Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathon's Crystal Ball Predictions

[HCM]

The technology of the dot is fairly uninteresting to me as is the equipment. I'm dot ambivalent.

What's more interesting is the conversation the dot has forced on the community of "three focal plane" shooting versus "single focal" plane shooting and the implications that has for congruency in training regardless of the sighting system.

Sure.

There are still a TON of agencies and private sector businesses that are teaching traditional sight alignment and sight picture with "hard front sight focus" language. As the dot becomes more and more common...and we see more people beginning their education on shooting with a dot....will we see a shift in orthodox iron sight marksmanship pedagogy? A mainstream shift that facilitates greater congruency across sighting systems?

Thinking about these questions brought up another, related issue.

My own experience with red dots included a period of time where we were working with the red dots for training and development but still carrying irons on duty. My personal experience was I had little to no difficulty switching back-and-forth between irons and red dot. However, among skilled shooters in both my own agency and other agencies we work with some people were able to shift back-and-forth easily and some people could not despite being competent with both sighting systems. They would require a period to re-acclimatize themselves to one sighting system or the other.

I initially thought this might be an “everybody’s eyes are different” issue but this seemed less common with new shooters who started on the dot. That raises the question of whether this is an eye issue or a mental / programming issue. And if it’s not a congenital eye issue then is it residual to the experienced shooters being “wired” to hard front sight focus ?

This question has me wanting to pull up and go through Gabe White’s old PF postings on vision and visual accommodation.

[awp_101]

Good thing this discussion of ED is in GD, or we would have to move it to long guns.

Would 11.5s still be considered shorties? Would 16”+ be what what the cool kids started running?

[mmc45414]

I like Ken, I am almost 63 and have known him since I was about 20 (he was probably there the day my avatar pic was taken). If you said my name he may or may not say "Oh yeah, how is MMc doing" but I am pretty sure he would know me if I walked up to him. I have always enjoyed talking to him, and I appreciate the help he has given me in the past. IMO this video probably suffers from having a bad title, they were discussing (complaining?) about the present and talking about the past as much as predicting the future. If the title was Two Guys Chatting it would probably be perceived differently.

And red dots are Viagra.

“Red dots are Viagra” is sig line material.
However, in all seriousness your post mirrors my question of improving vs restoring.

I shoot irons OK, IMHO, for my SD needs - my goal in shooting nowadays.

Another thing I thought about was that they both talked about shooting better with irons in a very specific situation, the situation that most likely mirrors self-defense. But my thing on this is that BOTH of these guys have developed TONS of skill from shooting MILLIONS of rounds over DECADES of practice. THEY might still be a little better at one segment of the task with them, but they do not represent a typical human. Me, OTOH, is a dude that is pretty happy to make it out once a week to shoot timed drills with my buddies, or hit an occasional match, maybe sneak out once during the week, but I am at the high end of getting trigger time compared to most people. And I do not have much trouble transitioning, and I can do many things better with a dot.

I have one M&P setup with a Swampfox to stick my toe in the water, it was a gun I already had that I bought a CORE slide for, converting a 40 I wasn't shooting into a 9mm in the process. I like shooting it indoors, it really helps me there. And most weeks I at least take it along and wear a compatible holster, because the group of buddies that gathers on Sundays includes one young whippersnapper that uses a dot and is blazingly fast. When he shows up I quietly swap out to my dot pistol even if I wasn't planning to shoot it, I need all the help I can get if I am going to try and keep him honest. But I am shooting three gun once a month, and want to continue to shoot in TacOps, so especially the Sunday prior to match week I try and shoot irons. Well, Dawsons with FO rods in both front and rear...

I am still personally torn about spending the bucks for a new RDS set up.

Yeah, that is reality. I want to buy another fresh M&P ($5-600) and send it off for direct mill ($150) for a RMR ($500) or SRO($600), and just like Viagra ($25, so I have heard...) I do not want to get to the point where I am NEED all that!

[SouthNarc]

Thinking about these questions brought up another, related issue.

My own experience with red dots included a period of time where we were working with the red dots for training and development but still carrying irons on duty. My personal experience was I had little to no difficulty switching back-and-forth between irons and red dot. However, among skilled shooters in both my own agency and other agencies we work with some people were able to shift back-and-forth easily and some people could not despite being competent with both sighting systems. They would require a period to re-acclimatize themselves to one sighting system or the other.

I initially thought this might be an “everybody’s eyes are different” issue but this seemed less common with new shooters who started on the dot. That raises the question of whether this is an eye issue or a mental / programming issue. And if it’s not a congenital eye issue then is it residual to the experienced shooters being “wired” to hard front sight focus ?

This question has me wanting to pull up and go through Gabe White’s old PF postings on vision and visual accommodation.

See that stuff to me is more interesting than just the tech itself. How it relates to training.

[Hambo]

“Red dots are Viagra” is sig line material.

Or an epitaph.

[JCN]

Thinking about these questions brought up another, related issue.

My own experience with red dots included a period of time where we were working with the red dots for training and development but still carrying irons on duty. My personal experience was I had little to no difficulty switching back-and-forth between irons and red dot. However, among skilled shooters in both my own agency and other agencies we work with some people were able to shift back-and-forth easily and some people could not despite being competent with both sighting systems. They would require a period to re-acclimatize themselves to one sighting system or the other.

I initially thought this might be an “everybody’s eyes are different” issue but this seemed less common with new shooters who started on the dot. That raises the question of whether this is an eye issue or a mental / programming issue. And if it’s not a congenital eye issue then is it residual to the experienced shooters being “wired” to hard front sight focus ?

See that stuff to me is more interesting than just the tech itself. How it relates to training.

I think for me the key point is:
"This seemed less common with new shooters who started on the dot."

That has been my experience for a number of reasons (and Aaron Cowan's hypothesis in his White Paper).

You could take that to mean that the more universal shooting skill is developed with dots rather than irons.

From my personal observations, I think that is the case. Which then begs the question of which one should be the fundamental system to learn on and which one is the "advanced" skill?

One of the things that I've posted on before is what happens with a red dot towards the edge of the window versus an iron sight towards the edge.

Would you take that head shot with an iron?



But you would with a dot. And you train your brain and vision to accept good index with alternate vision besides just the most narrow post in notch iron sight picture.



That’s why I think dots rule. They train actual index better than irons.

Without practicing irons, with dot training I could do this without any adjustment.

[NEPAKevin]

But what that video was, when I watched it, was 23 minutes of bellyaching about the new trends, right up until time to plug things Wilson Combat was selling. I mean, the pistol mounted RDS is unnecessary but the Wilson P320 grip module is a game changer? Gimme a break.

And as others have noted/speculated, there may be a Wilson P365 in the near future and probably a grip module, etc. And what is one of the features of the P365XL? ... pre cut for SIG's Romeo zero dot. What's to say that in a few months there won't be a click bait video with a title something to the effect of "The (insert brand name, now available at Wilson Combat) has changed our minds about red dots. It's a game changer...." It's just marketing, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Like a new born baby it just happens every day.

[GJM]

Ken and Bill are obviously both characters. I might ping Joyce to get Bill a 365 and a RMSc for following up on hogs, and go meet Ken over a beer and thrash this out, when Charlie and I are in Hamilton shooting matches in the summer.

[SouthNarc]

Ken and Bill are obviously both characters. I might ping Joyce to get Bill a 365 and a RMSc for following up on hogs, and go meet Ken over a beer and thrash this out, when Charlie and I are in Hamilton shooting matches in the summer.

Who knows? Ken or Bill might be reading this thread right now.

[GJM]

Who knows? Ken or Bill might be reading this thread right now.

Bill is out hunting, but I can't speak for Ken!