3-dot sight

Slides from Glock pistols; the three on the left have 3-dot sights.

A 3-dot sight or high profile sight is a kind of iron sights design.

They first began to appear on a few European models of firearms in the mid-1970s and are now by far the most common type of iron sight found on modern semiautomatic handguns, even if they are not universally loved. For reasons which are not entirely clear, however, they are nowhere near as popular on revolvers.

They consist of two parallel posts on the rear and a third at the end of the barrel with a small dot painted or embedded on the rear of each. In some models, the "dots" are actually small tubes filled with a pressurized gas (usually tritium) which gives off light, making properly aiming the firearm in darkness or low light conditions much easier and more reliable. The safety of this, however, is often debated: while you can align three tritium dots perfectly in total darkness, you cannot identify your target and therefore should not fire.

References

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