I like shooting rifles with optics just as much as the next guy, but the pure shooting experience when getting behind some good iron sights is something that always puts a smile on my face. I am a sucker for a 20″ Ar-15 with A2 sights and when I heard there was a company local to me that was producing a drop-in upgrade for my favorite AR I had to check it out. When the Average Guy Solutions Hoplite and Legionnaire AR-15 sights showed up I was interested to see how much of an upgrade over the tried and true front post. I guess there is only one way to find out, so a range trip was in order.
Average Guy Solutions came up with two options for the front post upgrade, the Legionnaire, and the Hoplite. The difference between the two seems to be the width of the base and the ease of install. Average Guy Solutions makes the case that the pyramid design of their sights are more precise than the mil-spec sight as a result of the mil-spec sight being .072 inches wide at the tip and their sights come to a very fine point. In the press material that accompanied the sights the claim was made that the mil-spec sight covers 30″ of the target at 300 meters creating a problem when employing a rifle against a human-sized target that is on average 18″ wide. I have shot the standard mil-spec sights at 300 meters many times and have never felt I was at a disadvantage, but I am willing to see if that claim holds water.
As you can see the Legionnaire sight on the left has a very wide base that makes it impossible to use a front sight tool. Average Guy Solutions suggest that you use “the original military front sight tool” (a 5.56 round). The sight on the left is the Hoplite, this can be adjusted and installed with a front sight tool.
When you compare the three sights you can easily see that the Average Guy sights come to a much finer point than the mil-spec sight. These sights are capable of being installed on any sight system that used a standard mil-spec post.
The good old mil-spec sight.
The Legionnaire sight filled the area up quite a lot.
The Hoplite seemed to be a decent compromise between the mil-spec and the Legionnaire.
Taking a look at the sight pictures of the three sights it is easy to see there is a significant difference. First up is the standard mil-spec sight. I have been shooting with this style sight for so long that it feels like home every time I tuck behind a set of these.
The Hoplite was rather easy to install with a front sight tool. I found the Average Guy sights to be really fast to pick up and they seemed to draw my eye up to the point making a good sight picture easy to acquire.
The Legionnaire sight has a bit wider of a base making installation a bit of a task, but you only have to do it once.
I spent a bit of time shooting with all three sights, I was starting to see some merit to Average Guy’s sights.
With an MSRP of $24.99 trying these sights out isn’t going break your wallet so if you think this is something you might like, there isn’t much reason not to give it a shot. You can learn more about the Legionnaire and Hoplite sights at the Average Guy solutions website here.
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