Review: Meprolight R4E Optimized Duty Night Sight for Glock
Major Pandemic 02.17.17
Night sights are not only cool, they can also be extremely useful when the lights go out. And Meprolight’s R4E ODS (Optimized Duty Sight) combines two unique features into one heck of a sighting system.
Mepro was approached by two U.S. Special Forces veterans with an idea for multi-use night sight, which would improve one-handed charging/clearing of a Glock while allowing for more-precise aiming.
During any serious defensive handgun training, shooters are required to work a pistol’s slide one-handed. The typical method taught is to push against a belt, pocket, or some other “snaggy” or fixed object to charge the gun. But with a smooth or de-horned gun, it can be tough to get the slide to “grab” against something, especially since most sights are designed not to snag.
Both front and rear sights are angled forward in the Meprolight R4E ODS (Optimized Duty Sight), which makes them great for one-handed slide-racking. These sights can be easily and reliably used to catch on just about anything to charge your full sized Glock. The design works incredibly well.
The veterans also wanted better accuracy than most night sights provide. The R4E ODS has five sighting elements, which form a precision reticle-style sight picture. The three vertical features and two horizontal lines produce a crosshair-type sight picture that improves target acquisition time.
All sighting elements/lines on the rear sight are tritium illuminated. Only the dot is illuminated on the front sight. The result of this sighting system is that even at night the shooter can deliver tremendous precision.
A side benefit of the sight is that in a high stress situation at night, the shooter cannot mistakenly mis-order the illuminated dots–a situation where the front sight is aligned to the left or right of the rear sight and is grossly off target.
My Perspective
Simply put, I believe these are the best combat/defensive sights made. After receiving basic and advanced pistol training from some pretty badass Israeli Special Operations folks, I fully understand the value of these sights.
As I ran through all my methods of executing single-handed pistol manipulation, these sights performed perfectly. They worked so well that I am a little concerned they’re going to make me a bit lazy and sloppy when I handle a Glock that doesn’t have these sights.
The sighting is extremely precise and it’s far easier to shoot smaller groups more quickly than with standard dots. I have always felt the plastic Glock “U” rear sight and front dot are faster for me than three-dot sights, but this is right up there with the speed of the stock Glock sight for me.
Here is the downside. All those forward angles and sharp points that allow the sights to do their job of catching on stuff also make it the single most uncomfortable CCW IWB (inside the waistband) sight I have ever used.
The rear sight can work a hole in your bare fleshy side faster than a Cuisinart. To carry with this sight, you will need a full-coverage holster that provides leather between your carcass and the gun. Otherwise there will be pain and blood.
During testing I actually broke out the Dremel to take off some of the points on the rear sight so I could carry the G19 on which the sights were mounted. I had no issues when testing this pistol with an outside the waistband holster.
Final Thoughts
I am not super-hard-core, nor am I some badass army SOPMOD military dude, but I do carry a firearm every day and I have some opinions on what I like. If Meprolight knocked off the exterior (flesh eating) corners on this sight and left all the other corners, this sight would be the most perfect set of combat sights I have ever tested.
In the current version, I would not install these sights on my CCW IWB Glocks unless I was using a Crossbreed SuperTuck Deluxe which would place leather between the entire gun and my skin. Now for OWB (outside the waistband) carry, this sight should work just fine.
These sights are fast and offer more precision than typical sights. Other than the sharp corners, the other downside is that at $174, it is THE most expensive night sight set on the market. (At press time they’re available here for $158.85.)
This is a hardcore sight designed by hardcore folks. And although it’s sharp and expensive, it’s also the best sight set I have tested.
The design does what it is intended to do which is to improve sighting and single-handed charging and gun manipulation for clearing and reloading.
Manufacturer Specs
- Fits Glock Large/Full-Sized Format Pistols only – such as Glock 19, G17 etc.
- Available in single-color or dual-color configurations (available colors are green and orange).
- MSRP $174.99
