Originally Posted by
Sanch
I’ve avoided red dots on handguns until now. I have great vision, have no problem focusing on the front site, I don’t compete, I’m not a cop, and the iron sights on my glock 43 or 19 are good enough for CCW for my needs.
But, now I have night vision, and with events of 2020 I’m more interested in preparedness setups that involve gear and a long gun. So what I’m looking to do is take a glock 19 or glock 17, since I’m comfortable with glocks and have lots of mags, and put a red dot on it, for a “tactical holster” setup, which I refer to as a “duty” setup in a respectful way since it’s what I imagine a SWAT officer might use as a secondary.
The reasons I avoided red dots on handguns up until now:
1. Some of them required re-zeroing after changing batteries and I frequently get busy with work/family and can go 6 months without time to hit the range. So it can be a huge hassle to re-zero.
2. Issues with water/rain, something about open emitters.
3. In the past, required custom slide milling which seemed like a huge hassle. And was specific to the optic I bought. And with tech constantly evolving, I’d need a new slide to mill around a future optic every 5 years or so.
4. Some of them can’t be left constantly on at all times and require you to push the on button once every 12 hours or something.
5. My threat model doesn’t have me making 100 yard terrorist shots at the shopping mall. And iron sights seem perfectly acceptable for my likely threat model of under 5 yards. So the costs and trade offs and hassle of red dots didn’t make sense before.
But now I have night vision and I don’t want to get an IR laser for my handgun. I think I’d rather have a red dot optic.
I’ve only been casually following the red dot handgun market, and the idea of the glock MOS is appealing because it’s supposed to be a generic milled-area with ability to have new plates made to work with any future optic.
I love micro aimpoints, so if I can put an aimpoint T1 on a new glock MOS, which means I can change batteries without re-zeroing because the battery is on the side, no problem with water since it’s a closed system, and the biggest if, if I can get a nice holster, like a safariland retention holster that works with a glock + aimpoint micro, then it seems like it’s the way to go for me with my desire to LARP with night vision and have a red dot gun on a “war belt”
It’s not clear to me if it’s possible to put a T1 on a glock MOS and it’s not clear if safariland makes holsters that would support that.
If I have to get a glock milled to take a T1, I would still consider it in spite of the hassle since I suspect the T1 will last the rest of my expected life (30 years) or at least there will be a new model that fits the footprint or new-old-stock available to buy and replace. But if a standard holster doesn’t exist, I don’t want to deal with getting the milling and then shipping the gun to a holster maker because this seems like a 12 month or longer proposition.
If this just all sounds ridiculous and a lot of custom effort needed, then I think a surefire with IR laser might be the way I go and just stick to irons on top. The only dual vis/IR surefire is huge and has a weird bulky shape. And the idea of zeroing an IR-only laser without a slaved visible laser seems like a hassle. But, perhaps I can buy a visible bore laser, and under NODs, adjust the bore laser to match the IR laser at a known distance in a backyard without shooting live ammo. Although maybe the visible bore laser will bloom under NODs too much and I’m not sure if an IR bore laser exists (I assume not).
Geiselle’s wife’s company, ALG makes a “6 second mount” that lets you put an aimpoint micro on a floating rail but I doubt holsters exist for this. Although I guess I could ship just the 6 second mount plus aimpoint to a holster maker for a custom holster without needing to ship a gun and they can put it on top of their own glock.
I guess what I really want is the lowest hassle/effort way of using a handgun with NODs that doesn’t require enthusiast-level work that minimizes custom stuff because I’ve been down that road in the past and I’m over it.