[WildRice]

I just ordered some Williams Fire Sights from cheaperthandirt.com for my 3rd gen Mil Pros (PT-145 and PT-111). I will give a review in the future once I receive them. Older Mil Pros have non-Heinie screw down sights, where as 3rd gen Mil Pros have Heinie dovetailed sights with allen lock down bolts. CTD sells both types for Taurus pistols, so make sure you order the correct ones! To add to the confusion, the CTD photo for the dovetail sights is that of the non-dovetail sights, but the Williams part number is for the correct dovetailed type. We will see what I receive.

 

[WildRice]

Williams Fire Sights Installed

I installed Williams Fire Sights on my PT111 and PT145. The stock sights are dovetailed Heinie "straight eight" sights, so I ordered dovetail Fire Sights (model #70897). For older Mil Pros with non-dovetailed sights, you will want model #70268. I marked the slide as to the windage of the old sights which were pretty much dead center on each pistol. The stock front Heinie sight needs a 1.5 mm Allen wrench to loosen and the rear a 2 mm Allen wrench. After loosening these set screws, I used a brass drift to tap them out from the bare slide. There was a thin layer of gel-like adhesive under the sights that I left in place as it may help hold the new sights.

The new sights drifted in place with the same amount of tapping effort (i.e. a good fit). The front Williams set screw is .050" Allen and the rear was 1/16" Allen (the stock Heinies are metric). I added blue Loctite to the screw threads. There are no wrenches or instructions included!

The rear Fire Sight has two orange fiber optic rods that gather a lot of light and are very bright, especially with light from above. The front is a thicker, light-green, single rod which is even brighter. These should be easy to pick up with fast shooting in both day light and dim light. They will not glow in no light. The rear is ramp shaped and snag free. The front has a few sharps corners. I performed some rough measurements as follows (in mm, top of slide to top of sight):

Heinie PT111 Heinie PT145 Williams Fire Sights
Front 5.4 5.8 5.5
Rear 5.6 5.6 5.7

This should raise the point of impact on my PT145 (which hit a low as stock) and not significantly change the POI on my PT111 (which hit just slightly low as stock).

The fire sights have a rather narrow rear notch with thin light bars. I prefer a wider notch and broader light bars for target shooting. There is not much if any material that I can remove to either lower the height of the front sight or widen the rear notch, as the fiber optic rods are close to the black edges. I will try these out at the range this weekend. I predict these will be very good combat sights, but only so so target sights. My PT145 should hit closer to point of aim.

 

[WildRice]

I test fired my PT145 with the Williams Fire Sights. See my previous post regarding ordering the correct type and installation issues. Before firing, I went ahead and widened the narrow rear notch, which was not very much due to how close the fiber optic knobs are to the edges. The sights are aluminum and easy to file, but you must be precise and even with appropriate square needle files. I finished with Aluminum Black. It did increase the too narrow light bars a small amount, still not as much as I like for precise target shooting.

The front sight is lower than the stock Heinie, so now my PT145 now shots exactly at point of aim, when before it shot low. The windage was spot on with the sights exactly centered, as it was with the stock Heinies.

The lighting at my indoor range is terrible for target shooting. There is glaring light from behind your shoulder, no overhead light, and very dim target lighting. That said, the fiber optic rods gathered what light there was and were very visible. The fiber optic dots change with ambient light and are brightest with overhead light. The dim target light made it hard to see the narrow light bars, but in a well lit room I can see them OK (after widening the rear notch).

The Fire Sights were not quite as target accurate as the well-designed Heinies, which have better light bars. I found that I shot better when I ignored the light bars and just concentrated on the front dot. For combat shooting, I imagine the Fire Sights would be easy to acquire, even if rough sighted, or looking at the bad guy over the top of the gun.