IMO fibre optics and night sights are about the most useless accessory put on a firearm. At 61 years of age I have tried just about every sight gimmik out there to help my aging eyesight and what I have found is that in non Optical/Electronic sights NOTHING tops simple white dots for usefulness in the widest range of lighting. Second best is a gold bead and it's a somewhat distant second.
So what is wrong with fibre optics? After all every gun writer just raves about them. Try fibre optics at the typical indoor range and you'll find that they are about as visible as a solid black sight set. Which will work if you are shooting at a light colored target but they are nearly invisible with a dark background like that on a B-27 target. Those fibre optics don't really start glowing unless you are out in full daylight on either a cloudy or sunny day. So, yeah they are useful for something like an IDPA match as long as none of the stages are in a darkened shoot house.
There there are Night Sights, which do not start to become visible until it's dark enough that you may have problems identifying or even seeing your target. And, guess what happens when you light your target up with a weapon mounted light. Those night sights become invisible due to that light wiping out your night vision, which may take as much as 15 seconds or more for your eyes to recover. In addition at an indoor range the "dots" surrounding the light tube that are supposed to assist in aiming at moderate light levels are about as visible as plain black sights.
Bottomline, keep the sights that came on your shield, they are actually a lot more useful than you think they are.
Next, ported barrels. In addition to aging eyesight I also suffer from aging hearing. So, I now use ear plugs when I am mowing the grass and double up on hearing protection at the range. If you aren't aware of it Ported Barrels are quite LOUD for the shooter. Fortunately for me the indoor ranges I shoot have dividers between lanes so someone in the next lane with a ported handgun doesn't bother me unless it's a 460 or 500 Magnum, because all the volume produced by his ported barrel is reflected right back at the poor sod shooting that ported pistol. I'm willing to bet that in 15 or 20 years that poor sod will be asking people to speak up just like I do now. In hindsight I really wish that I had been wise enough to wear ear plugs to concerts I attended back in the 70's. I still remember that after the Yes, Tales of Topographic Oceans concert in Cincinnati my ears rang for 4 days. I'm also sure that Uriah Heap, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, and The Who also didn't do my hearing much good at all.
Bottomline, ported barrels are just too darned loud and in a defensive shooting where you probably won't be using any hearing protection at all you will suffer immediate, measurable, and permanent hearing loss. If you are sitting inside a car when you pull that trigger it's about 30/70 that you'll suffer a complete loss of hearing in one ear.
Finally, trick trigger systems. I'm an Old Fart. Old enough to have started my shooting with a double action revolver and I still shoot a double action pistol at every range outing. Because I have found that NOTHING develops trigger skills more than shooting with a long, moderately heavy trigger stroke. BTW, one oof my recent favorite traing pistols is a Sig Sauer P290-380. It's a rather tiny little pistol with a 9 lbs. DA only trigger and that trigger features enough mainspring rub that it's distinctly gritty if you try and stroke it slowly. However if you pull that trigger at a Combat pace it smooths out so it's a near match for my 1971 vintage S&W 19-3, meaning it feels really sweet when used properly. And yeah, that tiny little pistol has sights that feature nice big white dots. Personally I think that picking up a used S&W revolver may prove of more benefit than any trigger kit. However, that's just a suggestion, by all accounts Apex has very good trigger kits for the S&W semi's.
