Red dot sights vs. Iron sights

[SLG]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about sights these days so I'm going to try and shed a little light. I don't expect to convince those of you who already know better, but I know most PF people are open minded and want to improve their understanding.

Shooter A is a top level shooter who is capable of tremendous speed and accuracy with iron sights. Shooter B is another top level shooter and is capable of more speed and accuracy with a dot gun. Both are at the top of their field. Shooter A may never be as fast as shooter B, even when using a dot gun. Shooter B has learned to see and read the dot in ways that Shooter A just can't manage with all his years of iron sight shooting.
Shooter B may never be as fast as Shooter A when using irons. His years of dot shooting have made it harder for him to use the irons at Shooter A 's level.

Shooter C is an iron shooter, who is just below shooter A's level. When Shooter C picks up a dot gun, he exceeds Shooter A's iron ability. Shooter C knows that dots are different than iron sights and "see what you need to see" needs to be relearned and applied a little differently when dealing with dots. Shooter C may or may not ever be as good with a dot as Shooter B, who focuses on dots, but Shooter C can shoot both irons and dots at a very high level.

Shooter D is also just below Shooter A's ability with irons, but unlike Shooter C, D is unable to go faster with a dot sight than he can with the irons he is so used to.

Shooters E-Z, spend more time on the Internet then on the range, and will never have the trigger time or understanding of Shooters A-D. They think that their experience with dots or irons has meaning beyond a simple statement of their ability. The smarter ones will recognize that their ability is only a reflection of them, and not an unbiased accounting of their equipment.

Factors that can affect Shooters when switching from irons to dots include things like age, vision, physical conditioning, see speed, understanding of how see what you need to see means in each case. Also things like inherent bias or preference can play a role.

The TLDR version is that all things being equal, a dot is capable of more performance than Irons. Your personal experience, nor the experience of your favorite shooting celebrity does not change that.

Yes, there are grades of " dots", and some are higher performance than others.

To make this more personal, every shooter has things they are better or worse at. Travis has an amazing reload, for instance.
My wife says that my standout is how fast I acquire a sight picture and see what I need to see. If this is true (she may be biased), then it helps explain why I see the performance differences that I do from one system to the next. If someone else has amazing splits, but doesn't see the way I do, then they may not "get" the difference in systems the same way. I'm sure you can think of examples in your own life.

If a tree falls in the forest...

[jetfire]

This is awesome, and captures a lot of what I'd been dealing with via dot sights. I started shooting dot guns and thought they were slower, so I went away from a slide mounted dot, then I came back to them for a while and realized that the performance ceiling with a well set up dot gun was above iron sights. I think the problem I'd had before that was that a lot of my dot guns weren't well built. The factory configurations that you get from major manufacturers are a nice gateway drug, but having the dot installed by a pro turned out to make the gun go a lot better.

[scw2]

A bit tangential to the OP, but is there a time in a shooter's development that you'd recommend them switching from irons to red dots for an extended period of time, even if they return to irons later? I've heard there are good potential growth gains to running the red dot for a while, but I know I can still improve a lot just focusing on irons currently.

ETA- when you're looking at a good versus poor setup/equipment, what should a newbie look for, esp given the mentions by both Caleb and SLG that equipment matters.

[MVS]

Call me dense SLG, but I am not seeing your hangup on this subject. I don't have any argument for anything you said in that post, except to say FOR ME a slide mounted RDS is slower up close. On balance I still prefer them though even if Tom Givens does get all over my butt for using them. I am not in the top 5% of shooters, probably more like too 25% so it is hard to say how that affects the scenario. In classes where I am one of the best shooters people say, "well yea he is using a dot". In classes where I am middle of the pack people say, "see those dot guns aren't all they are cracked up to be".

If I had not been "required" to shoot a dot gun while teaching at a previous job for marketing purposes I would have probably never went with one. Now I am still not sure it is the answer, but like it well enough to keep using it.

Do we have many advanced shooters who have been to Rogers and shot both? I would be curious to see those results. GJM?

[shane45]

A non SME thought for furthering the discussion. In the pistol world the choices are pretty binary. Irons or Dot. In the rifle world a ton of complexity enters the mix in terms of different reticles, horseshoe, chevron, dot, crosshair etc etc and then there is the entire gambit of magnification thrown in and how fast you can go with the relationship of distance to magnification. So my buddy and I did a fair amount of testing to pit many of the different configs against each other. We came away with data that did not make sense at all. As I rolled through a bunch of SME's on the subject I formed an answer. It was a rather simple one but it fit perfectly. The conclusion I came to was that some peoples brain would only accept certain sight pictures. For an example of this I will reference my issues with the chevron reticle. I just cant use it. My brain will not accept it. My brain accepts a single dot just fine. It will also accept a cross hair. The data we collected turned out to be a clear indication of which reticles each of our brains would accept. Our shooting ability is about dead even. So it was interesting to see how our accuracy and speed was directly affected given each variation. So my point in relation to this thread is that there may be people who's brain will simply not accept one sight picture as well as the other. My own experience with Dots on pistols has been that I had no issues with a large window RDS when I shot IPSC in the late 90's. But shooting some of the dots today like the Trijicon, I am struggling with the small window size. But this is purely anecdotal and without a significant amount of trigger time behind todays RDS equipped pistols. With that being said, shooting at night in low light no light, the dot was the heat!

[Luke]

E-Z checking in.

[Paul Sharp]

I have a friend who's 14 year old son has never shot irons. Dots on rifles, shotguns and now his USPSA pistol. It seems that if this kid can see it, he'll hit it. I'm amazed. There is no slowing of the mount to trigger press. He sees the dot on the target and let's it go. I much prefer a dot on a pistol but the technology isn't there yet to support a dot on a carry gun. When it is, I'm all over it even if it means starting over hopefully I'll be in Shooter C's category.

[Dave Williams]

Last I heard, Bill Rogers won't award a red pin to a guy shooting a red dot. Because of the advantage.

[GJM]

Last I heard, Bill Rogers won't award a red pin to a guy shooting a red dot. Because of the advantage.

Is that something new? Think I have a red pin I got from a week when part of the time I shot a 226 with a RMR.

[Oukaapie]

Another Non SME's findings are as follows.

I shoot and practice irons and red dots on the P320C and VP9. With the red dot equipped pistol I find up close I pick up my front sight first and just use that to start. After a shot or two the red dot appears and takes over at all distances. Once I'm at at the distance where I would be using my rear irons the red dot shows up automatically. Once the dot is in view transitioning to new targets is straightforward.

I do dry practice most days so if my dot is drifting or otherwise misbehaving it can be addressed.