Most of my firearms have iron sights.  And most of those are black.  I'm currently practicing a lot with a S&W 625 in anticipation of an upcoming Easter egg match, and in the low light of my bedroom training gallery, that black front sight is just a little hard to acquire.  So I went rummaging through the house, and found some old model paint.  You know, the enamel in little glass jars?  There was a jar of violent pink that wasn't quite dried out, so I applied that to the front sight.

Wow!  What a difference! 

But it is pretty delicate.  Just running my thumbnail around the edge of the sight, I managed to flake some off.  I don't expect it to last through more than 2-3 cleanings. 

So... what's a good, lasting substance to brighten up sights? 

Usually the enamel lasts.

You sure it's an enamel?

Probably a water based paint.

Nail polish lasts a long time.

Try use some nail polish if you got any of those laying around the house.

most newer hobby enamel is pretty strong.. but since youre looking to buy anyway i saw hiviz makes a kit with different neon colors that are supposed to be pretty luminous.
i temporarily used white automotive touch up paint on some of cheaper iron sighted guns like mosin and lever actions. its better than the dark iron post but if i were to go out and buy paint id personally go neon green. i dont like how it looks cosmetically while looking the gun over, but my eye picks up green the best while sighting. i got a clip on fiberoptic for my shotgun and the difference is literally night and day compared to the dull factory bead sight. i tried red green yellow and orange fiber inserts and i prefer green, then orange. yellow and red dont jump at me enough.

Come on Tom....I KNOW you got some pink fingernail polish sitting around somewhere 

Come on Tom....I KNOW you got some pink fingernail polish sitting around somewhere 

Course I do, silly!  But if I use it on my guns, then what will I use to paint my toes???

I experimented on a old revolver with some nail polish a few years ago; dayglow orange on the front and dayglow yellow for the rear, turned out ok.
It lasted for quite awhile, but wasn't as high contrast as I wanted.

I really want to try some luminous paint, might hit up Ben Franklin to see what they have.

Nail polish is probably the most readily available and easily obtainable paint type.
The birchwood casey orange paint was my favorite, super durable, matte, and easy to apply.
A lot of people recommend model paints.

Todd Green and Claude Werner are the two trainers I've been exposed to who really pushed a painted front sight, and below is an article fromt Todd's site, and another article written by Claude Werner.

http://pistol-training.com/articles/the-johno-diy-high-visibility-front-sight
http://www.personaldefensenetwork.com/articles/handguns/improve-your-snubs-sights/

I've been using a frosted red nail polish on my front sights for decades.  The frosting (tiny aluminum particles) seems to gather and reflect the light better.  Degrease the sight first, then dab the polish on, square it off on the sides and top when it's sorta half dry, and turn the gun upside down while drying to hardness.

One thing old time bullseye shooters used to do is put a piece of white tape on the barrel right by the sight to gather ambient light and reflect it up on the sight itself.

For the rear sight, I use sight blacking spray from Birchwood-Casey.  Much better than holding a lit match under the sight to  soot it up.  That's what's in the can sitiing inside the roll of masking tape:



The sight blacking is not really paint, just carbon black in a spray can and it wipes off easily.

Terry, 230RN

REF:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/504999/birchwood-casey-sight-black-3-1-2-oz-aerosol

Before ditching the paint remove the old paint and clean the area with a degreaser first. People notoriously slather their firearm in oil which is sometimes visible, other times not. Even the oil from you fingers may be sufficient to compromise the paint's ability to mechanically bond to the surface. The other thing you can do is to roughen up the surface to give the paint something to bite on to.

Anybody tried bedazzle, I read somewhere that this guy used his daughters bedazzle kit and it worked on his front sight. He said that the small bead gathers in the light even in low light situations.

Ive used some whiteout before.  works great.

Degrease the sight first, then dab the polish on, square it off on the sides and top when it's sorta half dry, and turn the gun upside down while drying to hardness.

Before ditching the paint remove the old paint and clean the area with a degreaser first. People notoriously slather their firearm in oil which is sometimes visible, other times not. Even the oil from you fingers may be sufficient to compromise the paint's ability to mechanically bond to the surface.

Thanks for confirming that.