I was looking at a review of the new IWI-US imported Jericho over on LooseRounds, and noticed that the author had a very interesting comment about it:

… the action and slide of the Jericho sit tight inside the frame and as a side effect, reveal little of the slide itself for weapon manipulation. Unlike say, my square Glock which gives me lots of real estate for racking and manipulation, the Jericho gives much less purchase. Consider this a negative if forced to manipulate the weapon when wet or in slippery conditions.

Fair criticism, of course. IMI apparently took this to heart when they designed the Barak, which has the large, easy-to-grab, and ugly rear sight “hump”.

But… this is also specifically a problem with the newest generation of Jerichos. The sights on the new imports are of the “snag-free” variety. However, if you look at the older IMI guns, they’ve got a much different design – very vertical, thick, and “snaggy”. The advantage is that the old style sights make the slide much easier to manipulate. You simply grab the top of the slide and push back against the rear sight.

Want to be a real operator and do a one-handed-against-the-table slide manipulation? The old-style sights were awesome for that. In fact, the old-style sights were pretty great in general, so I’m not sure why they changed them. Snag-free isn’t everything.