Best color for a front sight?

[timcar86]

I was thinking about painting the front sight of my AR and I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with different colors. I thought about red but i'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated.

[TN-popo]

I prefer fluorescent orange.

It jumps out better than red and contrasts with just about everything (think white in the wintertime).

I use Testor's Fluorescent Orange over a basecoat of Testor's White. The white basecoat really makes a difference and Testor's is only about $1 a bottle at most hobby shops so you can try all sorts of colors and see what you like.

Edited May 27, 2012 by TN-popo

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Maybe orange is the best practical color in the real world. Dunno as I'm not very practical.

For an old guy shooting paper, the bright green, something in the ballpark of lime green, might work best for me. Some white paper targets have a red bullseye so a red sight can be a problem. If people shoot mostly-black targets, geez a black sight just disappears for my eyes, and a little white dot on the sight doesn't help much in poor lighting. As to orange, that is probably fine in the real world but I've been shooting mostly caldwell orange peel targets the last couple of years, so an orange sight on caldwell orange peel would be as bad as a black sight on a black target. Painted all my sights flourescent green, not that it makes a drastic difference in bad lighting. The green fiberoptic I put on the Mark II pistol is easiest to see. It is on the to-do list to eventually mount green fiberoptic sights to all the guns I can find sights for.

[TN-popo]

Yep, fluorescent green is great and it would be my 2nd choice.

It really comes down to personal preference.

Edited May 27, 2012 by TN-popo

[BigK]

Assuming it's the same for long guns...I have a handguns w/ each of the colors mentioned. I like the red or orange best for outdoor shooting and the green for indoor shooting. The white sights are my least favorite...indoors I can only see the outline and outdoors they get lost in the bright light.

I prefer bright orange.

Jumps out better than red and contrasts with just about anything around (think white in the wintertime).

I use Testor's Fluorescent Orange over a basecoat of Testor's White. The white basecoat really makes a difference and Testor's is only about $1 a bottle at most hobby shops so you can try all sorts of colors and what you like.

I think the basecoat is the key. It really makes a huge difference, IMO.

[Caster]

The one you can see the best.

[BigK]

I read an interesting website about this. IIRC, we all have differing rods/cones in our eyes. Some people can see greens the best and some can see reds the best. In other words by arranging the colored tiles in the test below from one color to another (the end colors vary to test several colors) they can tell you what colors YOU can see the best.

http://www.colblindor.com/color-arrangement-test/

[Caster]

I read an interesting website about this. IIRC, we all have differing rods/cones in our eyes. Some people can see greens the best and some can see reds the best. In other words by arranging the colored tiles in the test below from one color to another (the end colors vary to test several colors) they can tell you what colors YOU can see the best.

http://www.colblindo...rangement-test/

Mine's pretty bad according to professional opinion.

I know better, they're a bunch of liars. There's no such color as purple or whatever, they're all blue. There's not near as many dark greens and reds, it's all smoke and mirrors man.

No, seriously, I failed my driving test the first time around because of it. Needless to say, I was unfit for the bomb squad. "Cut the blue wire!!!"

[Guest pfries]

I read an interesting website about this. IIRC, we all have differing rods/cones in our eyes. Some people can see greens the best and some can see reds the best. In other words by arranging the colored tiles in the test below from one color to another (the end colors vary to test several colors) they can tell you what colors YOU can see the best.

http://www.colblindo...rangement-test/

Much truth here, but if low light is to be taken into consideration red disappears first in low light and on up the spectrum from there. Just a bit more food for thought pending the use of said item.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Maybe its just my eyes, but I think there is something about the blue end of the spectrum that is difficult for the eye to focus-on or resolve. I can identify various shades of blue thru violet just fine but can't focus on detail in those colors. But maybe that is just my eye. If it is a common effect then maybe the blue end of the spectrum wouldn't be good sight colors.

For instance there are a few blue-backlit LCD electronic devices that were a really bad idea assuming the designers intended users to actually be able to read the displays. And then there are the numerous nerdy websites that have blue text on black background. Hard to read. Hmm, or maybe some people can focus and resolve that combination just fine.

[BigK]

Much truth here, but if low light is to be taken into consideration red disappears first in low light and on up the spectrum from there. Just a bit more food for thought pending the use of said item.

Good point, especially since statistics tell us most self defense situations will happen in low light. Then again, unless you have tritium night sights you're only gonna see an outline anyway, if it's real dark. Maybe not even then, since you should have a flashlight on your target to make sure what you're shooting at.

BTW...I didn't know that about red disappearing first in low light. Interesting! I have some blue FO that I've been dying to try out.

[Guest pfries]

Good point, especially since statistics tell us most self defense situations will happen in low light. Then again, unless you have tritium night sights you're only gonna see an outline anyway, if it's real dark. Maybe not even then, since you should have a flashlight on your target to make sure what you're shooting at.

BTW...I didn't know that about red disappearing first in low light. Interesting! I have some blue FO that I've been dying to try out.

I have night sights on all my anticipated SD guns but right on with knowing your target

[MiddTennTaco]

From my experience with photography, orange might not be a good idea. Think of colors at sunrise and sunset. This color is cast on everything, even a potential target. Florescent green seems like a great choice. If I ever have to shoot something that color.... Lol, well that will be interesting.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2

[JAB]

Maybe its just my eyes, but I think there is something about the blue end of the spectrum that is difficult for the eye to focus-on or resolve. I can identify various shades of blue thru violet just fine but can't focus on detail in those colors. But maybe that is just my eye. If it is a common effect then maybe the blue end of the spectrum wouldn't be good sight colors.

For instance there are a few blue-backlit LCD electronic devices that were a really bad idea assuming the designers intended users to actually be able to read the displays. And then there are the numerous nerdy websites that have blue text on black background. Hard to read. Hmm, or maybe some people can focus and resolve that combination just fine.

I actually kind of like a light blue for a backlit screen. It doesn't seem as harsh as some, other colors. Of course, the test above rates my total error for colorblindness at 11.4 (with 11 apparently being the bottom of the scale), meaning I basically have no colorblindness, at all.

I still think you are correct in that blue probably wouldn't make a very good sight color. That is because of the concept of 'cool colors' and 'warm colors'. Blues and colors with a lot of blue in them tend to be 'cool' colors while reds, yellows and colors with a lot of red or yellow (such as orange) tend to be 'warm' colors. To most people's eyes, cool colors appear to 'recede' while warm colors appear to 'pop out', for lack of a better term. So, something like a yellow, orange or red dot on a dark blue background might stand out even more, I am not sure. If I am not mistaken, this concept has something to do with how older 3D technology worked and why the old 3D glasses used to have one red lens and one blue one.

Back in the days of slow, dial-up modems I sometimes used to entertain myself while waiting for emails, files, etc. to download by playing around with that concept in my paint program and creating different combinations to see which would 'trick' my eye the most. Some of those ended up as desktop background images, for a while. I have recreated three of the ones I remember best. They were:

The first two give my eye the impression that there is maybe a little depth. On the last one, I would swear that the blue is stamped in or down while the red tiles are lifted up and are maybe even 'hovering' above the blue. At the lines where the two colors meet, in that last image, my eye actually sees 'shadow' lines as if the red squares really were in three dimensions.

Edited May 25, 2012 by JAB

[Guest Lester Weevils]

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Those are good ideas, JAB.

This was what I was thinking about regarding being able to focus on blue.

This is full-tilt-boogie 0x0000FF blue and practically nearly unreadable to

me but maybe somebody else can see it fine.

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This is full-tilt-boogie 0x00FF00 green, more readable to my eyes but maybe

other folks can better-focus other wavelengths better.

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The full-tilt-boogie 0xFF0000 red is more readable to my eye than blue, but

not as readable as green.

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The 0xFFFF00 yellow is brighter because it is turning on twice as many

pixels

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Which is also the case with 0x00FFFF aqua but not as noticeable

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OK, found a couple of formulas for luminance, based on the idea that the eye is most sensitive to green and least sensitive to blue--

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/596216/formula-to-determine-brightness-of-rgb-color

•Luminance (standard, objective): (0.2126*R) + (0.7152*G) + (0.0722*B )

•Luminance (perceived option 1): (0.299*R + 0.587*G + 0.114*B )

•Luminance (perceived option 2, slower to calculate): sqrt( 0.241*R^2 + 0.691*G^2 + 0.068*B^2 )

Presuming white light (equal amounts of all colors), a white reflective sight ought to be brightest of all. If the sight only reflects the blue, it will be less-bright and also the eye is less sensitive to the blue. I read elsewhere that the eye actually has fewer blue sensitive cones versus other colors' cones, so not only would blue look dim, but perhaps that is why one can perceive an all-blue image as "fuzzy"? Simply because there are fewer pixels in the eye to resolve the blue?

The Yellow might be the brightest we can get from reflective sights? Assuming the paint is perfect enough to reflect all of the red thru green frequencies, then obviously the eye would be getting more light from a yellow sight, compared to a red or green sight? And the "perfect yellow" paint would have higher luminance than a "perfect orange" paint?

But I don't know if Yellow would make the best contrast against real-world or paper targets. I hadn't thought about yellow because it isn't "a favorite color" but it would probably contrast well against black or orange-peel targets. Perhaps Green or Orange would contrast better against white paper targets, however?

Edited May 25, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[timcar86]

I went with a yellow nail polish and it stands or well against dark targets. I seem to lose it against brownish colors though. I might try a bright green next. I'll try to snap some pics when I can.