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Sidearms & Scatterguns Red Dot Dilemma

Have an enclosed green 2 & 32 setup on my Sig 322 that I got as a test and have liked it. Your comments in the other thread helped me decide when I get my Walther pdp pro it's going to be getting a 6moa dot.

Do I want solar? Heck no so I'm not getting it. Do I need green? No. Do I like green? Yes. Better than red.
I think the reason I mock green reticles, especially for pistols, is because a trained shooter focused on the target should find it easier to detect the flash of red easier/quicker than green. YMMV
 
I think the reason I mock green reticles, especially for pistols, is because a trained shooter focused on the target should find it easier to detect the flash of red easier/quicker than green. YMMV

"In recent years, consideration of human color visual sensitivity has led to changes in the long-standing practice of painting emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks and ambulances, entirely red. Although the color is intended for the vehicles to be easily seen and responded to, the wavelength distribution is not highly visible at low light levels and appears nearly black at night. The human eye is much more sensitive to yellow-green or similar hues, particularly at night, and now most new emergency vehicles are at least partially painted a vivid yellowish green or white, often retaining some red highlights in the interest of tradition."
 

"In recent years, consideration of human color visual sensitivity has led to changes in the long-standing practice of painting emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks and ambulances, entirely red. Although the color is intended for the vehicles to be easily seen and responded to, the wavelength distribution is not highly visible at low light levels and appears nearly black at night. The human eye is much more sensitive to yellow-green or similar hues, particularly at night, and now most new emergency vehicles are at least partially painted a vivid yellowish green or white, often retaining some red highlights in the interest of tradition."
Interesting. It'd be informative if objective scientific research was done with otherwise identical optics on identical firearms with a few thousand people who are trained and competent in the use of dot optics. Perhaps the results would be surprising.
 
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Although the color is intended for the vehicles to be easily seen and responded to, the wavelength distribution is not highly visible at low light levels and appears nearly black at night. The human eye is much more sensitive to yellow-green or similar hues, particularly at night, and now most new emergency vehicles are at least partially painted a vivid yellowish green or white, often retaining some red highlights in the interest of tradition."

Interesting. It'd be informative if objective scientific research was done with otherwise identical optics on identical firearms with a few thousand people who are trained and competent in the use of dot optics. Perhaps the results would be surprising.

At night, on Navy ships, we set "Condition Dog Zebra." It means "darken ship." No lights on the outside of the ship. And any spaces that connect to the weather decks (outdoor areas on ship) via a hatch (aka door) have a switch built into the hatch. When the hatch is opened, that switch automatically turns off any regular lights in that space and turns on red colored lights. Why? Because it's much harder for human eyes to detect red at night and at distances.
 

"In recent years, consideration of human color visual sensitivity has led to changes in the long-standing practice of painting emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks and ambulances, entirely red. Although the color is intended for the vehicles to be easily seen and responded to, the wavelength distribution is not highly visible at low light levels and appears nearly black at night. The human eye is much more sensitive to yellow-green or similar hues, particularly at night, and now most new emergency vehicles are at least partially painted a vivid yellowish green or white, often retaining some red highlights in the interest of tradition."

That's the more recent selling point on green optics anyway.

In practice, it doesn't matter unless your eyes prefer one or the other. If you're not screwing around with manual brightness adjustments (and most likely getting it wrong at least part of every day) the optic should be setting itself to be bright and visible enough regardless if it's red or green.

For my eyes, green shows more starburst in every optic I've tried, while red is generally a nice clean round dot. I've switched back to red, obviously.
 
I EDC a Holosun 507. It has the "shake awake" feature. Of course I'm quite aware that it is always on while I'm wearing it. But I don't wear my EDC while I'm sleeping, eh? So, when I'm asleep, it's asleep. It probably helps with the battery life.
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If you're using the auto brightness feature though, then it's automatically dimming to conserve battery under your clothing. If not, that's just one more strike against manual brightness adjustments for a carry application.

Although a P80 frame and cheapo cutout slide have no place in a good carry gun either IMO. Reliability is too important to play games with this stuff.
 
If you're using the auto brightness feature though, then it's automatically dimming to conserve battery under your clothing. If not, that's just one more strike against manual brightness adjustments for a carry application.

Although a P80 frame and cheapo cutout slide have no place in a good carry gun either IMO. Reliability is too important to play games with this stuff.
I use the auto-bright setting. The only time I go to manual is at the range where the overhead light at the shooting booth is bright and downrange is dark. It results in a reticle that is too bright. So, I prefer to turn it down manually for my indoor range sessions.

And since you decided to go off-topic, I'll address that just this once.

What makes you think / assume the slide was cheap? Furthermore unreliable? This build cost considerably more than what a retail factory Glock goes for. I don't do anything "cheap." Ask my wife! LOL!

I own 3 factory Glocks. I have carried the G27 and the G19. I now prefer this serialized (100% factory finished) P80 PFC9 frame. And it has exactly 7,656 flawless rounds through it. Yes, I track and document it. What would you call "reliable?"

All internal parts are OEM Glock.

My most recent session... I'll take it. The 3D torso target was from "compressed ready"... punch out... rapid fire a 4 to 5 shot string.

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And I carry a "BUG." (S&W 642) :geek:

PS.... I did have an OEM Glock firing pin (in the P80) fail at 7400 rounds. The tip broke off. The trigger spring on my factory G19 broke at about 8,000 rounds.

Broken-firing-pin.jpg
 
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I think the reason I mock green reticles, especially for pistols, is because a trained shooter focused on the target should find it easier to detect the flash of red easier/quicker than green. YMMV
That assumes that everyone's vision works the same. Which is utterly ignorant.

Have you ever heard of color blindness for instance?
 
At night, on Navy ships, we set "Condition Dog Zebra." It means "darken ship." No lights on the outside of the ship. And any spaces that connect to the weather decks (outdoor areas on ship) via a hatch (aka door) have a switch built into the hatch. When the hatch is opened, that switch automatically turns off any regular lights in that space and turns on red colored lights. Why? Because it's much harder for human eyes to detect red at night and at distances.
Another dumb comparison.

Especially because that's not the reason for red indoor lighting at night. It's to make it easier and faster for the eyes of topside watchstanders to adapt to darkness.

If red lights were so fucking difficult to see at night then why is the port side running light red?
 
Another dumb comparison.

Especially because that's not the reason for red indoor lighting at night. It's to make it easier and faster for the eyes of topside watchstanders to adapt to darkness.

If red lights were so fucking difficult to see at night then why is the port side running light red?
Yes. That, too. I wasn't referring to that.

And that's not why the dog zebra hatches (that access weather decks) have that switch that (when opened) turn off the white light and switch to red. It's so the white light in those spaces (which are NOT normally illuminated with red) doesn't "leak" outside and possibly compromise the security of the ship. As soon as the hatch is re-closed, the inside light goes back to regular white light. I was there. I used those hatches. :)

But, yes... red lights are also used, as working illumination in places like the bridge to preserve night vision of the folks on duty (who need that night vision). Again... not what I was talking about. Carry on.
 
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That assumes that everyone's vision works the same. Which is utterly ignorant.

Have you ever heard of color blindness for instance?
My use of the word "should" in the comment specifically means it won't apply to everyone.
 
Just to follow up, Mod 1 Firearms did the machine work and dropped my slide in the mail today: total turn around time 7 days at 125 bucks. Pretty damn good deal and quick.

I opted to race cut (delete rear site dovetail).

Will follow up when slide arrives. Only part of my plan going astray at the moment is the RMRHD I thought I had secured from Midway was actually sold out when I went to pull the trigger.
 
Deleting the rear sight is a mistake unless it's a competition gun or purely a range toy. Good news is most people who get into this end up with multiple optic mounted pistols so there's always next time.
 
Deleting the rear sight is a mistake unless it's a competition gun or purely a range toy. Good news is most people who get into this end up with multiple optic mounted pistols so there's always next time.

If my G19 wasn't an MOS (Which I use to T&E optics) and was able to get the rear backup sight in front of my Acro P2 I'd have one.
I had this discussion with Doug at ATei who indicated that some people opt for a front sight only and use the Acro like a ghost ring site.
I need to experiment shooting like that with the dot off which I'm sure will be fine from 10 yards in, it can't be any worse than me shooting a typical J Frame that barely has sights and a heavy trigger pull.

I guess I'm stuck with a range toy for a carry gun :geek:

-Richard
 
Deleting the rear sight is a mistake unless it's a competition gun or purely a range toy. Good news is most people who get into this end up with multiple optic mounted pistols so there's always next time.
Were gonna see, can always cut a dovetail in front if I need to. Personally 0-7 I'm just looking, shooting and not using any sighting system.
 
@NFAJohn You won’t miss or need the rear iron sight so don’t even sweat it.

The thought of “needing iron sights for a dootie or carry gun” is usually held by one of the following
-extremely “outdated” shooters
-“tactical shooters”
-People that don’t really know how to shoot a pistol that well
- a terrible combo of all the above

You DO NOT want to be one of these above people.

If you want to do more research and not take a random dudes word from the internet - Go look up Ben Stoeger (One of the best pistol shooters in the world) or if that’s not cool enough for you Matt Pranka. (Ex SOF guy, I believe Delta but could be wrong there, that wanted to get really good at shooting so naturally he got into USPSA).

/ end rant 😂
 
@NFAJohn You won’t miss or need the rear iron sight so don’t even sweat it.

The thought of “needing iron sights for a dootie or carry gun” is usually held by one of the following
-extremely “outdated” shooters
-“tactical shooters”
-People that don’t really know how to shoot a pistol that well
- a terrible combo of all the above

You DO NOT want to be one of these above people.

If you want to do more research and not take a random dudes word from the internet - Go look up Ben Stoeger (One of the best pistol shooters in the world) or if that’s not cool enough for you Matt Pranka. (Ex SOF guy, I believe Delta but could be wrong there, that wanted to get really good at shooting so naturally he got into USPSA).

/ end rant 😂
lol man honestly many many moons and pounds ago, when the crown Vic was king, patrol cars lacked computers and departments wouldn’t field tasers for fear of killing people with pacemakers we went and took this class called “instinctive shooting”.

The first fucking thing the instructors did was drift the sights off your pistol and you ran the class basically looking at shit and making it rain 230gr (this was before the time of the 9mm, we still had to kill combatants on horse back). I don’t think we shot past 10 yards, the emphasis of the class was clear leather and make it rain center mass.

That muscle memory is still there, the reason I wanted to look at red dots hard was for
A precise shooting past 10 yards
B my eyes are starting to suck
C I have nods and it will be cool to do ninja stuff
D I have turtles to kill in my farm ponds

In the unlikely event of the red dot failing I’m pretty damn confident I’ll be min of asshole using said dead red dot as a ghost ring with a front post to guide me home. We’re gonna see.