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Modifying the AimTrak gun controller's Front Sight.

When shooting, acquiring an accurate "sight picture" is important. The "sight picture" is the focus on the front sight, aligning it with the rear sight, and placing that on the target where you want the shot to go.

In Defensive Shooting, acquiring and accurate sight picture rapidly and repeatedly is important.

For this reason most modern guns come with sights that help your eyes find and focus on the front sight. There are various types of sights for this: night sights, fiber optic, red dot, or just painted in a light contrasting color.

The sights on the AimTrak gun controller are plain black like the rest of the gun. This would not be bad if all of your intended targets were light color on a light background. Black sights on a dark background, however, will tend to get lost and take time to find and focus on if at all.

One of the many things you can use the iFightBack system with the AimTrak gun controller to practice for is rapid and repeated sight acquisition. For that it would be good to have a front sight that is a little better at helping the eye find and then focus on it. The easiest thing to do is simply paint the front sight a bright color. A lot of modern sights use white dots or lines on the sights but you can also use a bright red, orange, yellow or whatever you may have if you don't want to go out and buy a new bottle of nail polish or model paint. On your actual defensive weapon you would want to have or get professional sights. That option is not possible for the AimTrak so hand painting is the only option. If you or your spouse have a light colored nail polish already, then that should be fine. If you or a member of your family have a light colored model paint, then that would also be good. If you need to buy something, then a cheap brand of white nail polish at your local pharmacy is only about $2-$4
(note: Even better, see http://coolglow.com/low-in-the-Dark-Nail-Polish-White/c0/# for glow-in-the-dark nail polish)

The first thing you would want to do is get some masking tape to tape off the areas around and on top of the sight to keep any paint from accidently getting on the wrong areas.

You will notice that the AimTrak front sight is actually two very thin front sights split down the middle with each half being part of its half of the gun controller when taken apart. For that reason there will be a gap between the two halves. Not too much you can do about this other than trying to brush some paint into that gap and/or waiting for the first layer of paint to dry and using a second layer to try and fill the gap. I found that the eye will find the front sight even with this gap so don't spend too much time worrying about it. With the white paint the gap is now visible as shown below.

Remove the tape after the paint has dried a little but not too long or else there is the possibility that any paint on the tape will be so attached to the paint on the sight that it will pull off some of the paint on the sight. If need be cut between the tape and sight with a razor blade to make sure the paint on each is separated.

After removing the tape you can use an emery board or sandpaper to remove any paint on top of or on the sides of the front sight that may have ended up there.

Now when you go to practice rapid sight acquisition you will have an easier time of finding and focusing on that front sight (even with the gap).

Give us feedback with your choices and your experience.