Our company began back in early 1996 in the creative imagination of Ashley Emerson. He was dissatisfied with not only the night sights of the time but also the aperture hunting sights that were being offered as well. He had found that they were barely altered adaptations of target sights both of which had multiple drawbacks for the application and that the hunting sights were way too fragile to boot.

By 1997 he had teamed up with our late president, Ed Pastusek to form A&E Mfg. Ed's innovative manufacturing solutions were a perfect match to Ashley's ideas.

Both men shared the common belief that products should be designed based on where, when and how they are to be really used, with results from field testing taking precedence over everything else, then manufactured to the highest standard and back with a no nonsense customer service policy.

Realizing that the established way may not always be the best solution, ideas were bounced off of and information sought from experts in a wide range of fields. Experts such as Jeff Cooper, Finn Aagard, Clint Smith, James Yeager, Andy Stanford, Paul Gomez, Bill Davison, Ralph Lermayer, Giles and Ed Stock, Louis Awerbuck, Richard Mann, Hans Vang, along with countless law enforcement officers just barely scratches the surface of the enumerable peoples input that have helped XS Sights design and build the best sights for their application possible.

For handguns our sight configuration is a "V" rear blade with a dot front sight. This gives the user considerable advantages in the highly dynamic world of threat situations. The large white area around the tritium in the front sight allows the user to better see the front sight in the mid to low light conditions that are so prevalent in these situations too. The large size of our Big Dot allows unparalleled speed of user acquisition and indexing onto threats in all sorts of light and stress conditions.

Our hunting Ghost Ring Aperture and white stripe front sights give iron sight using hunters tough, fast to use sights that have proven themselves time and again over the last 20 years.

Often paired with our Ghost Ring Sights are our scope mounts. Ranging from the Clifton Scout Mount for 98 Mausers, to the Lever Scout Mounts for Marlin & Winchester rifles or our longer LeverRail for the Marlin rifle or our latest addition the Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle Rail.

The road we have traveled the last 20 odd years, has been nothing if not an evolution in so many ways. Whether it has had to do with the various names of the company (Ashley Research, A&E Mfg, Ashley Outdoors, AO Sight, Express Sights or XS Sights or in our products which we are always looking for a way to improve the performance of, Team XS looks forward to seeing what the next 20 years will bring.