Images by the author
What shooter today hasn’t heard of XS sights? They are a force to be reckoned with in the firearms aftermarket industry. I was made aware of them a couple of decades ago when a friend showed me a pistol fitted with replacement XS sights. I knew them primarily for their “Big Dot” variety – a large, round front sight with a tritium insert – but they make all sorts of other products. I found something interesting about the company… it is a second-generation family affair, as you will see below. That says a lot in this day and age.
Speaking of those products, here’s a screen grab from their website that lists what they sell…
I discovered that they sell a whole lot more than sights. In terms of sub-categories, rest assured that there are several products under each heading. I won’t bore you with listing everything they make…You can explore that on your own here.
In terms of the company, I found this on the website linked above…
We are a small, second-generation family-owned business based in Fort Worth, TX, and our customers are family. We live, eat, and breathe guns. We manufacture tritium night sights for pistols, shotguns, revolvers, AR-15s, and AK rifles. We also build gunsmithing tools, shotgun magazine tube extensions, and optic mounts. We offer ghost-ring and optic mounting solutions for lever-action, bolt-action, and blackpowder long guns for hunting. Upgrade your revolver sights today and discover the XS Advantage.
Now we come to the “SDR” part of the title. I have a Diamondback SDR .357 snub-nosed carry revolver. I did a review of this excellent wheelgun in August of 2025… You can read it here. If you are a fan of revolvers, you might want to take a look at this 6-shooter (not 5). Plus, you can remove the crane and the cylinder by pressing a button on the frame… a nice feature.
Anyway, I digress. I saw, in an ad, new XS sights for this revolver. Since I owned one, I thought it might be nice to get a set and stick them on. I contacted the company, and they sent me a set of their Minimalist sights, made for this specific gun. (Most XS sights are made for specific gun models, so they will fit with no problems.)
Here is what comes in the sight package…
You get the sights, an Allen wrench, a roll pin, Lucas gun oil, and Vibra-Tite thread locker. Plus, several stickers and other inserts are included.
My engineer/shooter son and I installed the sights on my SDR. He is way more mechanical than I am, Mr. Tenthumbs… where he got that gene is beyond me. Anyway, I found a link to a YouTube video from XS that detailed the installation process. As with most replacement sights, it was fairly straightforward.
Here are a few photos of the process and the final result. We used basically the same tools as the fellow in the video, but we found that adding a pair of parallel-jaw pliers to the mix allowed us to remove the old front sight easily. Also, another hack we discovered is that a 1.5mm Allen wrench helps in cleaning out the old Loc-Tite from the front sight groove… it fits well.
Here’s the “before” … the OEM sights. They’re not bad at all, but the XS front dot has a tritium insert and will be more visible in low light.
Here is the old front sight next to the new Big Dot.
The new front sight, two views…
And, the finished product…
… with what your eye will focus on. These sights are very nice and effective.
There really are no tricks or special ninja moves that you’ll need to make in order to swap out the sights. You will need a few tools… the video lists them, but here they are if you didn’t watch it, plus the ones we added…
- a non-marring hammer
- a padded jaw vise helps, but is not necessary, as we found out
- a nylon punch
- a brass punch
- a pair of parallel-jaw pliers
- cotton swabs
- a degreaser of some sort. The video fellow (and my son) used Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber
- scraping tools to clean the old thread locker from the sight grooves
- the included Allen wrench to seat the rear sight locking screw
Patience is also required… moving sights out that have been set at the factory is not easy. Force is required.
That’s pretty much it. XS makes sights for all sorts of firearms. This Minimalist set fits very well on my SDR, but XS has plenty of options. You should check them out at the link above… sometimes a red dot is not needed when a replacement set of sights will do the job. Also, if your pistol won’t accept a red dot, these sights can come to your rescue. They are well-made and will last the life of your gun. That’s a win-win!
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