DIY Tritium night sights

[young_machinist 3]

Hi all, so like the title suggests this is a do it yourself thread for tritium night sights.

Before starting these projects I did a lot of research and this is what I found.

Tritium gas is kept in boroscillicate glass sometimes at high pressure.

 

It was easiest to start with polymer sights so I picked a Magpul mbus rear sight. I highly recommend this sight to start with since it has two divets that act as pilot holes for 2mm diameter tritium vials. Other then the sights and vials, all you will need is a drill press with x y vise and some loctite glass bond. I bought 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm 2 flute HSS end mills for this instead of drill bits. Will be posting pics of process once vials arrive. (2 ice blue for rear and Trijicon chevron post for front)

 

After this I will be attempting on steel glock oem sights and blank sights.

Tritium colors include: white, green, ice blue, yellow, orange, red, pink, blue, purple

Good sizes for firearm sight projects:

0.95 x 3mm (skinny dot)

0.95 x 4mm (skinny dot)

1.5 x 3mm (standard tijicon dot size)

1.5 x 5mm (standard tijicon dot size)

2 x 4mm (standard dot without sleeve)

2 x 5mm (standard dot without sleeve)

2.5 x 4mm (slightly larger dot)

2.5 x 5mm (slightly larger dot)

3 x 5mm (big dot)

3 x 6mm (big dot, long tube)

 

Hardest part of all this is finding where you want to put the holes and checking clearance so you don't drill through the other side. The heat shrink tubing may be difficult to find and apply to vial also but it would give authentic look of trijicon ns set.

If anyone has any experience with tritium night sights I'd really like any advice or tips on it. Thanks to all for reading.

 

Also tritium comes in rectangular and spherical shapes instead of conventional cylindrical tubes, I feel the possibilities are unless with this stuff.

Edited July 28, 2016 by young_machinist

[gunfun 3,931]

I nearly did this a few times. Still plan to. My tritium suppliers always had some problem. The consensus was to drill aprox 4 thou over the diameter of the naked vial. or since they are metric, the next fractional size up. Many people got good results using super glue (cyanoacrilate) however, glass worker's glue doesn't yellow with age and is clearer. I forget what brands people liked.

 

you want to do green for the front sight, and some other color for the back. This is because the more distant sight needs to be "brighter" than the rear sights not to be washed out. Green trits both put out the most light and are the color your eye sees the best, so it needs to be your front sight. Green front and orange rear is the combo I was planning to use.

 

I suggest getting the smallest .95 mm size and a spare or two.

 

Your shrink tube idea is pretty good.

Oh and if you are having issues with clearance for your drill chuck, you might try using a dremel or dremel with whip for the drill. A block of wood can be cut to slide the drill down and hold your angle constant if you have concerns about that.

I'm trying to think of his screen name, but the guy who made me the inserts for my pic rail blocks did a really nice home trit job. Oh. Got it.

 

FunkedOut. Look his build thread up.

Another way to do it is to get the HiViz style fiber optics with the U shaped rod for the back sight. Hollow out the base and put a large vial against the fiber optic. That will power your fiber optic.

[young_machinist 3]

Thank you for the feedback and advice. FunkedOut did a seriously great job making those sights out of 7075! Thanks for sharing that too. And three of my other pistols are green on green so I been wanting to mix it up with something different. Also a website mixglo.com has some vials with reflective paint one side to make the vial glow brighter, this idea might be a good way to make duller colors pop for the front post.

And could you explain the whole hollow out the base thing for powering fiber optic U? That sounds like a project I'd like to try.

[YOT 3,743]

Welcome to the forum.

[gunfun 3,931]

Thank you for the feedback and advice. FunkedOut did a seriously great job making those sights out of 7075! Thanks for sharing that too. And three of my other pistols are green on green so I been wanting to mix it up with something different. Also a website mixglo.com has some vials with reflective paint one side to make the vial glow brighter, this idea might be a good way to make duller colors pop for the front post.

s382708747662678718_p48_i17_w160.jpegs382708747662678718_p48_i16_w160.jpeg

And could you explain the whole hollow out the base thing for powering fiber optic U? That sounds like a project I'd like to try.

 

If you do green on green the front vial needs to be a brighter vial. The manufacturers can usually get different sizes for front and rear, but at the DIY end you are lucky to find .95mm or 1.5x5 mm vials. You kinda get what you can.

 

The basic idea is to use any standard fiber optic style sight. They pick up ambient light through the sides of the fiber and appear to glow at the end. Some versions of those have an LED or a trit by the side of the fiber somewhere to supliment ambient light. You can buy them cheaply and add trits somewhere out of your line of sight next to the fiber and do the same thing. ideally they can still pick up ambient light too, but you may need to cover the part with the trit so that it doesn't wash out your front sight. This method can allow you to get away with a really big trit. Also you can buy the fiber optic bits in long strips from brownells, or in packages meant for replacing bow sights. Usually it is bent into a U shape, with just the ends pointing at you and the curved bit below line of sight.

[young_machinist 3]

After ordering the 2x6mm Ice blue vials for mbus rear the other day. I wanted more for all my rifles and pistols without tritium or with dying tritium. 

What I found readily available-

0.95 x 3.0mm (Green only)

1.4 x 3.5mm (Green only)

1.5 x 6.0mm (All colors)

1.6 x 4.5mm (Green only)

1.55 x 5.0mm (Green, Ice blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Red) - $7.50/ each

The sights Im going to drill and fit for these are between $5-$15 so no biggie if I mess up but if done properly then it seems like night sights could be made for a very low cost, givin it wouldn't be trijicon quality.

[young_machinist 3]

Got the holes finished but still waiting on 2 blue and 2 green vials plus Norland 61 compound and 365nm uv light

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