Large dot vs small dot and why

[YVK]

First, let’s understand...

That's an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.

I think I'd agree that a smaller dot lends itself to greater precision. I myself am not a precision shooter. I haven't been able to realize such advantage of smaller dots over bigger ones. My USPSA driven standard is upper A at 25 yards, I want to hit it with a decent but not necessarily absolute percentage when I shoot in practice. In matches I just don't want to miss the former B zone at that distance. I have just finished my dry fire routine and confirmed seeing my appropriately intensity-adjusted 5 MOA dot well within a 2.5 inch circle at about 18 yards. That's good enough for me. That's for games but I would hope that this should be OK for defensive purposes too.

Other aspects of dot shooting dictate my preference for larger dots. When I shoot at the speed of seeing a streak rather than seeing a dot, I prefer larger and brighter streak. When I shoot a very close target, unless I choose not to confirm by seeing a dot at all, even the largest dot is very small. When I have to deal with dot washout, I want bigger and brighter dot option. So, while I agree that smaller dot should be better for precision, the overall decision is outweighed by other considerations.

[Archer1440]

Of course it’s an individual thing. One point I should have emphasized though- the larger dot may very influence proper trigger execution for some percentage of shooters, due to the factors I discussed. Certainly not all- but some.

[miller_man]

My experience's so far. Started with venom 3.0, then rmr 3.25, then SRO 5.0 and a rmr 7.0.

Honestly, the only one I view as really different and don't like is the rmr 7, but that is probably because it is not manually adjustable and the 7 moa dot does seem big on smaller targets. But still put have been drilling 2" circles at 10yds with 22lr kadet kit slide it sits on.

I have seen little difference and can't say I have much preference between the others as far as dot size goes. I mostly use the 2 SRO 5.0 as those are on my Carry optics guns.

Have a Holosun 508t milled on 34 slide returning this week, it'll be a new experience with the 2.0 dot - but don't expect it to be all that different.
USPSA B class, hopefully soon pushing into A class. Just my 0.02.

[Eyesquared]

I have made the point before and will make it again that a typical factory polymer frame striker fired gun is a 10moa gun. I am not concerned about unduly obscuring the target when the group my gun shoots off a bag is wider than the dot.

[JCN]

For slow fire precision, I would probably want a tiny dot.

For action pistol, I started with a big dot because it increased the effective window size of smaller window optics... you can track the 32MOA ring on a 507c even when the center dot is off the screen, leading to a “virtual window.”

This was when I was USPSA “B” level.

I also started with a 7.5MOA DPP triangle... because my trigger accuracy made a smaller dot pointless... if you can’t hit exactly where the dot is anyway... doesn’t really matter if it’s larger or smaller.

I used this to get to USPSA A.

As I got better, I moved to smaller dots for action pistol because I could place rounds where the dot was and at typical action pistol distances, the dot size was close to bullet hole size. Made mental sense to me.

There was some talk about going smaller... but I figured Max Michel ran a 6 MOA ish dot when he won many CO National championships so I don’t think it’ll be a liability for me in the foreseeable future.

I used a 5-6 MOA Romeo3Max and SRO to make M.

[CCT125US]

With an astigmatism, and monovision correction, I much prefer a dot that's 2 moa. However, I use the apex of the dot, as the peeking aspect mentioned by @Archer1440 is an issue for me. Some may call it a training issue, but when the "dot" looks like a comet, or a fuzzy star, I do what works.

[GRV]

You need the depth of front sight. For me it's 16 inches.


16/.100 width = 160

100yds = 3600"

3600/160 = 22.5 inch at 100yds

@GRV for math check..

Or 3600/16 = 225 x .100 = 22.5

Haven't read the whole thread but...


There's the math, and the gun presentation position (arm length, etc.) will factor in. Then, like people have mentioned there's all the issues surrounding focus, astigmatism, etc. With iron sights, I'm also convinced that there are other optical tricks that will factor in. I don't know if it's technically considered diffraction, but if you hold a black iron sight up against a bright light, you'll see light bleeding around the edges which will decrease the apparent width.

[noguns]

Have a 508t and a 407co. I've tried a 1 moa up to rm07 rmr. I tried the 32 moa,.dot only, and 8 moa ring. I prefer the 8 moa ring over the others I've tried.
It's just large enough, but precise when I want to by using the hole inside the "donut" .