Blue Tritium?

[novak1911freak]

I was curious if anyone knew if Novak could do their front sight with the white outline in Blue Tritium? I know the fact that green is seen better by the eye but I wanted to know if they could do that, I know that they have blue fiber optic sights and I know that you can get tritium in blue so I was just curious, if anyone has any info it would be greatly appreciated.

[Moose63845]

I don't see why the couldn't but I don't know if they are offering it at this time or not.

[ADaughen]

I have seen green, yellow, orange... no blue. :( I think blue is going to be considered too faint of a color to withstand their 12year warranty.

[warmrain]

Not only is green seen easiest by the human eye, green is the natural color produced by tritium. Other colors are produced by filters which means not only is the color harder to see there is less light to see...

[novak1911freak]

Well what about fiber optic sights, novak is selling fiber optic sights that come in blue, what is the difference between fiber optic and tritium?

[N7CAV]

Well what about fiber optic sights, novak is selling fiber optic sights that come in blue, what is the difference between fiber optic and tritium?

Fiber Optic is a material consisting of glass or nylon strands, aligned in a very tight, uniform arrangement. They work by picking up ambient light, and then channeling, or directing it in the same axis as the strands. (So all the light hitting the strands from each direction is basicly channeled or routed to the optic's focus point, or dot.

The Tritium is a radioactive material that generates it's own "light source", cause by the decay, or half-life of the radio-active material's decentegration. There are at least two chemists on this forum, so I'm sure you'll get a better explanation than this - but basicly the light givin off by the night sights is caused by the seperation of free particles from the core radioactive material.

Therefore the light from fiber-optic is synthetic, and can be any color. I have no idea why radio-active material can't be a given natural color.

As far as blue goes, if you have ever diven down a street at night and looked at store-front signs from a distance - Anything with blue letters is extremely hard to read. Unless you already know the name of the store, it's much easier to identify green, white, yellow, orange than blue. Red can be difficult too, but not as bad as blue.

Maybe you could get a green dot, and a yellow filter? All men know that green and yellow make blue. (Or is it yellow and blue make green?) hehe . . .

[torrejon224]

I am going to send the slide from one of my S&Ws to Novak to have the fiber optics installed. I'm going with blue in the rear and red up front. If nothing else it will look purty!! Anyway, most of my outings are during daylight so I decided against the tritium as I believe that fiber optics will be better during the day!

[warmrain]

There is a company that is making a fiber optic sight that is also lit at night with tritium. During the day it has the advantages of fiber optics, yet at night you still have night sights.

[torrejon224]

The tritium/fiber optic combo is made by truglo but they don't come in a Novak cut and are all green plus at $100 a sight pretty spendy!

[novak1911freak]

I like the idea of the truglo, having a tritium/fiber optic combo. I think that would be good for a front sight. I also like the fact that the fiber optic is concealed from the front so your target can't see it. Does anyone have any experience with these sights? I'm curious to know how they stand up to other types of sights.

[Rieper47]

I'm not a chemist, but rather a nuclear engineer. The only material I can think of that produces a brilliant, luminescent blue glow is cobalt. However, cobalt emits devastating amounts of gamma radiation and, consequently, is not remotely safe to use in weapon sights. Tritium can be used becaused its gamma radiation emission levels are low enought to be considered safe. It's also used in conjunction with deuterium in fusion reactors. Just so you know.

[warmrain]

Yes, but the colors are produced by optical filters, so no tritium night sight is as bright as the natural color (that's why the recommendation is to leave the front sight green). And there's no real reason I've found to alter the color of the rear sight. Just try to get them misaligned with the front sight off to one side or the other looking like it is one ear of the rear sight; not possible.

[TonyW]

I don't think the colors are from different filters. Here is info from a previous post of mine and the reason for my conclusion:

"And from Trijicon, "Trijicon recommends green dots because they are the
brightest lamps. They are best for targets in low- and no-light
shooting conditions. However, because some shooters prefer greater distinction between their front and rear sights, Trijicon also offers yellow and orange dots for rear sights. Yellow is recommended over orange for the
rear dots because yellow is brighter, lasts longer, and therefore
carries a longer warranty.

I guess the brightness and the different colors of the tritium sights are because of different phosphors being activated by the Tritium H3. I was originally thinking it was from the lens in front of the vial, but if that was the case there wouldn't be any difference in the longetivity."

[warmrain]

If you dig deep enough into the specifications I think you'll find they are filters. Yes Trijicon recommends green and states they are the brightest because no light is filtered out. This is why green is brightest and orange is weakest and why red is not offered.

There is not a difference in longevity of the tritium vial because of the filter only in the usefulness of the light because so much of the spectrum is begin filtered out... thus the limited warranty on brightness...

[TonyW]

Re: I think you'll find they are filters

That would be a reasonable explanation- filters would cut out a lot of light thus the glow would appear darker sooner. However, I just called Trijicon and they said it is from a different phosphor lining the tube.

Copper-activated zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu) is the most common phosphor used. It yields blue-green light.

Copper and magnesium activated zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu,Mg) yields yellow-orange light.

These are activated by the weak beta rays from the tritium (H-3). The zinc sulfide undergoes degradation of its crystal lattice structure, leading to gradual loss of brightness.

[warmrain]

I've read it in some spec., that is why I spoke with such certainty in previous posts... If it truely is not the way Trijicon does it per your conversation with them Tony, perhaps it is one of the others I have... Meprolite or XS... but I did read it in someone's specs...

I like the Trijicon method better. BTW, Trijicon and Mepros are much brighter than the XS 27/7s I've got and I've got several of all three to compare. Some of the Meps are years older than the XS and are still much brighter. I've got one set of XS that are almost unusable and they are less than 4 years old. (all green btw).

Best, Cars

[LikesToShoot]

{{"It only takes a second to dial 911; it could take the rest of your life for help to arrive..."}}


I guess that's why most on this board will probably dial 1-911 and hope they're able to handle the problem theirself. :)

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