I bought a Leopold red dot last year for a scout rifle type set up.
I hate it. Honestly I can't find a useful purpose for it, I'd never buy another or recommend one. In bright light, it's too dim. In low light, it's too bright. It's big, in the way, everything else around you reflects off it like a magician trick glass. $400 worth of useless IMHO.
Thanks to everyone for the responses. I’m finding a thinner front sight helps with the eye sprinting.
I think a red dot is a good training tool, but should not replace iron sights. The red dot allows you to focus on other aspects of shooting, such as trigger control.
I don’t know much about these things, but it seems like the market has pretty well stabilized on the Aimpoint T1 and maybe the PRO as the high quality standard for carbine RDS use.
My eyesight is still good so I’m inclined to wait til the pistol RDS market settles similarly.
David S.
To the OP, have you had any formal instruction?
I know that I shot for years, even shooting IDPA for a couple of years, prior to getting quality formal instruction for the first time in a Randy Cain 3-day pistol class. Changed my life.
Total gold here for a new shooter. You're most likely looking at the target because you want to see your hits. DO NOT DO THAT! If you start looking for your hits, you will train yourself to look at the target over looking at the sights. You need to "untrain" this behavior, until your fundamentals are rock solid.Originally Posted by Redhat
Keep your focus on the front sight and watch the front sight through recoil - you should see it lift straight up out of the rear notch and return straight down. Seeing it move in any other direction between straight up and down is how you'll start to be able to "call" your shots when you induce an error.
As always, the best answer before technology is to find a good teacher in your area, and get proper instruction. Once you've mastered the basics, you can tell is a RDS is going to improve your shooting...
There's two types of sighting errors: hold errors and alignment errors. A hold error is the sight not being centered on the target. An alignment error is the FS not being aligned with the rear. Of the two, the alignment error is much more severe.
Redhat's excellent advice can be extended to dry fire drills. Just aim at a wall that makes your FS stand out. Dry fire while focusing on the FS and remember where it is when the shot breaks. This is also a good way to learn trigger control, i.e. getting the shot off without disturbing your sight picture, and/or getting the shot to break during the "minimum arc of movement" as the Bullseye shooters say.
Do the same thing during live fire (this is known as "calling" the shot), like 1:00, 2:00, etc.
Small targets: welcome to iron-sight shooting! A FS can easily cover a target completely (so can a big dot). I strongly suggest you avoid small targets until you've conquered your wandering eyes, as small targets will only make it worse. Once you're ready to take them on (like a beer can at 50 yards or more), you have to trust that your brain has the sight is where it needs to be in relation to the target and keep your eye on that FS.
Yes. I like to describe the two as Angular Deviation and Parallel Deviation.
Angular deviation occurs when your front and rear sight are not properly aligned. The resulting error for a given misalignment increases as the distance to the target increases.
Parallel Deviation occurs when your sights are properly aligned but you are pointed at the wrong spot. An error in Parallel Deviation that misses the X-ring at 5 feet by three inches is still a three inch miss at 5 yards or 50 yards.
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