U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- The AmeriGlo Hackathorn sights have been my go-to bargain priced night sight for several years now. Like many of you, whenever I buy a new pistol, one of the first changes I make is adding better sights, especially in the case of factory Glock sights. While I generally prefer a fiber optic front sight and a featureless, serrated rear sight, the value that the AmeriGlo Hackathorn sights offer is hard to overlook. Currently, I am running Hackathorns on a Glock 23 as well as my EDC Glock 43 for the last two years.
The AmeriGlo keeps the Hackathorn night sights one of the more attractive options on the market by keeping the price point at a very reasonable $80 MSRP. If you shop around you will find that the street price generally hovers around $60 in most local gun stores and online retailers. Let’s face it, sometimes the price is the deciding factor, and that is OK, especially when it is still quality gear. Not everyone can peel $130 out of their wallet for a set of higher end Trijicon HDs making the Hackathorns a solid consideration at less than half the price.
Does the cheaper price come at the cost of features? Sure. Many people might want a sight that has rear tritium vials, but I personally prefer a clean and featureless rear sight that doesn’t clutter the sight picture. The front sight is where all the magic is with a bright orange ring around the tritium vial, but we will get into that later.
AmeriGlo uses US sourced bar stock to CNC machine the sights just like the rest of their lineup ensuring that the quality is what you would expect when buying a set of aftermarket sights. You should note that the sights have a relief milled in the dovetail of the rear sight that is intended to provide a crush zone that perfectly fits the dovetail of your gun. That might not seem like an important feature, but every slide has a slight difference in dovetail dimensions.
You can see that the nitriding that AmeriGlo uses on the sights is nicely uniform and has proved to be rather durable after being on my EDC Glock 43 for over two years now.
As previously mentioned, the AmeriGlo Hackathorn sights feature a bright orange ring around a tritium vial to aide in acquiring the front sight quickly. Remember how I said that this is where the magic lies? Since I generally focus my eyes on the target, the bright orange ring helps me with sight alignment and helps keep the front separate from the rear. This particular set of sights was purchased before AmeriGlo started installing their own tritium vials so it is marked Trijicon, the company that was previously installing them.
There are only a couple of sources for tritium vials in the world and as I understand it, the actual vials are the same now as they were when Trijicon was installing the vials. The only real change was who is doing the actual work.
While some may view the all black rear sight as a downside, I rather prefer a clutter-free sight picture with either no rear tritium vials or a single vial. The all black serrated black rear of the Hackathorns not only does a great job of reducing glare but also have that plain black rear sight that I prefer.
The rear sight also features a nice sharp 90-degree edge on the front edge that really aids in one-handed manipulations should you find yourself in a situation that leaves you down a hand.
Looking at the sight picture, you can see how easily the bright orange dot on the front sight draws your eye in helping acquire a quick sight picture. I find that I rather prefer a heavy contrast color like the bright orange that Ameriglo uses and the all black rear notch, while present, isn’t overwhelming.
Since I shoot red dot pistols quite a lot, I find that I focus on the target rather than the front sight when shooting quickly, thankfully the dot stands out enough to be very usable at close to medium pistol ranges.
While my pistol shooting has greatly improved since these photos were taken a couple of years ago, I did notice a rather significant decrease in overall group size after installing the AmeriGlo Hackathorns.
Overall, I really feel that the AmeriGlo Hackathorn sights are one of the best values on the market when shopping for night sights and you would be foolish to overlook them because they lack tritium vials in the rear. I will add that the sight can wear out if you move them around often like I do for testing different products as needed but most users won’t experience that issue.
If you want to learn more about the AmeriGlo Hackathorn sights you can visit the AmeriGlo website or the AmeriGlo Hackathorn product page. MSRP for a set of the sights as tested is $80 and often have a street price of $60 – $70.
About Patrick R.
Patrick is a firearms enthusiast that values the quest for not only the best possible gear setup, but also pragmatic ways to improve his shooting skills across a wide range of disciplines. He values truthful, honest information above all else and had committed to cutting through marketing fluff to deliver the truth. You can find the rest of his work on FirearmRack.com as well as on the YouTube channel Firearm Rack or Instagram at @thepatrickroberts.