When building a general purpose carbine, I always like having some form of back up iron sights. This allows me to have a red dot sight co-witness with irons in case of a failure, or a back up in case my primary optic fails. Also, I spend some time teaching youth how to shoot, and I prefer to start them with irons to allow better fundamentals to be formed. Recently, I built a general purpose rifle to test parts here at TGR. I selected parts that were light weight and rugged. The rifle is equipped with a 16″ FN mid-gas barrel that’s been re-profiled to pencil weight, an SLR Rifleworks Sentry Gas Block, a 13″ SLR Rifleworks SOLO rail, a 2-stage CMC Trigger, and a Mission First Tactical stock. When choosing sights, I found that Diamondhead USA makes the perfect set of sights.
I ordered a set of the Diamondhead USA Polymer sights with NiteBrite inserts. The sights fold and lock in the down position. The sights attach with a cross bar that uses a single cross tip screw driver to tighten. There is a button on the left side that when pushed, snaps the sight to the up position. The front sight has an H&K style aperture and some NiteBrite inserts. The inserts will glow in the dark when exposed to light, but do not glow like tritium.
Adjustments on the front sight is easy, there is a dial that you turn under the front sight post located in the base of the sight to raise or lower the POI. My initial reaction to this was not favorable as i felt that it moved too easily and might under hard use or vibration, change. But after rolling around in my Jeep, shooting with the SureFire brake, and general abuse I have yet to get it to adjust unintentionally.
The rear sight has a large and small aperture. It also has the diamond shaped apertures that are supposed to aide in quick target acquisition. I spent some time with these, and will say I’m not sure that they promote speed, however I am cross eye dominate. I shoot right handed and with my right eye, which is my weak eye. As such, I tend to be slower picking up sights. I found that I was not slow with these, and like that they are slightly different than the norm. The post at the top of the rear sight can be used very quickly if you put it between the H&K stile front for a snap shot at very close distances. Something that I really like about the rear sight was the small/large aperture sits flush regardless of which is being used. Unlike a standard A2 style rear which if you use the small aperture will not sit flush if folded down. There are also 2 NiteBrite strips on the widest part of the rear sight, I am indifferent about them, but I can see how that would possibly make things easy to see in low light. I have not used them as of yet in that role.
Overall, these have been a great addition to the rifle. They have fit under every optic that I have put on the rifle, and have held zero through some tough conditions. The only real issue I have is that the sights do not set totally flat against the rail, and that is just a function of how they work. That issue is only cosmetic and not any problem with the function of the sights. I was able to shoot well with them and I think that for the money it would be hard to find such a feature rich set of sights.
Visit the Diamondhead USA website HERE and check out their products.
by: Jason
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Nice, concise write ups!
Nice concise write ups, minimum of pluff. that is why I am throwing it on my likes list.