quote:

Originally posted by Austin228:


Wow, nearly everything you said about the research here was wrong and you missed some crucial things about how standard deviations work...

21 wasn't the base junior either.

Junior is 18.35 years +- 1.383 years.

This is how the article describes the juniors, paragraph 2.1.

37.8% junior category, shooters under 21 years [1],

This makes sense because in competition the cutoff has to be based on age. For the junior group SD 1.383, mean 18.3. 3SDs that should capture 99.7% of them gets junior age to 22.4 which is above cutoff of 21. Oops.
What you clearly missed is that the study sample doesn't follow a normal distribution. Gaussian math applies to random samples and this one is a select sample of people who qualified to be shooting whatever contests they were shooting. None of your 68-95-99.7 musings apply.
Analyzing literature like this is a part of my job. The investigators made a mistake by presenting a non-Gaussian data with a SD value because SD doesn't matter here much. In fact, in their discussion that preceeds their own study they talk about other studies that used a better parameter for non-standard deviations which is the interquartile variance.

Now, none of the above touches the fact that you didn't ready the study well or without a bias. Your statement below clearly shows that you're contrasting the 28 +/-7 group with the senior shooters while 28 +/-7 were the senior shooters by this study defintion. Again, it is not a Gaussian math because one SD below mean would put "senior" into a "junior" group. Had this been a normal distributin sample, 3SD below 28 would result in 14 years overlap between the two groups, making the study invalid.

All one can infer from the study you presented is that 28 year olds shot better than 18 year olds, and nothing about senior shooters in the sense we apply to the word "senior".

quote:

That's an interesting snippet from the summary about younger shooters (28 +-7 years) and senior shooters.

Have a great Sunday.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: YVK,

I thought Massad Ayoob’s commentary was very fair and similar to my views on a RDS. As stated previously, to be really proficient with a RDS you have to put in reps. The reason I believe it made me faster on iron sights is because my grip, press to target, and overall presentation is more consistent because when it wasn’t I was hunting for the dot. I don’t believe it should be forced upon a department, because too many officers don’t put in the reps.

quote:

Originally posted by dking271:
As stated previously, to be really proficient with a RDS you have to put in reps.

This is the heart of the matter. How many shooters put in the necessary time? Look at the subject line of this thread.

"Why you (probably) don't need and (probably) will not benefit from a red dot sight on your pistol"

With ammo prices the way they are these days, most shooters cannot afford live fire practice like they used to. Using an RDS is a perishable skill, unlike using iron sights.

And all the flippant remarks about "first world problems" do not change the reality of the matter. The snobbery is unwelcome, but not entirely unexpected.

quote:

Originally posted by Austin228:
Starting from nowhere I think red dots would be a great choice ....

Perhaps. I still struggle with the idea of having electronics and optics atop a violently-moving slide.

I don't even quite trust them on my carbine. Mine's on a QD mount and, though I shoot much more capably with my RDS than iron sights, the latter always get a run-through when I take it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Austin228:
...but I've been using firearms for 30+ years.

About fifty, for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Austin228:
I do use them on carbines/rifles but I feel those are meant for 50-100+ yard shots.

Even inside those ranges there's one big difference between rifles and handguns: Cheek weld. Once you acquire it the little red dot will just be there. No hunting for it.

In fact: Unlike iron sights: RDS' aren't dependent upon consistent cheek weld. Just has to be good enough for the dot to show up.

At even twenty-five yards I shoot tighter groups, much faster, with an RDS on my carbine than I do with iron sights. At fifty and a hundred yards they're not even in the same ballpark.

quote:

Originally posted by Austin228:
I don't need to be a better shot at this point.

Heh. I can always stand for improvement But, admittedly, I don't train nearly as frequently as I should.

All that being said: I someday expect to acquire a pistol with an RDS on it just for S&Gs. But, my SD pistols will stay with iron sights.

quote:

This is the heart of the matter. How many shooters put in the necessary time?

quote:

With ammo prices the way they are these days, most shooters cannot afford live fire practice like they used to. Using an RDS is a perishable skill, unlike using iron sights.

I think all shooting whether RDS or iron sights are perishable skills, however, iron sights don’t need the same level of precise repeatability which makes it easier to bounce back. I think the truth from the first video is only a small number of shooters actually shoot a lot for whatever reasons. Even those that do, may not be shooting while moving, drawing from a holster, etc. To win in a defensive shooting you have to be “good enough”, and often to lose the bad guy just has to get lucky. I hope to god I never have to find out for real, nor do I think the probabilities would ever have me do so. I train because I enjoy it.

quote:

Originally posted by dking271:
I think all shooting whether RDS or iron sights are perishable skills...

Regarding iron sights, I couldn't possibly disagree more.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

With ammo prices the way they are these days, most shooters cannot afford live fire practice like they used to. Using an RDS is a perishable skill, unlike using iron sights.

Perishable nature of shooting skills is something that has been accepted way before dots became prevalent. Tactical trainers have used it to sell more classes. Competitive shooters emphasized continuous practice routine and couldn't come back to the same level quickly after a layoff. Help me understand what you're saying. You don't agree that shooting skills are perishable, or you think that use of irons is specifically more immune? If the latter, do you think that RDS skills are more maintenance intensive than equal level irons skills?

P.S. I type too slow, you already answered.

I have tried to like the MRDS, I really tried.

A few years ago, tried out a DeltaPoint Pro on a friend's gun, and liked it, but sight acquisition was slow. I ended up buying a Holosun HS507C and at the same time, got a G17 MOS, Spent a lot of time with it, got some instruction on it from my nephew (he is 100% sold on MRDS), hundreds of rounds, and still for me, felt it was still slower than iron sights. And yet I am much faster and comfortable with an RDS on a rifle, IMO due to cheek weld and less eye relief. But my house "battle rifle" has only iron sights.

I ended up sticking the Holosun on my Ruger MK-IV (rail mounted), since it is purely a range gun. The G17 has night sights on it and it was used as my go to home defense handgun until the Stacatto P took its place. And I got the Stacatto without a cutout, it is just irons and I am 100% comfortable with it as is.

So this thread got me curious enough to try some science today at the range. I wanted to compare my own performance with an RDS equipped gun against an identical gun with iron sights, and try to quantify the difference. I wouldn't suggest that the results of my tests would be similar for everyone, but they were pretty telling for me.

I used 2 identical P320 Carrys. Both are equiped with a factory "Large" grip module, otherwise they are bone stock. One of them is wearing a Trijicon RMR, the other is not. These guns are both "spares" and I don't shoot either of them very frequently. The RMR isn't my favorite optic, and I have a lot more time behind my full-size P320 duty gun with the Romeo on it. I figured these two would be more of a fair comparison since they get about the same amount of (in)attention.



It was snowing pretty good...the type of conditions that I've heard are supposed to render an open-emitter red dot unusable whether due to fogging or occlusion of the emitter. I didn't have any such problems, but I did have to contend with some moisture on the glass.



The first test I did was the B8 no-shoot drill from the postal match. This is shot at 10 yards. I shot it 3 times with each gun. With the dot, I scored a pair of 44s, and a failure in 4.31 seconds due to hitting the no-shoot. I failed all three times with the iron-sighted gun, and my times were slower (4.62, 5.33, 6.79).



I then did a 5 timed runs on the plate rack from the low ready with each gun (6 6" Plates at about 13 yards):

Red Dot Gun:
1. 5.23 Seconds Clean
2. 5.73 Seconds Two misses
3. 5.05 Seconds One Miss
4. 5.25 Seconds Clean
5. 5.45 Seconds Clean

Iron Sighted gun:
1. 5.88 Seconds One Miss
2. 6.02 Seconds Two Misses
3. 6.51 Seconds Two misses
4. 6.70 Seconds Clean
5. 6.46 Seconds One Miss


Finally, I took another 5 shots at at the plate rack with each gun, this time one shot a time from the low ready to measure initial time on target. There were no misses on this drill with either gun.

Red Dot Gun:
1. 1.21
2. 1.18
3. 1.25
4. 1.18
5. 1.18

Iron Sighted Gun
1. 1.31
2. 1.30
3. 1.27
4. 1.38
5. 1.35


As you can see, my abilities are far from superhuman, but overall, I found I was faster with the dot across the board (time on target, follow-up shots, and transitions). More importantly, my ability to make accurate hits under time pressure was better with the dot.

Would this be the same for someone with less practice time on a dot-equipped gun? Probably not. Even if it was, is there enough of a difference to justify the added weight, complexity, and failure points of sticking an RDS on your gun? To me I think there is, at least in most situations, but YMMV.

All joking aside, the times overall are very good. You’re obviously putting in the work.

Batteries die, delicate sights get impacted and broken, electronics stop working for no apparent reason.
So rely on a battery operated add-on attached to our EDC weapon. Then bang it into door jams, chair backs, car doors, shopping carts, whatever. And lets expose it to climate changes, different temps, filth, dust and dirt, rain drops, or even splattered, spilled liquids, and sweat.
And hope it works when called upon.
No thanks.
I'm saying the vast majority of readers here are not competition shooters and not only cannot currently, but will never see the benefit of a RD on a carry gun. No matter how much they practice with it.
I encourage everyone to do them, just leave the rest alone. Having a difference of opinion shouldn't be a qualifier to get shitty with someone unless one is a member of the tolerant left. Then it's expected.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
All joking aside, the times overall are very good. You’re obviously putting in the work.

Thanks Jones, that means a lot. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm better than where I was, and it's nice to be able to look back and see some progress.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
All joking aside, the times overall are very good. You’re obviously putting in the work.

Thanks Jones, that means a lot. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm better than where I was, and it's nice to be able to look back and see some progress.

I keep a simple binder book in my range bag. I keep a lot of notes and comparison data from range sessions. After a range session, I’ll take a few minutes and jot some notes about the day. It’s funny because I do stuff like comparing G17s to G19s. I’ll forget to look up the data and do a slightly different comparison. And then I’ll come across the old data and notice that there isn’t much difference.

However, live fire really is only needed to work on chasing speed, recoil management, shot calling, etc. most of the gains on the other stuff (draws and presentations, reloading the gun, etc) come from dry fire. Dudes that dry fire will surpass the dudes that think shooting is where it’s at.

I don’t think of myself as some upper level shooter. I’d say middle of the pack of the shooters I know, at best. My observations on pistol mounted red dots are based on the two competitive pistol leagues I’ve participated in that had competitors using them. The first was bowling pin shooting. Those using red dots were more accurate while being faster. Yes, there were people using irons that were as fast and accurate, but that would be maybe 10% of the competitors, and a couple of them used red dots most of the time anyway. The second was steel shoots that put red dot equipped pistols in a different competition category, as they give their users a documentable advantage over iron sights.

I know that I shoot red dots faster than irons in competition, and more accurately at longer distances. At the close distances most self defense encounters occur the red dot doesn’t seem to be any slower, as I’m using more of a point shooting or flash sighting.

I don’t currently have one on my carry pistols, as they predate micro red dots, so I’d need to get slides milled and possibly new holsters, so I’m more likely to pick up a high cap micro 9mm to equip with a red dot.

Oh Hi!

I only recently put a proper RDS on a G40.

Before that, I only had an old school microdot on an M41.

I haven't shot it live fire yet, only practicing in my basement.

If you aren't practicing, regardless of what you're doing, you're "shooting yourself in the foot."

I do see the appeal. It is no panacea.

How far are you trying to shoot, how fast? Do you enjoy changing batteries?

I need to do some shooting, but I think relying on this technology is a mistake. Certainly for self defense.

quote:

Originally posted by HKshooterusp:
Batteries die, delicate sights get impacted and broken, electronics stop working for no apparent reason.
So rely on a battery operated add-on attached to our EDC weapon. Then bang it into door jams, chair backs, car doors, shopping carts, whatever. And lets expose it to climate changes, different temps, filth, dust and dirt, rain drops, or even splattered, spilled liquids, and sweat.
And hope it works when called upon.
No thanks.
I'm saying the vast majority of readers here are not competition shooters and not only cannot currently, but will never see the benefit of a RD on a carry gun. No matter how much they practice with it.
I encourage everyone to do them, just leave the rest alone. Having a difference of opinion shouldn't be a qualifier to get shitty with someone unless one is a member of the tolerant left. Then it's expected.

Wow. Not to get shitty w/ you as you said but, I hope you let the US military know what a grave mistake they made putting red dots on weapons for some time now. Or any major military or law enforcement agency. A good quality red dot is much tougher than grandma’s antique china set and can take a good beating. Cheap knock off stuff probably not so much. Your line of thinking makes me question my use of a flashlight as a necessary and possibly a life saving tool. I have seen dead night sights, fiber optic rods fall out of sights, even seen iron sights fall or break off. Anything made by man can and will fail. That’s why you have back up systems.

The "LEO/MIL" argument ship sailed long ago. Those people are issued equipment whether they like it or not. Their purpose, isn't the purpose of the average citizen.

Back up systems? The trend is the abandonment of such.

You do you. Cost. Risk. Engagement range. Maintenance.

All worthless if you don't practice what you preach.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder:
Oh Hi!

I only recently put a proper RDS on a G40.

Before that, I only had an old school microdot on an M41.

I haven't shot it live fire yet, only practicing in my basement.

If you aren't practicing, regardless of what you're doing, you're "shooting yourself in the foot."

I do see the appeal. It is no panacea.

How far are you trying to shoot, how fast? Do you enjoy changing batteries?

I need to do some shooting, but I think relying on this technology is a mistake. Certainly for self defense.

Definitely agree, Dry fire practice is a good thing.

I still practice live, I just don't think I'm getting much better, just maintaining at this point.


That below study shows factors involving police marksmanship.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9655518/

High Threat Scenarios affected accuracy by a lot.

Officers perform "WORSE" in High Threat (HT) vs Low Threat scenarios.

QUOTE from this research-

"
.4. High-Threat Scenarios

The correlation between exposure to an HT scenario and shooting performance was investigated by six studies included in this review [19,24,25,27,28,32], with all studies finding that the stress related to an HT situation significantly increased anxiety levels in the officers. It is important to note that a significant negative correlation between anxiety and marksmanship was found in the study by Kayihan et al. [3]. Additionally, Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans [27] found that officers performed significantly worse in HT when compared to LT. As such, the evidence suggests that the anxiety imparted by HT scenarios may negatively impact
marksmanship. However, some interventions can positively impact marksmanship under threat. Imagining the HT scenario and associated successful shot execution was reported by Colin et al. [19] as an effective method to mitigate performance deterioration under stress. Additionally, in two other studies [28,32], training under pressure significantly improved shooting performance. The investigation conducted by Oudejans [32] exposed the officers to three weekly sessions of 1 h, and the author reported that, when shooting in HT, subjects exposed to HT training were able to maintain the same shooting performance they had at LT, which was not the case for the CG. A similar intervention by Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans [28] revealed that the EG, exposed to training under stress, had significantly better shooting performance in the HT scenario than the CG. However, this result was not seen in the test conducted four weeks after the last training session, which suggests that continuing training may be necessary to maintain the positive results.

Landman et al. [24,25] reported factors that significantly correlate with marksmanship under HT in two separate studies. One of the studies [25] highlighted that the AOD questionnaire (related to the capacity to exert self-control) was not only positively correlated with, but also a strong predictor of, shooting performance. In the second study [24], experience, previous exposure to violence while on duty, and a high score on the TAS questionnaire (meaning affinity with risky activities) were reported as positively correlated to shooting performance under stress. The authors also noted that the TAS questionnaire could predict HT marksmanship [24]. "


5. Conclusions

The research synthesized in this review suggests that physical exertion does not decrease shooting performance, nor does tactical load carriage (up to circa 22 kg), with the latter subjectively reported by officers as improving performance. However, the physical capability of officers may be of importance, notably grip strength, which the volume of evidence suggests is positively correlated with marksmanship up to a given point. training under stress may counteract this factor, albeit for a short period (approximately four weeks) Additionally, although anxiety was found to negatively impact shooting performance, studies indicate that training under stress may counteract this factor, albeit for a short period (approximately four weeks), highlighting that training needs to be continued to maintain the positive results. Together, all these aforementioned factors appear to have a trainability component, where increased specific and realistic training, can improve shooting accuracy, time, and precision, especially under high-stress situations.

""""

quote:

if all this is inconsequential to you and you like the RDS or feel as if you need the RDS- more power to you. Buy it

Not sure need is of consequence, at least for me.
I have one on my PDP, learning to use it.
I did post an earlier thread about acquiring the sight vs iron sight.
I was not as fast, but so what?
It is and obvious learned skill.
Doesn't make me want to bash them and I am not ranting/raving ether.
Just another tool, you can't make a statement unless you try them.
Can't say I disagree with the video content, but I wouldn't deploy in everyday carry unless it was better for me, came goes for anything else for than matter.
.02

quote:

High Threat Scenarios affected accuracy by a lot.

No shit Sherlock, squad car parked outside? Wonder how much taxpayer money was used to gleen this obscure and completely counterintuitive knowledge? .

As for dots I think lots of folks get wrapped around the axel on both sides of the argument and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Do they have benefits ABSOLUTELY. Do they have complexities and failure points? ABSOLUTELY. I stand by the fact that I, personally, don’t believe they are paradigm shift like optics on rifles were. I also believe there are a great many folks who optics simply won’t work for. I was “lucky” or I just always shot two eyes open more target focused anyway or whatever but I never had one issue finding a dot in my use. Occasionally if I go to a Glock I have to retrain my brain due to the grip angle but nothing major. While I have a dot on a bedside gun, ultimately I will not be going all in on pistol optics for myself personally.

My personal opinion is if you think you want to try a pistol dot, go for it, but don’t try and force a square peg in a round hole if it doesn’t work for you. Don’t think you are somehow a dead man walking because you don’t have a pistol optic. Learn to shoot…..the end.

But hell I still carry a DA/SA .40 caliber so obviously I am a god damn idiot who’s days are numbered.

Take care, shoot safe, try things for yourself and make your own informed opinions about what works for YOU.

Chris