When the Optic dies - aperture?

[Josh Runkle]

One other thing which should obviously be added: the whole shooting without a dot thing will work at <25 yards, but it’s obviously not gonna work at 250 yards.


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[MDFA]

When I teach a carbine course, and it works with a pistol as well, I tell students to put the Asshole in the center of the "TV Screen" and make them the "Star" of the show... It works.

[Pistol Pete 10]

You'll prolly do pretty well in a pistol match at close range. I recently put a prysm scope on my short AR. It has a black dot and circle unless you turn it on then red or green. Seems like a good idea to me. Mine is a 1 power but it's also made in 3X. Mine is a Vortex but others make them.

[RevolverRob]

At ranges <15 yards, I don't even bother looking for the dot, regardless of pistol or rifle. The brain is a wonderful thing and can center things pretty well overall. If you know the dot should be in the center, you don't need to "see" it, anyways. I'd reckon that about 60-70% of shooters who are shooting quick are barely registering the dot as present anyways, it is strictly subconscious.

To be honest, I always figured "point shooting" was really just people using other visual cues besides the sights. Square slides are great for this, because they provide a visual alignment cue. Try this next time you're futzing around at the range, cant your gun in sideways (~45 degrees, not 90) and use the top edge of the slide as your aiming tool, ignoring the sights. I bet you can easily get A-zone hits at <15 yards this way.

Think of it another way, all iron sights are effectively just two-way bubble levels. The front sight is the bubble and the rear sight notch is the tubes. In absence of a bubble level, you can still get things fairly plumb and true using just your eyeball and some straight reference edge. The same is true for running a weapon without the dot. The window is just the tube and you're missing your bubble. But since it's a finite frame of reference, your brain is pretty good at getting things going with other visual references.

I might get lambasted for this comment - but sights are for precision. They don't make the gun work, you do. They are visual reference points, which we definitely want, but in all reality do not always need. The trouble, of course, is when you absolutely need that precision, you don't want to eyeball it to "good enough". And shooting things tends to be one of those scenarios where we want all the precision we can get. Knowing the difference between what is good enough to get the job done and what isn't is important to know.

[AKDoug]

At ranges <15 yards, I don't even bother looking for the dot, regardless of pistol or rifle. The brain is a wonderful thing and can center things pretty well overall. If you know the dot should be in the center, you don't need to "see" it, anyways. I'd reckon that about 60-70% of shooters who are shooting quick are barely registering the dot as present anyways, it is strictly subconscious.

To be honest, I always figured "point shooting" was really just people using other visual cues besides the sights. Square slides are great for this, because they provide a visual alignment cue. Try this next time you're futzing around at the range, cant your gun in sideways (~45 degrees, not 90) and use the top edge of the slide as your aiming tool, ignoring the sights. I bet you can easily get A-zone hits at <15 yards this way.

Think of it another way, all iron sights are effectively just two-way bubble levels. The front sight is the bubble and the rear sight notch is the tubes. In absence of a bubble level, you can still get things fairly plumb and true using just your eyeball and some straight reference edge. The same is true for running a weapon without the dot. The window is just the tube and you're missing your bubble. But since it's a finite frame of reference, your brain is pretty good at getting things going with other visual references.

I might get lambasted for this comment - but sights are for precision. They don't make the gun work, you do. They are visual reference points, which we definitely want, but in all reality do not always need. The trouble, of course, is when you absolutely need that precision, you don't want to eyeball it to "good enough". And shooting things tends to be one of those scenarios where we want all the precision we can get. Knowing the difference between what is good enough to get the job done and what isn't is important to know.

While I've been a firearms shooter for most of my 50 years, the sport I really spent time at getting good at was archery. I didn't shoot traditional archery, I shot target archery with sights. In target archery, just like firearms shooting, you will find several successful methods of "aiming". I had a talk with a very successful professional archer at Indoor Nationals one year. I asked him how he aimed, and he said he didn't. He explained to me that your brain knows how to line up the sights and will do so with great precision subconsciously. His focus was simply on the center of the target and he let his release form and aiming be in the subconscious. Other successful archers said that they focused on the sights and let the target alignment and release be subconscious. All of these methods worked.

I was a subconscious aimer that focused on the bullseye when I shot archery. I struggled shooting firearms because I attempted to get the perfect sight alignment and lost focus on the target. When I finally released myself to allowing my subconscious to tell my trigger finger that that it was time to go, my shooting got better. My last steel challenge shoot I don't recall ever lining up the sights, just focusing on the center of the plates and letting my subconscious do the rest. I'm still not very good, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel for me.