Sidearms & Scatterguns Red dot or not on your "life or death" pistol?
- Thread starter eastexsteve
- Start date
If you need sights of any kind inside 10yds, you’re not ready to be fighting with a pistol to begin with.
what if everyone knew that they don’t have to focus on the front sight with irons….
For those saying they are slower with the dot, you just need more practice with the dot.
When I transitions to dots I significantly lost speed, most of that was the initial shot trying to find the dot. Once the dot was acquired I was faster unless I lost the dot.
The key, at least for me, was getting the muscle memory so that as soon as the pistol presents the dot is already on target and in the middle of the window. Hours or dry fire practice at the house. Draw, find the dot repeat.
Now, unless I change guns with significantly different ergos, the dot is 99% of the time in the middle of the window and already on target or dang close. I’m am significantly faster, more consistent, and more accurate with the dot.
As far as durability/reliability, military and police are using them, competitors are using them, boat loads of civilians are using them……. I’m not worried about it with the current field of higher end, name brand dots. My personal experience of 2 holosun 507c’s, a 407c, 407k, 4 507 comps, 2 leupold delta point pros and only had 1 failure. An early delta point pro that the contact for the battery broke.
When I transitions to dots I significantly lost speed, most of that was the initial shot trying to find the dot. Once the dot was acquired I was faster unless I lost the dot.
The key, at least for me, was getting the muscle memory so that as soon as the pistol presents the dot is already on target and in the middle of the window. Hours or dry fire practice at the house. Draw, find the dot repeat.
Now, unless I change guns with significantly different ergos, the dot is 99% of the time in the middle of the window and already on target or dang close. I’m am significantly faster, more consistent, and more accurate with the dot.
As far as durability/reliability, military and police are using them, competitors are using them, boat loads of civilians are using them……. I’m not worried about it with the current field of higher end, name brand dots. My personal experience of 2 holosun 507c’s, a 407c, 407k, 4 507 comps, 2 leupold delta point pros and only had 1 failure. An early delta point pro that the contact for the battery broke.
Not illogical. The SRO may not be their toughest design but it’s no dainty princess either. It makes up for it in field of view. I also said that a gun getting beat up is something to be aware of. It doesn’t matter what optic you have, you still wanna take care of it and do your best to keep it out of harms way.
I think we have come too several different arguments here.
IF the dot functions properly it should be faster on target with some improved accuracy
IF the dot fails which is possible you can lose up to two seconds by the time you realize it failed, acquire irons and get onto target.
IF you need sights at what would be the range to engage with a pistol you need more practice
Three very different arguments even though all are true IMO
IF the dot functions properly it should be faster on target with some improved accuracy
IF the dot fails which is possible you can lose up to two seconds by the time you realize it failed, acquire irons and get onto target.
IF you need sights at what would be the range to engage with a pistol you need more practice
Three very different arguments even though all are true IMO
Old friend I keep
My iron lined up so I can see through the red dot if it fails.
I also add angled shim so red dot is usually, depending on weapon, zeros to co align with irons
Basically my red dot lolly pops on top of the iron sights
I ran a vortex that failed, at the worst time, luckily it was just a match. Once I had the cataracts removed, w/i 6 months I pulled the dots and just use the irons.
When we did the testing after mine failed, it was interesting to see how the draw to first bang & split times were effected by those who were so used to the dot always being there.
I have both red and green, the green is much easier for me to pickup. Also I am running a dot inside the circle which is super fast for me.
I’m 40, made the transition to dot almost five years ago. I don’t plan to go back. Sure, they can fail, but anything mechanical can fail. Do your due diligence. That’s also why it has backup irons.
I have reconnected with my old plt sgt shooting PRS. We went to the sand when the M68 was brand new, I never got issued one. He mentioned shooting dots wrong for years because so many then didn’t grasp target focus.
I have reconnected with my old plt sgt shooting PRS. We went to the sand when the M68 was brand new, I never got issued one. He mentioned shooting dots wrong for years because so many then didn’t grasp target focus.
Maybe the toughest factor for a precision rifle shooter (who is used to looking/seeing through riflescopes) transitioning to RDS is avoiding the impulse to treat the RDS as a mini-scope. Trying, either consciously or semi-consciously, to treat it as you would a riflescope. To bring it up to vision plane, and then "look through" it.
What you really want to do, when learning RDS, is treat it as a frameless dot hanging out there in space. Don't use the aluminum frame as your vision locater. Don't "hunt for" the frame with a perfectly centered dot.
Instead, just do dry fire reps, focused entirely on the target, until you figure out the draw/press-out/presentation that gets you a floating dot right on top of the target. And then dry fire that draw & presentation about 1k times.
What you really want to do, when learning RDS, is treat it as a frameless dot hanging out there in space. Don't use the aluminum frame as your vision locater. Don't "hunt for" the frame with a perfectly centered dot.
Instead, just do dry fire reps, focused entirely on the target, until you figure out the draw/press-out/presentation that gets you a floating dot right on top of the target. And then dry fire that draw & presentation about 1k times.
Aside from cataracts, how is your vision otherwise, pre- and post-surgery?
The problem I had, starting at 60 yrs old, was how slowly my focus changed between irons on pistol, and target. And probably, because I wanted more than a hazy indistinct target before breaking the shot. I could use eyeglasses with reader up top on dominant (R) eye, which I did while learning irons. But w/o that reader/cheater I can't really resolve the front sight clearly. So I lose time if I don't have the cheater lens on R eye up top, and I lose time trying to sort out the target from the hazy background mess.
The thing about training up on RDS, it will get the same results as a many hours practiced iron sights presentation, so that when/if you go back to irons, the presentation already is dialed. Whether you can see those irons is another question though!
Pre cat surgery, I had just ran out of ocular to focus the ret, otherwise it was perfect except needing readers for very, very small print.
6 Months post surgery, the ocular was about 20% past center but towards the negative,(in) which is where most all scopes were most of my life.
The one thing that tripped me up was some told me how great they could see right after surgery. I soon realized those people were in fact mostly blind before going in the room. Talking to the Doc (a shooter also) confirmed this, as he said most who have had perfect vision all their lives will at first think surgery was a huge mistake. At about the 3 month mark I noticed things getting better, at 6 everything was back to normal. I did have to have the right eye (first one done)touched up with the laser at about the 4 month mark. I am now 16 months post, and will have the left touched up at the next visit in Feb. At night, I see a slight 45* glare from on coming lights. The right eye did the same until lasered.
The one odd thing is I now notice a slight long distance change when the B/pressure drops, that I've never noticed before. The Doc is going to set aside time for me to get measured on low vs high Bp days next year, to try an plot the changes.
Pre cancer & chemo, (2006-08) I had what I was told were LSO eyes (landing signal officer), as I could see a 3-4ft change in elevation at about a mile, but the chemo took that vision away from me. Though to this day I still have better vision than most but losing perfect vision sure hurt.
Focusing between objects is as fast as it's always been.
I bought a new Vortex Defender enclosed emitter last week. Flickering dot, on again off again, dead, in about 40 rounds. Returned it to store for a full refund. Not exactly confidence inspiring.
I've had a vortex defender on my S&W 10 mm for about a year , maybe 150 rds ,no problems , still has the original battery in it , which reminds me time to swap it out for a new battery.its my bedside home defence pistol with a olight mini viking light on it , love the olight , it's rechargeable and I've probably charged it 3 times in a year .
Attachments
Damn, you won the genetic lottery on vision! My younger brother is much like you, vision wise.
If I had great vision and fast focal shifts I would use irons. But even though I do like an uphill slog, I won't force myself to use irons at this point. I can still do it by turning off my RDS and sometimes I do, on training days. And I notice how fuzzy things are w/o that reader-cheater lens up top on my right eye.
I resisted a dot for a long time. Put one on and spent a bunch of reps presenting until the dot is "there" where I'm looking. I am much faster and more accurate with the dot outside 10yards. Inside I instinct shoot like with my shotguns and they both are about the same in getting it done. I can't focus on the iron sights if I wanted to at 57 so the irons work well for me at shorter distances where I present, the gun is in the practiced muscle memory place with my eyes on the taget and boom. That falls apart for me with irons as distance increases. I shoot a mix of Holusun 407K on carry guns and SRO's on target guns and both have been very durable across a bunch of rounds with the 407K's getting beat up a lot from constant carry.
Similar threads
