quote:
Originally posted by David Lee:
Curious what kind of retical your optic has in it? How difficult to adapt to this after shooting metallics or color fiber optics? You have damn good speed from target to target and thats why I ask. Good shooting 1k.
good questions. It’s a type 1 RM02 LED 3.25 MOA red dot. The dot is always on and the brightness automatically adjusts based on ambient light. I have around 13K rounds on this setup.
It did take some getting used to and it is still not as fast to acquire the dot as it is to draw and get an accurate first shot with traditional FO front/black rear competition iron sights. However (for me) after that first shot, target transitions, follow up shots, and longer range shots are much faster and more accurate with the dot. The strangest thing to get used to is to ignore your front sight. That had been drilled into me for so long that it was hard to unlearn. Some people advocate using your sights to find the dot, but for me that shifting back and forth of sight planes took time and confused my brain. So I just look at the target and the dot appears assuming my presentation is good.
I shot it okay with the OEM trigger but it was a little “gritty” in the take up and the reset wasn’t positive. I installed the Apex FSS sear and trigger kit and the RAM. The reset is a little better and the trigger is much better. I doubt I actually shoot it any better or faster but it’s more satisfying to shoot.
I have discovered I shoot irons under the stress of competition with a mostly threat-focused sight picture anyway so maybe that helped.
I do go back and forth between platforms often and most of my dry fire and live/range practice is with my P226 with irons. I don’t practice much with the M&P other than shooting it in these local matches every couple of months.
As far as dot size people like Aaron Cowan from sage dynamics (on YouTube he does a lot of red dot on handgun testing and videos and trains people with them) is now advocating for 1MOA dot size. I haven’t shot one but it would probably be fine for me. The smaller dot does magnify the appearance of your natural tremor so some people hate it and freak out about how much they’re “shaking.” But if you have some experience with them it should work fine and allows very accurate shots when necessary and doesn’t seem to slow him down any.
I have time on a 6.5 MOA RMR on a Glock and it’s very shootable also. The dot may seem a little brighter and for my type of shooting I doubt it’s any less precise. Overall though I think if I had to pick one I’d go 3.25 MOA.
I do feel that pistol optics will eventually be the norm as red dots have become the norm on rifles. Almost nobody shoots irons in dynamic competition or combat anymore on rifles because the advantages of red dots are huge and undeniable.
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