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Originally posted by bronicabill:

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Originally posted by parabellum:
<<snip>>
I get a sense of snobbishness in the attitude of the RDS fans, along with a degree of condescension towards those who see the problems involved with using these gadgets.

Amen to that, Para... my sentiments exactly!

I also, at times, get that same sentiment from people that don’t like red dots.

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Originally posted by mlazarus:

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Originally posted by jljones:


Here is the beauty in it, old friend. The more you dry fire the dot, and/or live fire, the cleaner your irons presentation gets. I go back and forth a few times a month and shoot my standard battery of practice exercises with irons on an identical pistol. My performance with irons has gone way up. Shooting an occluded dot has also upped my target focus game. What’s not to like? Overall, I’m faster with a dot, but I don’t think my irons game would be anywhere in the same zip code it is with being forced into not accepting mediocre on the presentation. I’m even thinking about taking another run at Production/SSP next year.

Mike Voight said something similar years ago. along the lines of, "If you want to get good with iron sights, shoot a red dot." I should have paid more attention to him at the time.

Both these statements hold a lot of truth.

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Originally posted by 357fuzz:
I also, at times, get that same sentiment from people that don’t like red dots.

Perhaps it's contagious.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Scooter123:
The problem is your rate of fire, taking the time to line up that Red Dot takes TIME you cannot spare in a Defensive situation"

[QUOTE]

Imagine in a defensive situation lining up the RDS looking for the dot and it is not there. The split second or two of confusion would get one to eat a lot of lead.

Get a micro compact gun for a good CCW then make it bigger. I don't get it.

It's like tattoos nowaday. Everybody and their mothers got one.

The RDS fans will tell you that your scenario is negated by practicing enough to make presentation so spot-on, you won't need to hunt for the dot; it will be right there for you, every time.

There's an old aphorism: "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Applied to this discussion:

Perfect: Put that red dot on precise center mass and squeeze the trigger.

Good: Get a glimpse of your front sight (or employ point-shooting if distance allows it and time requires it) and pull the trigger, aiming for center mass.

If the Perfect takes more time than the Good, it's not necessarily better.

All these shooters being encouraged by marketing trends to mount an RDS on their pistol- the reality of the matter- the honest-to-God undeniable truth of the matter is that a substantial percentage of them will not and do not invest the amount of time and now-costly ammunition to not have to go searching for the dot, and are better served by front sight/press or instinctive point shooting. Anyone who wishes to ignore the typical range of shootings/gunfights, well, be my guest to disregard all of the above. See, this is where the snobbishness I referred to earlier comes in: the refusal to accept the practical reality of the matter, which is that most shooters simply do not, can not or will not invest the time to become proficient with these gadgets, and that current marketing trends lead gun owners to believe that these things are talismans that will make them better shots, merely by laying down the credit card.

If you want to believe that you're likely to be making Dirty Harry football stadium-type shots, then the RDS is for you.

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Imagine in a defensive situation lining up the RDS looking for the dot and it is not there. The split second or two of confusion would get one to eat a lot of lead.

As I have said before I don’t think a dot is some kind of necessity or paradigm shift on a handgun. With that in mind, I have to ask the following….

-Do you not strive to pick up the front sight?
-In flash shooting do you not simply use the rear of the slide or general point shooting with irons to get the fastest shot off at close range?

I ask because how is a dot any different? If you are within a typical / statistical handgun fight range you are likely going to point shoot or flash picture with a gun with a dot anyway, hell the dot window itself makes for a fairly nice big ass point shooting ghost ring in this regard.

All I am saying is at worst a dot on a gun at close range won’t provide a benefit but it also won’t likely provide a detriment. Past a certain distance however (different for everybody) the dot absolutely provides a benefit.

As for picking up the dot I just don’t understand the huge issues folks have assuming you are able to draw/present a gun and pick up the front sight with irons.

Now again do I think a dot is some kind of necessity/absolute game changer on a pistol? No, I do not. Do I think there are some PITA issues with pistol dots ranging from cost to keeping up with batteries, to climate factors effecting the glass, to smudges when cleaning the pistol etc. etc. Yes, I absolutely do. Those things aside, however, a lot of the arguments against don’t generally seem to be particularly valid. The best argument is a simple cost to benefit analysis IMO. A dot brings extra costs and complexities for little gain at the most statistically likely engagement ranges. I don’t think it is a hindrance as much as it may simply not bring enough to the table so to speak.

At distance, however, there is a fairly huge tangible benefit but is that juice worth the squeeze? I dunno.

I think at the end of the day if possible/feasible everybody should TRY some dot shooting/after doing some dryfire work to come up to speed. If however it’s not possible/feasible I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

Me personally after playing with dots for a bit I do like what they bring to the table, but my experiences have also reinforced that I don’t think they are a necessity and I will not be dotting everything and anything. I feel like a bright white light is a far more pragmatic/useful use of limited funds/space on a pistol.

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Originally posted by cslinger:
In flash shooting do you not simply use the rear of the slide or general point shooting with irons to get the fastest shot off at close range?

The way I do this- and I suppose some people would say this is wrong, is by sighting over the top of the slide in such a way that the front sight is much higher than the rear sight. I can see the entire top of the slide. I can see the chamber hood. The front sight appears to my eyes to be lower than the actual point of impact.

To describe what I'm seeing, do this: Line up your sights in the traditional manner- front sight is in the rear sight notch. You see the back of the slide, but not the top of the slide. Now, raise your head slightly. What do you see? You see the rear sight go down substantially and the front sight go down just a bit. The point of impact (ideally) will be above the front sight. Both eyes open, of course.

How much more quickly are you picking up that front sight if you look over the top of the slide, instead of burying the front sight in the rear sight notch? Is this as precise as the traditional method of lining up front and rear sights? No. Is it good enough? Yes, it is.

Perhaps a lot of people sight over the top of the slide. I've never asked.

I think your method may actually stop some of the searching and lining up of the front sight. This all can take less than a second to do but it does seem practical.

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Originally posted by cslinger:
-In flash shooting do you not simply use the rear of the slide … to get the fastest shot off at close range?

That is actually something that Jim Cirillo discusses in his book Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights. As a member of the NYPD “stakeout” squad Cirillo had more experience with defensive shootings than anyone else I know of, and he advocated a similar method of assisting with rapid, close range shooting. That discussion prompted me to try the method, but with a bit of enhancement on the rear of the slide to make it more visible. (I posted the photo in an earlier thread, but it was some time ago.)





I experimented with the technique for a while, but ultimately gave it up as a serious endeavor. Although it was possible to crudely aim* the gun well enough for hits on large enough targets at close enough distances, it requires a shift in focus from using the sights to concentrating on using the large red dot as the aiming aid. I found that to be disadvantageous. One problem was the mental change of, “Oh, yeah: use the big red dot,” rather than the sights, and another was a significant change of point of impacts of the bullets. Most important, though, it never seemed to be any faster than what I was already proficient with.

* And crudely aiming it is, just as using any other flash sight picture. When I “point shoot,” I don’t use the sights at all, and the gun is below my direct line of vision to the target. That’s why I use the term “unsighted shooting” to refer to that method of target engagement in my instruction and records.

In time and with enough practice, I’m sure I could have gotten accustomed to using the technique but because it didn’t seem to offer enough advantages I didn’t try to develop it any further.

So, how does all that relate to this discussion? If a shooter intends to use the window of an optical sight on a handgun as a “ghost ring” to just crudely aim the gun without positioning the reticle on the target, I believe he might encounter the same issues I did with trying to use the slide as an aiming aid. Can someone develop that skill? No doubt, but then it’s yet another thing that requires practice to master. And as mentioned, it is a “big ass” window that we’re trying to use; even the red sticker on the rear of my slide is significantly more precise.

And one more comment about using optical sights under certain conditions. I’ve mentioned this possibility before, but I recently got to see the effect of adverse environmental conditions in actual practice.

During my annual cold weather, low light training session one shooter didn’t keep the falling snow off the rear lens of the Aimpoint sight on his patrol rifle. When he tried to clear it to actually shoot, that just fogged up everything even worse. When he told me he couldn’t see through the sight very clearly I indicated for him to do the best he could for the qualification course. At one point when he lost the reticle, he did try using the tube of the sight as a ghost ring, but if we can’t see through the sight at all, that doesn’t work either.

Whereas everyone else who fires the course virtually always gets at least 27 or more hits with 30 shots, he managed 12 and they were scattered all over the generous silhouette target. (Yes, we’ll be conducting a makeup session.) And, oh: The rifle sight had lens caps that could have been used while waiting in the snowstorm; the optical sight on a handgun in an exposed holster—?

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Originally posted by parabellum:
the honest-to-God undeniable truth of the matter is that a substantial percentage of them will not and do not invest the amount of time and now-costly ammunition to not have to go searching for the dot, and are better served by front sight/press or instinctive point shooting.

Sigfreund - always enjoy reading about the tests and experiments you do. Always educational in some form, occasionally entertaining as well.

Have you done any testing / experimentation with the Deltapoint Micro RDS? Perhaps on a Glock?

A long time ago I had a P226 slide modified to hold a Docter sight, but another member has those now and I have no recent experience with an optical sighted handgun. Because of my own limited experience with the sights, I really try not to come across as either discouraging or encouraging their use.

Describing some of my experiences, however, may be of some value or at least a basis for a bit of thought.

Interesting article in the January 2024 Range master Newsletter that makes a similar point to what Para made in this post. It's a long read, but I think the author takes the reader through the whole process and justifies his position pretty well: https://d74722.p3cdn1.securese..._RFTS-Newsletter.pdf

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Originally posted by parabellum:

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Originally posted by cslinger:
In flash shooting do you not simply use the rear of the slide or general point shooting with irons to get the fastest shot off at close range?

The way I do this- and I suppose some people would say this is wrong, is by sighting over the top of the slide in such a way that the front sight is much higher than the rear sight. I can see the entire top of the slide. I can see the chamber hood. The front sight appears to my eyes to be lower than the actual point of impact.

To describe what I'm seeing, do this: Line up your sights in the traditional manner- front sight is in the rear sight notch. You see the back of the slide, but not the top of the slide. Now, raise your head slightly. What do you see? You see the rear sight go down substantially and the front sight go down just a bit. The point of impact (ideally) will be above the front sight. Both eyes open, of course.

How much more quickly are you picking up that front sight if you look over the top of the slide, instead of burying the front sight in the rear sight notch? Is this as precise as the traditional method of lining up front and rear sights? No. Is it good enough? Yes, it is.

Perhaps a lot of people sight over the top of the slide. I've never asked.

This method is also outlined in the book Stressfire Vol. 1 by Massad Ayoob. I find it to be a reasonable method to use.

This is very interesting information. I certainly fall into the category of "new pistol shooter" and I was indeed considering a red dot for my P365.

Question: I was told by a family member who once worked at a gun store (not that that makes him an 'expert') that he always recommended the red dot so that, in a situation where one's arm was hurt or occupied, one could rack the slide using a table or edge of something. Is this a legitimate concern or just some salesman lore?

Sorry for the newbie questions but have been seriously considering shelling out the money for one of these, and this thread makes me think twice.

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Originally posted by cuttndry:
This is very interesting information. I certainly fall into the category of "new pistol shooter" and I was indeed considering a red dot for my P365.

Question: I was told by a family member who once worked at a gun store (not that that makes him an 'expert') that he always recommended the red dot so that, in a situation where one's arm was hurt or occupied, one could rack the slide using a table or edge of something. Is this a legitimate concern or just some salesman lore?

Sorry for the newbie questions but have been seriously considering shelling out the money for one of these, and this thread makes me think twice.

It is true that most red dots on the market are of sufficient quality and have ample surface area to use the red dot and rack the slide. While you can do the same thing with the irons, dot makes it easier and faster if you need to go that route.

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Originally posted by cuttndry:
one could rack the slide using a table or edge of something.

It was some 20+ years ago that I first learned the technique of one-handed slide cycling using a rear iron sight or even the edge of the ejection port on a sturdy duty belt or holster, heel of one’s footwear when kneeling, or anything else that was handy such as a table or the corner of a wall. I consider it a useful technique to know and I’ve been teaching it ever since. An optical sight can obviously be used for the purpose, but it’s hardly necessary.

The only exception to using the rear sight I’m familiar with is the ramped style that many 1911 shooters are fans of for some reason.

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Originally posted by cuttndry:
This is very interesting information. I certainly fall into the category of "new pistol shooter" and I was indeed considering a red dot for my P365.

Question: I was told by a family member who once worked at a gun store (not that that makes him an 'expert') that he always recommended the red dot so that, in a situation where one's arm was hurt or occupied, one could rack the slide using a table or edge of something. Is this a legitimate concern or just some salesman lore?

Sorry for the newbie questions but have been seriously considering shelling out the money for one of these, and this thread makes me think twice.

New shooter hear, and this is NOT a Carry gun. I guess one could rack the slide with the optic but it sure was not a reason to spend almost as much as I did on the gun for an optic. I wanted to be able to hit the target more accurately with my aged eyes. First night out, got it sighted in on the short 15 yard range with a rest( will redo elevation when they open the new 25 yard addition) But in 40 or so rounds after I got it set, I went from "Look I put 4 rounds in each of the 4 3" circles!.. To WOW that is a group in each of the 3 " circles. So far I really like it! For us new shooters it makes dry fire trigger control practice much easier to see when you do it wrong! While doing that I am also practicing look at the target and present the gun level and on target into my line of sight so the reticle is right there and on target. I can see why long time shooters would have a hard time unlearning looking for the front sight.

The conversation has been presented as yes/no, but I think it is somewhat different than a black or white choice.

First, for those with the skills, it is well established that a red dot is better than iron sights for placing a fast, accurate shot across a wide envelope of distance, in varying light conditions. The key is "for those with the skills," and those skills include picking an appropriate dot and pistol, mounting it properly, zeroing it, maintaining it, and coming up the learning curve of how to shoot it.

For most people interested in a dot, they would be better off to set up a red dot, start the process of learning the red dot, but continue to rely on iron sights for EDC until they are immersed in the dot. That learning process will likely be months to years. Buy it today, carry it tomorrow is a bad plan.

For others that want a basic tool without that level of commitment, iron sights might be their best long term solution. Or they might just dabble with the dot, because they are so enjoyable to shoot and provide so much feedback about grip and trigger press, using the dot recreationally while relying on iron sights for EDC indefinitely.

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Originally posted by GJM AK:
For others that want a basic tool without that level of commitment, iron sights might be their best long term solution.

This is almost as interesting a discussion as my training plan for the next year. I believe that this notion is not really accurate and has been advanced to the unchallenged status by shooters with some irons skills with difficulty or reluctance switching to the dot, thus propagating "a significant commitment" bit.
I have now seen multiple examples of low-skill / no skill shooters progressing to better results much faster with dots than with the irons. I am not talking people with commitments to train who spent regular time training but people who never shot and had a one-time training event on the dots. I think we forget how bad the new irons shooters are early in their path, especially in the accuracy department.
I forgot the name of the instructor who said he could get a 70 yo grandma to hit targets with the dot within a day that she wouldn't hit with irons in a week. Let's chat about this tonight.