The Ruger LCRx 357 got a Novak Tritium front sight from ShopRuger.com. The sharp profile was of some concern in terms of interacting with holsters.

Back in October, I saw the LCRx in 357 Magnum at NASGW. I told Ruger that the only thing it needed was a front sight with tritium – sometimes things happen in conditions of adverse light. Of course, ShopRuger.com already had a tritium front sight for .38/.357 LCRs and it's from Novak. The note on the website says "When mounted on the LCR® .22 and 9mm models, however, the point of impact will shift down as much as 5 inches when fired at a 15 yard target." A couple of weeks ago, an envelope showed up from Ruger, with a nice note and the Novak LCR Tritium Sight for the LCR.

The original front sight, similar in appearance to the one on the LCRx 22 (right), was fine but tritium can be handy in certain situations.

As I'm ham-handed, lack a vise and don't need to be hammering around on guns, I asked Mike Rafferty if he wanted to try his hand at reconfiguring the gun. He's got a great interest in the LCR generally and agreed to try. I picked it up Thursday morning and went right out to the range with two types of ammunition. As we've had considerable rain for some time, I opted to use the 10 yard target frame at our covered pistol bay. I'd been carrying the little cannon with Black Hills 148 grain lead wadcutter. I imagine some people wouldn't be happy with that, believing in magic bullets and such. I find it to be reliable in ignition and it hit to the sights. Back then.

Using the entire white dot instead of the top edge of the front sight led to this effort at 10 yards with Hornady American Gunner .38 Special.

I'd recently gotten some Hornady American Gunner 125 grain XTP .38 ammunition and wanted to try it – and this seemed like a good time. There's more .38 ammo inbound and some magnums already here, but I was anxious to see what happened to this new backup gun just by virtue of a change in sights. A lot happened. Both rounds hit profoundly low at thirty feet. I was using NRA B-8 repair centers. The 148 grain wadcutter by Black Hills hit five inches low – as predicted on the website had the gun been a 9mm or .22 LCR. Not good. Loading up with American Gunner – lighter bullet going faster – I was rewarded with hits going four inches low at the same distance. Well, rats.

The front sight works fine in this DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster.

As I hadn't loaded up with a variety of rounds – and there's more coming in that deserves a chance – I had to learn to work with what I had. I found that covering the bull with the entire white circle surrounding the tritium vial put the 125 grain XTP loads just a bit high on the B-8. I worked on the steel IPSC-style target at fifty yards. Finally, after trying the whole white dot in the 'high chest' area of the target, I got hits. That's actually not terrible. I still want to see where other rounds hit relative to point of aim with this reconfigured gun. Why the concern with zero? We're accountable for every round that exits the muzzle of the firearms under our control. A miss on the range is a miss – out in "the world," it's an unintentional hit. We don't need any of those. Mike was concerned that the sharp profile on the Novak sight would be a problem for holsters. I've been using the DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster and the Novak was no problem for it. Likewise, it seemed to be fine in the Galco Hornet cross draw holster as well. There's more ammo to try and you'll be kept in the loop as I check each load for zero, accuracy and velocity. -- Rich Grassi