12 months of data: Irons vs. RMR

[Hunter Osborne]

I should also note that I believe that the reason I experienced an accuracy and consistency increase with the addition of the RMRs is largely due to the way my eyes interact with the front sight. I use prescription lenses full time and have an astigmatism as well as scarring on my right eye. My eyesight started noticeably deteriorating a few years ago. The result is that even with prescription lenses and full daylight, I do not have the ability to intensely focus on my front sight for more than 1-2 seconds without my eyes going haywire and causing the image to go into and out of focus multiple times or to switch focus to things in the foreground or background, namely either the target or the rear sight notch.

I can still shoot Irons fairly well. Last range session I turned in several 4.6 and one 4.4 clean runs for the FAST and a 94 on a 10rd B8 string at 25, with my G17 with Dawson sights. However it requires significantly more effort on my part in order to turn in a performance like that, and it's not something I can replicate all day long because it requires more cognitive effort than shooting with an RMR does. The front sight was also slightly blurry for the FAST runs, and I was using the red fiber optic as a pseudo red dot and maintained a target focus the entire time.

It's my opinion that the RMR was beneficial to me because I am no longer asking my eyes to do something that is physically difficult for them (focus on the front sight for extended periods of time), combined with the ability to get the optic precisely zeroed, and the target focused nature of using an RDS (focusing on the target is not an issue for me). Anecdotally, I've noticed that it requires much less effort to achieve the same, or greater, levels of accuracy at distance, as well as accuracy while shooting SHO/WHO.

The only downsides to RMR use that I have identified so far have been a reduction in speed while shooting SHO/WHO, the optic's parallax, and the fact that with a cheek/neck index handheld lighting technique (my preferred technique), you have to be very meticulous with setting dot brightness. In my experience, if the dot is not centered in the window, you will experience a POI shift. For an easy reference, when shooting the head portion of the FAST, if the dot is towards the top of the 3x5, and the top of the RMR window, my rounds impact towards the bottom of the 3x5.
You'll need to experiment in order to achieve a useable dot that is neither washed out by the handheld light or so bright that the glare occludes sighting through the lens. For my RM07, this means I have to manually set the brightness to 3 positions down from the max when it starts to get dark, and my RM06 is 2 positions down from the max. The auto adjust setting works fine the majority of the time, and in my experience it will adjust to the light coming from the cheek/neck index, however if I use my WML (TLR-1 HL) it will not adjust and trying to use the dot becomes more trouble than it's worth. With the brightness settings mentioned above, I'm able to use either WML, or handheld in a low light/no light setting, as well as maintain a useable dot should I walk indoors into a brightly lit setting (my house, gas station, grocery store etc.) The setting is not sufficient for use during bright sunlight, which is when I will resort to the auto adjust feature. This is why I suggested in the conclusion that in my opinion, RDS use on carry guns require a dedicated user, similar to Hilton Yam's thoughts on users of 1911s.

I'll continue to update this thread periodically with more findings and my experiences with RDS on pistols. Hopefully this can help serve to educate those on the fence about the pros and cons for RDS usage on defensive pistols.

[Hunter Osborne]

Good analytics data collection.

That said I'm not as sanguine about your conclusion once costs are factored in.

A 3.8% increase in accuracy is a good thing ; but street price for a red-dot ready striker fired pistol such as an M&P CORE/Glock MOS/ etc is between $650.00 - $700.00 dollars. The price for an RMR is an additional $550.00, and we haven't touched holster costs..

The financial outlay to get a red dot equipped gun is $1,250 per example. If one plans on carrying , they'd need a backup-so that's another $1,250 spent. The costs go up if a pistol needs custom gunsmithing to fit a red dot plus downtime for work performed.

Compared to the outlay of buying a standard M&P9 at $550.00 + $100.00 allowance for holster and spare mags, and we get a savings of $600.00 for sticking with irons vs going red dot. Spending 100% more money to gain a 3.8% performance benefit is not quantitatively smart.


Here's two other things $600.00 can buy which would also improve user skill ;

Class tuition + $100 miscellaneous.
2000 rounds of 9mm ammo(at my local retail prices).

Those are all excellent points. I would never suggest that someone by an RMR and have it installed vs. going to a class or buying more ammo to practice with, if this person is not already a competent shooter. I should have amended my conclusion to reflect my post above, which explains why I think I benefited from the RMR installation. If my eyesight was better and I could use a front sight, I would not have invested in the RMR setup. It is very costly initially, there is no doubt. However for people like me, it really is a game changer and it allows me to do things with ease that I could not do at all, or not do easily with just irons.

Sometimes, there really is a hardware solution that can have measurable benefits to a shooter. Is it often times the case? Probably not, and it's up to the individual to do their due diligence to figure out whether or not that applies to them. Hopefully this thread can help people figure out ahead of time whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze.

[Luke]

Gardone what price do we put on performance? $100 per 1%? More? Less?

[Dave Williams]

I'm resurrecting my RDS pistols. Thank you for this.

Back to M&P?

[breakingtime91]

Cool thread. I firmly believe red dots are the future for pistol sights. Come on aimpoint, most of us are ready.

[23JAZ]

Gardone what price do we put on performance? $100 per 1%? More? Less?

[SLG]

I really enjoy shooting my dot guns, and have been spending more time with them lately than I probably should. That said, I'm not sure they are the way of the future, though I would never say they don't offer some significant benefits. You have to keep in mind what the purpose of a pistol is. Other than a target focus benefit, I'm not sure that dots actually offer anything on the defensive end.

Now on the fun end...lots to like.

[Hunter Osborne]

I really enjoy shooting my dot guns, and have been spending more time with them lately than I probably should. That said, I'm not sure they are the way of the future, though I would never say they don't offer some significant benefits. You have to keep in mind what the purpose of a pistol is. Other than a target focus benefit, I'm not sure that dots actually offer anything on the defensive end.

Now on the fun end...lots to like.

I would mostly agree with that. I do not think they are mandatory for effective defensI've shooting, however I do think that for certain populations, they would definitely make things easier so long as the user is dedicated to ironing out all the wrinkles that can pop up beforehand. I think a dot in the hands of someone who is not dedicated to learning the optic and how best to utilize it in their specific circumstances would actually be detrimental to their performance.

For the general population without eyesight issues, the only clear advantages I see are the target focus, zeroing, having the same sight picture day or night (in theory). For the hobbyist who cares, shooting small percentage targets (like the 1" square on Find Your Level or 1, 2, Reload 3) the dot also has been beneficial in that it does not obscure the target. This also applies to distant targets where holding over becomes necessary.

[voodoo_man]

Good personal experience thread and data points.

As I have pointed out before, those of us who have invested in traditional iron sights, training, carry, reps, etc will probably have to start from a few steps back in order to attain the same level of speed and/or performance with an RMR.

If we had started out on RMR'd guns I have absolutely zero doubt that most of us would default to them.

However the fact being that most LE carry non-RDS pistols and even though it may be better to carry an RDS equipped pistol, that is a very long ways away for the general pistol population (like LE).

[Luke]

What would it say about the shooter if he was instantly better with a dot vs irons that he had a lot more reps on?