I very much disagree about the Ruger fiber optic sights. S&W's versions are an abomination, totally unusable, IMO with
the round top. The Ruger version is a black square patridge sight with a glowing dot in the blade. If one were
to put a shot of sight black on the Ruger sight, it would be just a black patridge sight. Think "white dot" front sight
but having a colored glowing dot, instead of white. IME, it works very well for a quick alignment in poor light
or in a big hurry, while the black outline which is always there permits precise alignment when you have time and
inclination to do a precise shot. My recently acquired SP101 in .22 LR is great out of the box,
where the S&W 317 was a giant pain, and I had to decide whether to sell it or replace
both sights.
In my experience, the Ruger design is excellent, but the S&Ws have been removed from the two guns that came with them,
and they were greatly worsened by the entirely useless V-notch rear sight, replaced with normal rear sight blades. The
combination of the round top front sight and V-notch rear on several S&Ws is just garbage, and no good, consistent
sight picture is possible.
Bill