quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I don't see the correlation and I have no desire for a pistol with a full-length grip and a stubby barrel. Furthermore, I think the move towards a dependency on electronic sighting devices on handguns is foolishness and may come back to bite someone at the worst possible time, with a system failure, and if you don't think it can happen, you are fooling yourself.

Putting fucking serrations all over slides, increasing the cost of manufacture by cutting slides for these damn electronic tumors, mounting electronic sights on pocket pistols! Jesus I wish manufacturers would cut it out.

I agree with this 1000%. Kids today are all about tiny groups and they never factor in speed into the Self Defense equation. However the fact that First Blood usually wins has held true since weapons were invented. What they should be training for is Point Shooting so that they can reliably hit a 6 inch circle at 30 feet without ever looking at a sight. Because there is nothing faster than Draw, Point, Fire.

Lol

Yes, what in the world did we ever do without these electronic tumors on our pistols? Putting rounds into the dirt, launching them into the wild blue. It was enough to discourage a man from ever picking up a handgun.

If you need a crutch, society these days understands and will roll out the red carpet for you, although, frankly, that expession is horribly ableist, isn't it?

I just don't see that the benefit of an RDS outweighs the cons on a concealed carry pistol. I carry concealed with iron sights.

I'll carry my P365XL with it's 3.7" barrel as much as I can.

When I need pocket carry I'll begrudgingly use my P365 with it's shorter 3.1" barrel.

I think the electronic tumors are great fun on the range. And that is where they stop as far as I am concerned. A carry gun should be reliable beyond any concerns for a failure of any kind including batteries.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
Kids today are all about tiny groups..

Where? lmao


The only people I see shooting tiny groups are old guys, the ones who can still see that is.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
...... Furthermore, I think the move towards a dependency on electronic sighting devices on handguns is foolishness and may come back to bite someone at the worst possible time, with a system failure, and if you don't think it can happen, you are fooling yourself.

This is the answer I got when I asked the person in charge of our county SWAT team about using anything other than iron sites on pistols.

He told me point blank (no pun intended) that their guns get banged around and abused a lot more than the average gun, and they can't have anything on them that breaks. FWIW, they use Glocks.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
Kids today are all about tiny groups..

Where? lmao


The only people I see shooting tiny groups are old guys, the ones who can still see that is.

I see a lot more "spray and pray" shooting from kids shooting handguns at the ranges these days compared to when I was a kid. Marksmanship mattered.

The worst thing about them dots is that the very second somebody mounts one on their gat, they forget decades' worth of experience of shooting iron sights and they lose all critical thinking abilities to objectively assess risks/benefits/pros/contras and all that.

quote:

Originally posted by ACP1:
I think the electronic tumors are great fun on the range. And that is where they stop as far as I am concerned. A carry gun should be reliable beyond any concerns for a failure of any kind including batteries.

You better not carry a gun then. Anything can break or fail at anytime.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
...... Furthermore, I think the move towards a dependency on electronic sighting devices on handguns is foolishness and may come back to bite someone at the worst possible time, with a system failure, and if you don't think it can happen, you are fooling yourself.

This is the answer I got when I asked the person in charge of our county SWAT team about using anything other than iron sites on pistols.

He told me point blank (no pun intended) that their guns get banged around and abused a lot more than the average gun, and they can't have anything on them that breaks. FWIW, they use Glocks.

Give me a break.. that high speed operator is full of shit. If that was the case the military would have been and other SWAT teams around the world would have shit canned red dots many years ago.

I have seen more issues with loose front sights, tritium dead from the factory, and drifting rear sights in the last couple years than I have with optics. Everybody that talks about optics "failures" pretends that iron sights do not fail too.

And I'm sorry, but any cop pretending that their team is just so tough on their guns that optics don't make sense is making up excuses to not get with the times.

This kind of argument is the exact same thing we did with rifles 15 years ago. Optics are better in nearly every measurable way.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
I have seen more issues with loose front sights, tritium dead from the factory, and drifting rear sights in the last couple years than I have with optics. Everybody that talks about optics "failures" pretends that iron sights do not fail too.

Well, my goodness, that's stretching it quite a bit. Yes, tritium sights sometimes lose their seal and go dark but when you speak of "from the factory" this can and should be addressed upon first inspection. The same goes for loose sights, and something else which can work loose is- guess what- the RDS.

Furthermore, tritium dots are not the sight itself; the sight body serves that function, and I have never seen a sight simply disintegrate, not even the plastic ones. They can be deformed with a good bashing but that same bashing might render the electronics of an RDS inert.

As to rifle optics, the ones I mount do have illuminated reticles but they still function without batteries or with dead batteries or malfunctioning electronics. These rifles of mine also carry their own light source, and even without it, how many shots have you taken in complete darkness? Hello?

The soundest argument I've seen in this thread is from the ever-practical Jim Watson who said something which makes a lot of sense:

quote:

I have seen a couple of well practiced shooters keep going after a dot failure. Framing the target in the empty window works pretty well at typical shootout ranges.

Makes sense, but at the same time, if one can continue to function with the RDS window serving as a sort of ghost ring, then the vaunted precision of the RDS is not as much of an advantage as its fans seem to suggest. After all, isn't that the advantage over iron sights these contraptions are supposed to give a shooter? Accuracy and speed? Why not, then, just put a big ghost ring rear sight on it and leave batteres at home?

Taking all of the above into account, it seems to me that the RDS is not worth the trouble, but those who disagree shouldn't be concerned about my opinion on the matter. The gun manufacturers are cutting most slides for these things, including pocket pistols (which I find preposterous) so, if you want an RDS, then an RDS you shall have.

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
This is the answer I got when I asked the person in charge of our county SWAT team about using anything other than iron sites on pistols.

He told me point blank (no pun intended) that their guns get banged around and abused a lot more than the average gun, and they can't have anything on them that breaks. FWIW, they use Glocks.

Give me a break.. that high speed operator is full of shit. If that was the case the military would have been and other SWAT teams around the world would have shit canned red dots many years ago.[/QUOTE]

Did you also call him extremely careless that he's issuing a semi automatic handgun that can be knocked out of battery and disabled if it is "banged around and abused" and should be using a revolver that doesn't suffer from any of the above?

I really want to fast forward 20 years in the future to hear what Gen X Fudd lore will be.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
This is the answer I got when I asked the person in charge of our county SWAT team about using anything other than iron sites on pistols.

He told me point blank (no pun intended) that their guns get banged around and abused a lot more than the average gun, and they can't have anything on them that breaks. FWIW, they use Glocks.

Give me a break.. that high speed operator is full of shit. If that was the case the military would have been and other SWAT teams around the world would have shit canned red dots many years ago.

Did you also call him extremely careless that he's issuing a semi automatic handgun that can be knocked out of battery and disabled if it is "banged around and abused" and should be using a revolver that doesn't suffer from any of the above?

I really want to fast forward 20 years in the future to hear what Gen X Fudd lore will be.[/QUOTE]

Let’s face it. If the “person in charge” has a shred of evidence to back up his claim, that team has much larger issues of lack of supervision and operational readiness. Way more important than whether MRDS are for them or not. I find it interesting that Devgru, Delta, FBI HRT, USMS SOG are gentler and more kind to their MRDS equipped handgun than whatever “SWAT” team this is.

My issue is carry ability and conceal-ability. Where I live in the south I wear shorts and t-shirts and flip flops every day. Except church I wear jeans and button down shirt untucked. For a week or 2 in the winter I may wear a hoodie or other flannel. I have about 50 handguns in my collection and of all those I ccw a 442 or 642 mainly because I can’t source a 342pd no lock cheap enough yet. I don’t go looking for fights and I work from home so I don’t go out much as it is. I have done the math and my bet is on very little happening but I still take a small bit of insurance. I usually appendix carry although I do have a galco small of the back j frame holster

Maybe I’m lazy but I feel very self conscious trying to ccw anything larger. Tried glocks 26 and 19 and the printing i see in the mirror I don’t want to leave the house. Same with full size sig 228/226 and 1911 but worse cause the I can’t hide the grip. Even though I have IWB holsters for those as well. I see guys printing all the time. Doesn’t bother me and I’m probly the extreme minority even looking for it. Never said anything to anybody that they are printing.

All this to say I don’t need a big ol optic sight on top of a gun I don’t carry anyway. Open carry or Exposed uniform carry or out hunting is a Totally different conversation. If a person that lives where open carry is the norm ( saw a lot of it in az) or LEO wants to use an optic and has no ccw issues to worry about go for it. I assume he’s carry a BUG anyway if the optic fails.

I like longer barrels, I find them more shootable and the improved ballistics is a bonus. You can lose as much as 50fps from a 1" shorter barrel. That's almost the difference between standard pressure and +P in a 9mm. A 5" 9mm has substantially more velocity than the same round fired from a 3.5" barrel. And there is some difference in muzzle blast IME.

We used to talk about ballistics all the time comparing 9mm to 45acp, and +P rounds put the 9mm over the edge, now we say it's no big deal. Funny.