This is my somewhat long review of Meprolight FT BULLSEYE Front Sight. I had it for a while now and wanted to share some thoughts. I couldn't find much info about it, so maybe this will be helpful to someone.
View attachment 462241
My vision is not great. I have astigmatism, nearsightedness. I also have aging eyes issues that make focusing on close objects and switching focus slower than 20 years ago. On top of that I'm cross eye dominant, which doesn't help any when shooting.
In ideal lighting conditions I can use regular iron sights, but when light is any less than ideal, the front post (even fiber optic) is difficult to see, the rear is a very blurry mess and lining up 3 different blurry planes becomes very difficult. Closing one eye helps a bit, but still not a very good solution. Front sight focus doesn't work well for me, because the target becomes too blurry and switching between target and front sight is somewhat slow for me. I always shoot with two eyes open, stay target focused and point shoot in most cases with iron sights or take a very very long time to line up a shot. In lower light even the brightest conventional irons are almost useless to me.
Red dot sights solved the problem. I'm fast and accurate with these. All my guns have RDS installed. I had a couple of slides milled to get an optic on the guns that I like. The only issue with RDS is the added height. In most cases RDS stays right on top of the belt without poking out much, but in some clothes the corner of the sight can still print a little, because I have a small frame and sometimes wear more formfitting outfits.
Even though I think that in a stressful situation (without A LOT of training) point shooting without using the sights is more likely to happen, I still wanted to find a slimmer sighting system that I can actually use in any light. I tried a laser several years ago, but it has it's own set of drawbacks.
I was excited to try a P365 SAS. I handled it many times in the store, but never took one home (or any P365) for a long while. Finally I jumped on a P365 ship with RDS and got an extra SAS slide right away (along with SAS slide catch). Rear bullseye on SAS was a very interesting experiment, but after some time I decided that it didn't work well for me. I had several issues with it. First, the sight at the rear is very very blurry when I target focus. In many lighting conditions blurry green dot was too difficult to notice consistently. Switching between RDS and SAS sight was very confusing, because of the height difference of two systems. With SAS I had to look through the gun, with RDS I look well above the slide. This was throwing off my muscle memory for point shooting and the rear sight was too blurry and not visible enough to properly align the dot with a circle. I finally gave up and sold the SAS slide.
I was going to wait a while for Sig to work out the kinks with P365-380 to try FT bullseye front sight on it, but a good deal on a 9mm P365 slide came up and I jumped on it. I ordered the FT front sight immediately. The sight turned out to be a pretty good solution for me, but it does have some drawbacks. I will cover the cons first, to finish with positives.
Cons:
1) Height/elevation is not adjustable. You get what you get and some people might not like that. Mine turned out to be about 6 o'clock hold. I don't know if it always the case with these sights. I shoot with both eyes open and probably would've liked raising the sight picture just a bit so the bullseye is over the target (combat hold) for more natural picture for my brain to process. Still the 6 o'clock hold is easy enough to adjust to and the position of the gun overall matches quite well with my RDS setup, so there is definitely a positive side to how it points now.
2) Sight is not very durable. Meprolight advertises it in the hands of some operator dude, but there is no way I would consider it for a duty use. There is a plastic cover that goes over the fiber optic and tritium elements. I do not know how durable that plastic is, but it doesn't look very thick and has very small tabs at the front. After a while I noticed than that plastic cover moves just a bit (didn't cause any accuracy issues). I removed the front cover that is held with a screw. Inside I noticed that one of the plastic tabs at the front is broken. I don't know if it was like this from the start or I did that at some point (maybe during the installation). In either case to me it didn't look like a good design. I used some glue and epoxy to secure everything very well under the cover. I probably voided the warranty (if any) by doing so, but it gives me a lot more confidence now. I would do the same to a brand new sight.
The other point about the durability is that the sight is quite long and fairly tall and is held just by that dovetail leg at the front. A good side blow on the rear of the sight most likely can cause a change in the POI. I would not say that the sight is flimsy. I cannot move it with my fingers at all, but a drop on a wrong spot can potentially cause issues. I wouldn't put this front sight on any Glock, just because of the way Glock's front sights are mounted. It is not bad in the Sig's dovetail.
For a concealed carry in a holster I think the sight is durable enough. Still I would not recommend it for any type of holster that does not cover the front sight.
3) I'm definitely less accurate with FT front compared to RDS. No surprise there. In ideal conditions on a good day, I can also be more accurate with regular iron sights, but I will have to take my sweet time lining up those shots.
Pros:
1) Bullseye front sight glows very bright and is very visible. I checked it at dusk, dawn, at night, inside, outside, from dark area looking at bright target, etc. It is brighter than the rear mounted SAS bullseye. I guess the design that allows the light to hit the sight from the sides helps a lot. This sight is quite a bit brighter than any fiber optic front sight that I ever tried. As you can imagine, this makes it very easy to see. I do not know if tritium is any brighter than in my SAS. I think that it is, but most likely just because the FT front sight is newer. Maybe the tritium vial is larger in the FT front sight, but I doubt it. Overall I'm very pleased with the visibility of FT front sight. I can see it in any lighting conditions that I could imagine. I can't says the same about the rear SAS sight or any irons that I tried.
2) FT front sight is further away from my eyes compared to SAS sight, so it is less blurry.
3) I see the circle-dot only with one eye. This helps a lot in processing the image that is a bit blurry. With regular front sights things get a bit messier for me. Rears on a set of regular irons further add to the blurriness and confusion.
4) The large FT front is easier to track during recoil compared to SAS. This makes it a bit faster. For me it is also easier to track compared to more conventional front sights due to the larger size and extreme brightness.
5) Windage is adjustable, which is not the case with SAS rear sight. Sight can be dialed in side-to-side, so you won't blame the sight, if you miss.
6) I hold the gun with FT front sight about the same height as with RDS, which makes transition between the two a lot easier and natural especially when point shooting. SAS had more of combat sight picture with a lot lower sight that forced me to raise the gun quite a bit higher than my usual RDS set. The Front sight has a sight picture closer to 6 o'clock hold at 10-15 yards, so the position of the gun ends up being pretty close to the RDS setup, which helps a lot with muscle memory.
A side note. I think this front sight could benefit from a suppressor height rear. I tried it with my regular P365 rear temporarily glued on top of the slide (so it is higher than normal). The rear could be helpful sometimes to get more conventional sight picture adding some accuracy and maybe speed. With the rear sight only as a supplement, I'm not worried about it being blurry. Regular square notch on my Sig X-ray works, but something like XS i-rear or a Springfield U-dot rear probably could've been more intuitive to use. Maybe at some point I will find a cheap enough suppressor height rear of any kind and give it a try in live fire. On the other hand, this will add quite a bit of height to the rear, which might not be the sacrifice that I'm willing to make in the long run. Will see.
In the end I'd say that if you're fine with the iron sights and found a set that works for you, then don't bother with FT bullseye. If you never have a problem concealing a gun with RDS, then don't bother with FT bullseye. I think an RDS is a much better solution. But if you have issues with your vision and want a sighting system that is smaller than RDS, then give the Meprolight front sight a try. You might like it. I certainly do. I carry a gun with RDS if I can conceal it, but in some cases I switch to the slicker slide with front bullseye for better concealment.
