Old Trijicon Front Sights - Repair Option

[Tailflash]

I have several demilled front end barrel/sight towers that came with old Trijicon Sight Posts (green tritium). Green tritium has a service life of around 12 years and then fades away. Trijicon will not service these specific sights, in fact, I cannot find them on their site and what is out there are all pulled units that probably have zero illumination whatsoever. Meprolight (brand) Tru-Dot Rifle Sight for MP5/90-series is similar, but they rely on tritium also, and I'm not confident purchasing something that probably is old stock on a shelf with possible half-life tritium. I'm not lurching around doing night operations; never have, never will, but I was thinking I can get some daylight service (at least) by modifying these with green fiber optic, and at a fraction of the price tritium sights cost (of which you can't see the tritium during daylight anyway).

Here's what I did:

Old Trijicon sights off HK33:


Using a 1/16" drill bit & 1/16" punch, starting at the opposite end, drill out the glue (or whatever) is holding the small tritium pellet in.



I used the side of a fine-tooth flat file to remove material to about halfway down; exposing the hollow portion. Then cleaned up the hole with the 1/16" drill bit.

 

[Tailflash]

I touched up the sight with flat black paint to hide where I filed material away. As you can see, common .060 green fiber optic (around $5.95 + $0.90 shipping via eBay) brings life back into this old sight, at least for daylight shooting. There are multiple colors of fiber optic to choose from sold by same vendor on eBay.

After cutting the fiber optic to length, I plan on adding a drop or two of Superglue to hold it in place.

Note the slight downwards angle these sights have; the high end faces the shooter.

 

[AGG]

Excellent work and tutorial.

Tony