Tritium night sights are generally good for 12 years. Sometimes the vials that contain the radioactive tritium gas get cracked, which causes the glow to die. Sometimes "new" tritium sights have been sitting around for a few years, so they will lose their glow faster

 

Ten to twelve years.

 

As others have said 10 years or so. Although you can get some that don’t last as long. Not all tritium is created equally either. I’ve had some sights that are bright as day and some that you can hardly see when it’s dark. My best luck has been with Trijicon, XS, and Truglo.

 

I was looking at the info on the Truglo site and they say “A sight that is 12 years old should be approximately half as bright as a new sight.” Then they say the natural dimming over time is not covered by warranty as this is how tritium works normally.

 

Yes. Since I'm often outside, I judge front sights by how bright they are looking into low sun angles. Combination fiber optic/tritium, like the Truglo TFX Pro, work well during day/night environments. Add a WML and its light will wash out night sights, fiber optics, not necessarily.

Another thing to consider, some ammunition powders will have brighter muzzle flashes than others.

From personal experience, Sig's Xray sights are among the best, I have these on a P226/357Sig...they work very well when needed.

 

They don't normally glow very much, even when new.

When your eyes adjust to darkness, they tend to stand out more from the color contrast than the brightness.

 

The M2.0 was released in 2017 so there’s no way these are close to 12 years old yet.

Guess I was just expecting too much🤷‍♂️

 

It's easy to expect "too much" before you realize that those dots are really TINY and they aren't going to shine really bright because of their size. For contrast, get a $10 or $12 bottle of GlowOn Sight paint, then, following the directions carefully, apply it to something.......not the gun with the tritium sights.....making a larger dot than the tiny ones on your gun. Then "charge" the paint for an hour or so under a light that is at least as bright as a desk lamp. THOSE DOTS WILL BE BRIGHT - probably because they are larger.

I've put the GlowOn paint on a couple of guns that came with the fiber optic vials, which are also very tiny. My dots are larger than the fiber tubes which they cover, and thus my sight picture is bigger, better and brighter. You do have to "charge" the paint each evening if you want the dots to shine almost all night on your bedside table.

 

Interestingly enough, a follow-up on the TruGlo TFX Pro sights. I have these sights on a Glock 17.3 (third generation) that are about 5+ years old,

https://www.truglo.com/tfx-pro-sights/

I haven't carried or shot the 17.3 in years, but I carried it yesterday to test during sunlight hours and at night, noting the brightness of the Swiss tritium sights. At about !:30 AM this morning, I encountered a coiled Mojave rattler close to the patio door, a door that one of our German Shepherds used a couple of minutes earlier. A Streamlight TLR-1 HL was the WML, on a very dark night, its bright light backlit the fron post, w/o using night sights, the Mojave was dispatched with Winchester's 147gr JHP, it caused severe lengthwise damage, tearing through the left side of the viper's head, exposing ribs. on its underbody.

I like these sights when under the Arizona sun, and at night. Two years ago, a coiled Diamondback was dispatched about 11:30 PM, located about two feet away from where the Mojave was. I've lost count of the number of rattlers that have been dispatched on the ranch, many times there was a WML on the platform. Practice night shooting with a night time flashlight, noting a different sight picture.

I've setup laser WMLs to converge at about 7 yards, POA/POI.

 

If you’re using a WML is there still a reason to have tritium sights instead of fiber optic?

 

The best use I've found for tritium sights isn't when it's pitch black, but in those hours where the light is getting dim and it's starting to become difficult to pick out the front sight, but not so dim that you're turning on the weapon light. Tritium works when there is no light, weapon mounted or otherwise. And when you have light spilling in from the weapon light, you still have white dots (or a green/orange front sight depending on the type of sight) that are easy to pick out. So having a weapon light does not decrease their effectiveness. And they don't tend to break and get lost on the range like a fiber sight.

I don't have a pistol with a fiber optic front sight anymore. Not that can accommodate a light anyway. But I do still have pistols with tritium sights.

Different folks are going to have different opinions, we like what we like. But for my purposes, I find 3 dot tritium to be preferable to fiber.