I learned pistol mainly with dots.
I learned PCC and long guns ONLY with dots.
As part of my “want to know what I don’t know,” I set out to get some time with irons on a long gun at speed.
My only competitive outlet for this is Steel Challenge PCCI, so I spent a little time training up for it in my goal to make “A” class or higher consistently with equipment I don’t normally use.
It struck me how much more consistent I needed to be with my cheek weld and support grip. Things needed to be EXACT to get going at speed unlike with RDS where as long as you can see the dot, you’re on target.
I did some experimentation and a similar thing was happening with pistol irons.
Whereas with optics, I can still make confident shots with the dot on the sides of the window, with irons I’m kind of constricted to essentially using the equivalent of just the middle stripe of the window to call shots.
I think to me this is a fundamental reason why I feel I’ll always be faster and more accurate with dots barring equipment issues, I have more degrees of freedom available to me to make shots at speed.
But that being said, going to irons on a long gun (and on pistol) highlighted things that I could use a tune up on.
To the point where I think I should make PCC and Pistol irons a regular training thing.