I have a P229 that is nearing 20 years old. I have the original sights on it and I was thinking of doing something nice for the old girl and putting some new sights on it. So I'm looking for opinions for options between the three choices or maybe there is a choice I don't know about. I'm approaching 50, so maybe I need something that will be easier to see and place shots. I'm open. Oh, and if red dot is the way to go, I don't want to cut into the slide. I would want some sort of adapter.

I'd go Trijicon HD.

Trijicon HD

Maybe a XS Big Dot if that fits your needs..

XS Big Dot

I'd pass on the red dot since your slide isn't milled for it..

Good luck...

Stay away from the guide rod lasers. They can come apart inside your gun and that’s not good. Besides, lasers aren’t really that useful anyway.

I’d get some optic height sights from night fission. They are like the trijicons but better, larger tritium vials and the orange or green ring is a plastic sleeve instead of paint.

You can get the slide milled for not a whole lot but is it worth the cost of the optic plus getting it milled if you rarely carry or shoot it?

I carry it sometimes, but usually I just enjoy it at the range. I’ll check out the trijicon and the night fission to start. Good to know about the guide rod lasers.

Some kind of HD/High viz sight setup. Trij. HDs like mentioned above.

I like a blacked out rear with a high viz front not sure of specific options for the P229 for this.

-Guide rod lasers have too much that can go wrong and are expensive and not worth the juice squeezed IMO. (I do like laser grips on something like a J-Frame though)

MRDS may or may not be a whole learning curve for you, are expensive, come with an additional maintenance and if you aren’t going to mount it to a slide cut will be both higher over bore and possibly less secure/durable in mounting. (I am not poo pooing dots completely out of hand but in this case I gotta say no)

I have been using LaserMax guiderod lasers for over 25 years now and have never had a failure yet
I bought my first one for the hell of it. Thought they were cool as hell. As time goes by my eyesight gets worse and they are very much more useful to me now.
Bought my first Glock unit for my 43x a few years ago and its also doing well.
The unit in my P228 is about 15 years old and still going strong.

Trijicon HD

May not be able to machine old slide for optic.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
I have been using LaserMax guiderod lasers for over 25 years now and have never had a failure yet
I bought my first one for the hell of it. Thought they were cool as hell. As time goes by my eyesight gets worse and they are very much more useful to me now.
Bought my first Glock unit for my 43x a few years ago and its also doing well.
The unit in my P228 is about 15 years old and still going strong.

I've had a LaserMax guide rod in my p226 (.40 S&W) for over ten years now. Thousands of rounds through it and the laser is still flawless.

I had the same issue with an older 229. Decided to try a laser. The night sights with the laser work fine for me. I would not think about having the slide milled when there are so many choices in pistols that come that way. Gives you an excuse to buy a new pistol.

My 229 tritium sights died a few years ago and as my eyes age, I didn't do the RDS but instead changed the sights.

The factory sights were OK but didn't have the pop that glued my eyes to them. The goal, at leat for me, was to have a photoluminescent front sight insert that surrounded the tritium vial.

I looked at Trij but my eyes aren't a fan of Orange and the Lemon-Lime looked like a possibility too but I went with the Ameriglo sights that were neon green. Ameriglo is owned by Trij so the quality is high and I'm pleased with them.

I was so pleased with them that I replaced a green FO on my G19 with their green sight. My eyes are very happy with this.