This week, we have a new set of sights for your Glock pattern holster that is near and dear to my heart. I am especially excited to bring these to you since the inventor has been sending me prototypes for the last five years, as he worked out every tiny detail. It says right on the packaging “Special Operations Combat Veteran Owned”, and for once I don’t have to verify that. Because I was on an Operational Detachment Alpha with him, running and gunning across the Mad Max land known as Iraq.
Now he hasn’t told me so, but I like to think the inspiration for the sights came about around October of 2007. We were in some filthy nest of vipers in Southern Iraq, a battle so nasty we had Apache’s doing gun runs right down Main Street. I, your humble narrator, saw something of critical importance that had to be done.
Me: “Yo, new guy, cover me! I gotta do something”
Him, on the 50 cal: “I got you lil’ homie. Like white on rice. You gonna flank’em with the Carl G, flush’em out into the street, and we will pound them with old hammer and anvil?” (Internal monologue: I bet he’s gonna flank’em with the Carl G, flush’em out into the street, and we cut these chuckle heads down like a scythe through grass.)
Me: “No, I gotta have that for the team room!!!!” Bounces off truck, runs over to 3×5 picture of Muqtar al-Sadr hanging on a light pole, while deploying wire cutters.
Him, while raking the building above me with the Ma Duece to keep the hand grenades at bay, and watching me get a boost from two Iraqi Commandos to cut the top wire: “Oh good, I’m on a team full of retards. This should be an eventful trip. Do you know what this 50 cal could use? Some better iron sights. I got an idea!!”
And the important point here is that I got my picture, and it still hangs in a 3rd Special Forces Group Team Room to this day. So fast-forwarding to 2013 or so, and the prototypes of Parasec sights are born.
The concept is really simple, but most game changing product evolutions look that way in hindsight. Pistol sights, whether fiber optic, tritium, or factory Glock placeholders, are all generally built one way. There is a dot of color or glow or whatever that is in the middle of the sight, to draw your eye to focus on the sight. And that dot isn’t actually the aiming point. The aiming point is the top of the sight, if you want an accurate shot. For real. That is the point of zero on every pistol sight in the inventory. The very top edge of the front sight post.
Parasec though, what if we move the color bit up to the top, so the bright part is also the aiming part? And, what if instead of a dot, we used a line, all the way across the top of the front and rear? And what if those things together, when lined up, made a straight line, and that was how you aimed? Which they did, and it is absolutely brilliant.
While I often refer to my friend and Parasec owner as a stupid Bravo, I will concede some facts about him personally as a stupid Bravo. (Special Forces job titles are Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Fox, Zulu. A Bravo is a weapons specialist, which we also refer to as “Special Forces Regular”. Oh, you play with guns? So does everyone else. Go chew your crayons while the grown-ups talk.) Parasec’s founder is one of the best I know at having a thesis, and then running that thesis to the ground by talking to actual experts.
Most Bravo’s, being 90% Cro-Magnon knuckle draggers, are big into lifting weights. And for most of them, that starts and stops at “pick up something heavy and move it over there”. Parasec’s inventor? No. He wants to lift more gooder, so he hounds the professors of Kinesiology at the University of Texas until they make him a test subject for the $6 million dollar man project. Which would also explain why he still poses for calendars, teaches Brazilian Jujitsu, and opted to go ahead and switch sports so he could win Judo Nationals this year too.
This inability to be content with good enough also reflects in the Parasec sights science section. Anyone can get an endorsement from a Gunfighter or competitive shooter. Parasec has endorsements from neurosurgeons and scientists, in addition to Gunfighters. You can go ahead and add me to that list. I’ve done some gunfighting myself, and I fully endorse the Parasec Sights.
Another thing I really like about the Parasec Sight is the attention to detail with the materials used. The website doesn’t just say “Made in the USA”, which they are, and which should matter. It tells you exactly where the raw material comes from, and why it was chosen. The steel, for instance, comes from LaPorte, Indiana. It isn’t just some pot metal formed to shape, it is 4140 known for strength, abrasion resistance, and toughness. Things that you might decide matter when you dodge RPG’s and machine gun fire for a living.
Parasec Sights are absolutely fantastic and are set to take the industry by storm. They simplify the learning curve of aiming, are amazing for aging eyes, and are tough as a coffin nail. They are going on all my Glock’s now that they are available, and all my other guns as they become available. And that is the strongest endorsement I can give.
For more information check out Parasec Sights.
is a former Marine and Green Beret, retiring out of 3rd Special Forces Group. He is a multi-decade and -service sniper, as well as 3-Gun competitor and Master ranked shooter in USPSA Production. In addition to writing about guns, he is the author of “Last Son of The War God,” a novel about shooting people that deserve it. You can also follow him on twitter, @offthe_res or his website, Off-The-Reservation.com
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