Once you go dot, do you ever shoot irons again?

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Originally Posted by UNM1136

About 1/3 for my practice. Our annual rifle quals require our dot be turned off for several relays. Literaly 8 rounds out of 40. While it is good skills and good training I see it as a training scar. When you turn off your dot you know it doesn't work, so remediation really isn't a challange. A good training partner can turn off, turn down, or bloom your sight so on a timer you are forced to adapt to an unexpected sight picture.

Just a thought.

pat

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I've actually had the battery give up the ghost to the point where when I was in class attempting a draw I didn't have a visible dot when I presented the gun. I was on the timer shooting for score, so some level of stress. Recognizing this and transitioning to the irons took maybe an additional .1-.2 of a second.

There are two possible conditions for the dot when I present the gun:

1. I see it
2. I don't

A big bloomed dot that is really, really bright I can still use with ease. It obscures more of the target downrange. If I'm shooting a B8 at 25, for example, I'm probably not going to be able to see the B8 if the dot is aimed in. That's fine. I can make sure I don't see B8 and know I'm breaking shots in the center. Or if it's dude at 25 yards and I have a big bloomy starburst, I just put the hottest part of the starburst on dude's chest and work the trigger.

If I don't have a dot because my battery is dying or because I have the wrong setting on the optic for whatever lighting conditions I'm in, I have the sights sitting there in the lower 1/3 ready to go.

It doesn't really matter to me. I'm looking for the first good go signal I can get. I don't care if it's from the dot or from the irons. Sometimes I have a visible dot but because of the way I presented the gun the irons are what I see first, so I go with that. Most of the time the dot shows up first because it sits higher than the irons. At speed, whatever tells me to "go" first gets the nod.

This is reference many posts in this thread, and no one particular post. Unlike the red dot on a carbine, which virtually everyone gets the benefit of from minute one, the red dot on a pistol brings with it a significant learning curve. I experimented with a red dot and gave it up several times, before I really started to understand the benefit of a red dot on a pistol. Most days, I still learn more about shooting the dot.

There seems to be a somewhat similar pattern of progression with a red dot on the pistol, going through more or less these stages.

1) “I don’t understand or need a dot on a pistol.”

2) “I have a red dot, but can’t find it on the presentation.” Often this is combined with comments on how a particular pistol “points.”

3) “I am faster with iron sights inside “X” yards, or I shoot the iron sights better, “except ___.”

4) “I am equally good with iron sights as a red dot. I practice with my BUIS 50 percent of the time. I draw to the first thing I see, meaning dot or BUIS.”

5) “I don’t need to stop the dot on my target, I just need a flash of the dot in my aiming zone. I look at the target when I point the pistol, and the dot just appears superimposed on the target.”

6) “The frame of the optic is like a big set of iron sights, and I have an index well enough developed that I can shoot A zone hits out quite far without a dot or BUIS.”

7) “I am a dot shooter, and the dot is my 99 percent aiming solution. When I shoot iron sights now, I shoot them like a red dot, using target focus.”

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Originally Posted by GJM

This is reference many posts in this thread, and no one particular post. Unlike the red dot on a carbine, which virtually everyone gets the benefit of from minute one, the red dot on a pistol brings with it a significant learning curve. I experimented with a red dot and gave it up several times, before I really started to understand the benefit of a red dot on a pistol. Most days, I still learn more about shooting the dot.

There seems to be a somewhat similar pattern of progression with a red dot on the pistol, going through more or less these stages.

1) “I don’t understand or need a dot on a pistol.”

2) “I have a red dot, but can’t find it on the presentation.” Often this is combined with comments on how a particular pistol “points.”

3) “I am faster with iron sights inside “X” yards, or I shoot the iron sights better, “except ___.”

4) “I am equally good with iron sights as a red dot. I practice with my BUIS 50 percent of the time. I draw to the first thing I see, meaning dot or BUIS.”

5) “I don’t need to stop the dot on my target, I just need a flash of the dot in my aiming zone. I look at the target when I point the pistol, and the dot just appears superimposed on the target.”

6) “The frame of the optic is like a big set of iron sights, and I have an index well enough developed that I can shoot A zone hits out quite far without a dot or BUIS.”

7) “I am a dot shooter, and the dot is my 99 percent aiming solution. When I shoot iron sights now, I shoot them like a red dot, using target focus.”

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This is excellent. I think dots are the future. It is just matter of time till iron sights will become obsolete.

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Originally Posted by cheby

This is excellent. I think dots are the future. It is just matter of time till iron sights will become obsolete.

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I don't know that I 100% believe that irons will be obsolete. I think they will always be complimentary.

For instance, running an RDS on a carbine, especially an Aimpoint Micro, I STRONGLY prefer to have a fixed front sight. People babble on about "proper form and cheekweld" but the environment doesn't always permit that. The front sight is a gross reference indicator in odd positions and/or at extreme speed that we're going in the right direction. Irons on an RDS pistol are the same thing to me. It's less about the dot failing and more about the reference. Sure, index is good, but not always as available as we'd like; especially with a pistol compared to a rifle.

I think the most, and quickest, progress I made when I was first starting out with red dots was on an M&P 22. Nothing to do with that particular gun or the caliber, but set up that way because the RMR wouldn't fit without leaving the rear sight off. Without the rear, I found I wasn't paying attention to anything but the dot, quickly started solely target focusing, and improved my indexing.

I still keep irons when I can, but pretty much don't see them when shooting with the dot.

So, yeah, I shoot dots once in a while, but mostly in a "if I have to, I know I can" practice mode.

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Originally Posted by ASH556

I don't know that I 100% believe that irons will be obsolete. I think they will always be complimentary.

For instance, running an RDS on a carbine, especially an Aimpoint Micro, I STRONGLY prefer to have a fixed front sight. People babble on about "proper form and cheekweld" but the environment doesn't always permit that. The front sight is a gross reference indicator in odd positions and/or at extreme speed that we're going in the right direction. Irons on an RDS pistol are the same thing to me. It's less about the dot failing and more about the reference. Sure, index is good, but not always as available as we'd like; especially with a pistol compared to a rifle.

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Isn’t the frame of the optic also a good reference? Even shooting at 25 yards and beyond, parking the frame of the optic on the center of your target is pretty magical.

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Originally Posted by ASH556

I don't know that I 100% believe that irons will be obsolete. I think they will always be complimentary.

For instance, running an RDS on a carbine, especially an Aimpoint Micro, I STRONGLY prefer to have a fixed front sight. People babble on about "proper form and cheekweld" but the environment doesn't always permit that. The front sight is a gross reference indicator in odd positions and/or at extreme speed that we're going in the right direction. Irons on an RDS pistol are the same thing to me. It's less about the dot failing and more about the reference. Sure, index is good, but not always as available as we'd like; especially with a pistol compared to a rifle.

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If you are using an iron sight as a reference then you are losing out on a large amount of the benefit of a single focal plane aiming system in both time savings and downrange information while you focal shift to the gun and back to the target. The best way I have found to short-circuit this learning curve and immediately illustrate this point, which is unfortunately rather uncommon, is passively aiming through NODs with a near-infinite focus. This is used to force shooters who are ingrained in checking for a front sight to stay target focused and bring the dot onto the target because they now lack the ability to acutely see reference points on the pistol or rifle. After varying amounts of time they begin to stop using the front sight as a crutch on both rifle and pistol during daytime shooting as well and see speed increases.

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Originally Posted by cheby

This is excellent. I think dots are the future. It is just matter of time till iron sights will become obsolete.

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15 years ago they were saying that about lasers. Dots will certainly get more traction than lasers, but the purpose and convenience of the handgun leads me to believe that optics in general won’t get the traction on handguns as they do on long arms.

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Originally Posted by Bucky

15 years ago they were saying that about lasers. Dots will certainly get more traction than lasers, but the purpose and convenience of the handgun leads me to believe that optics in general won’t get the traction on handguns as they do on long arms.

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I would agree. They require more effort to set up, either on the part of the user or the manufacturer, and most manufacturers don't build their own red dots in-house. They require effort to maintain and carry, when most people can't even be bothered to replace worn holsters and aged ammo, or clean their carry guns.

I could see Optics-Ready becoming hugely more popular than it is today, although the number of extra operations makes me feel it's unlikely. And I certainly think that a red dot could become the default of the enthusiast-carrier. Ultimately, however, I think that it's going to be hard to sell a red dot as being as reliable as iron sights, even though we know that sight elevation screws strip (done it myself on my .44), and who the hell hasn't helped a range buddy look for their new fiber-optic front sight?

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Originally Posted by GJM

4) “I am equally good with iron sights as a red dot. I practice with my BUIS 50 percent of the time. I draw to the first thing I see, meaning dot or BUIS.”

5) “I don’t need to stop the dot on my target, I just need a flash of the dot in my aiming zone. I look at the target when I point the pistol, and the dot just appears superimposed on the target.”

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This is where I'm stuck, although I only just recently started properly practicing at any kind of speed at all before they decided coronavirus made shooting too dangerous. There's some stuff in play that I know I tend to do regardless of the sighting system--pushing the muzzle down, etc--but I still can't shoot with any degree of accuracy from a dot flash. Maybe it's visual focus, dunno, I haven't fired a single live round since the end of March.

IMO the biggest barrier to widespread adoption of red dot sights on handguns is relative cost.

A $400 Aimpoint PRO added to a $1000 AR-15 seems like a pretty reasonable investment. However, a $500 RMR on top of a $500 handgun effectively doubles the cost - and thats assuming you have a handgun that is optics-ready. Also, as GJM pointed out, a RDS on a Carbine brings about a fairly instantly gratifying improvement, while the pistol RDS only brings with it additional challenge and effort - particularly given that it seems like almost all pistol RDS options on the market have some sort of weakness or another.

Once the tech is small, inexpensive and durable enough - only a matter of time, it seems - I think they'll make a lot more traction.