.  There was some trepidation going in that the sights are too gimmicky and 'sloppy'.



See?  The rear sight has no notch.  Bit of a sway back.  You might wander that big front sight around in that shallow saddle and not line it up with the post to make a perfect lollipop.  Also, that front sight is BIG.  It covers a lot of the target.  You aren't going to aim at a bad guys left eye and decide against that and shift to the right eye when he's 20 yards away.  You know what?  I'm not good enough to do that anyway.  So the problem the sights present are a bit moot.

Plus, they glow in the dark.  They almost back light my face they are so bright.  That's an improvement, so if performance is not too negatively impacted, the switch to XS will be considered a good thing. 

Anyway, here are the targets:



I aimed at the lower right shoot n' see first for quite a few mags to warm up.  You can see the usual T-Bolt shooting flaw with 'flyers' outside the target area, but still some good-for-me work otherwise.  I relaxed and shifted to the top left target.  There I concentrated on gripping tighter and just feathering the trigger to break the shot.  With noticeably better results if still low and right.  I'm getting better at that light trigger work, and can do it on demand most times.  I don't know if I could under stress without a lot more habit forming trigger work.

Here is the second target.




I started at the upper left shoot n' see.  Then I did one mag each at upper right and lower left.  All those and the previous target were at 25 feet.  But for the lower right I pushed the target trolley out to 60 feet and shot the last 16 rounds.  Since the sights aren't as good at distance, and I'm not that good at shooting I expected disaster.  I was pleasantly surprised I shot as well as I did.  That green encircled area is only 10 inches wide at the widest.  

Verdict...  XS Sights are a keeper and I'm glad I got them.  

On a side note, I am slowly 'getting' my trigger pull.  And about time.  I need to accelerate my establishing of pathways with a better trigger pull so it's second nature.   

Another side note, gripping 20% tighter leads to more blisters.  One on my left thumb from where it rests on the safety.  One on the left palm where the mainspring housing rests.  Poor baby...

7 comments:

My Gun Culture said...

Nice report and timely! I have been toying with getting a set of these for my Beretta PX4. Old eyes mean the front site is slow to pick up these days. Steel challenge is particlarly interesting :-)

Bubblehead Les. said...

You know, your groups do look better. Nice Job!

45er said...

Nice! I'm glad to hear you like the sights and you're getting the trigger work down. For your grip, 60% weak hand grip over 40% strong hand. You should actually be squeezing a bit harder with your weak hand, which kind of vises the gun in your strong hand. That may eliminate some of the pressure on points on your strong hand and cause less irritation. Then you can sign up for a class and shoot a case of ammo to really find out where your sore spots are at. Ouch. Take medical tape.

Old NFO said...

Good report, and you ARE getting better! Keep it up!

MJM said...

Good, thanks, I had wondered about those.

Firehand said...

Son tried them out, and got a set for his carry piece. Said took a bit of getting used to, but likes them much.

The 'shooting low' thing is something I noticed when put fiber-optic sights on my 1911 compact, and he noticed it with these. Seems to boil down to "With these, that front glowing ball covers the spot you want to hit instead of it being on top of the ball."

Anonymous said...

I wrote a better response on my own blog, more room to type:

http://blog.hsoi.com/2011/07/15/xs-sights-no/