Originally Posted by
Glenn E. Meyer
A touch of a small anecdote.
Yesterday we ran the following match:
The time was 4:00 PM and bright sun. The stages were oriented North with the sun to the west. Given the distances, most folks thought it was such that you really didn't need intensive use of sights as holding the guns straight out with a reasonable index on the targets would do it. In my squad, three folks had RDS on smaller guns - 365s. One of them DQ'ed. However, the other two commented that at these distances the RDS wasn't any use. Going for the dot picture as compared to just getting the gun aligned from the draw slowed them down and in the bright sun, the dot was of that much use. The small window bothered them.
For example, one of the top guys (365 RDS) who came in second as he is very fast, had 35 Alphas and 6 C's. Old me with a 3rd Gen G26 with Trijicon 3 dot night sights had 41 As and 3 C's. The best was 42 As. I'm slower as I always say. For instance, the fast guy shoots a stage in 11 sec. Me - 14. I move slowly.
Now, the issue as I see it - is if this is defensive shooting, are the C's acceptable on DA STRETZ? Missing may lead to not 'stopping' the opponent or hitting a good guy. One of the guys towards the top had 19 Cs. In some trials with ambiguous shoots, the missed shot, threatening innocents, was taken to indicate reckless behavior and evil intent.
Thus, a small defensive usage test. Two guys, close up, sunny day - good shooters who used RDS on full sized pistols - say the small RDS close up was not useful and perhaps a handicap.
Funny match fun -
One stage we had to manipulate a baby hostage. I've done this before and got my picture on a Tom Given's newsletter way back when doing this. The baby was a stuffed elephant. I opined it was save the baby Republican. The question was how to stash the baby when moving, reloading. Between your legs, balanced on your head, under your arms. Not realistic ways to hold a real baby (as we fathers might know). I wear suspenders due to back problems and came up with the solution of tucking the elephant under the straps. Wouldn't work with a real baby. No one dropped the baby.
One DQ for a guy who didn't clear the chamber at the end of his run and fired a round when told to show clear. Just dropped the mag. One guy quit as his reloads wouldn't run.
The mag problem. Ok, we are shooting small guns with small gun carry gear. No match mag setups. This seemed to be a problem for some. With match gear, your mags may be spaced apart, large and easy to grab. Folks grab them with speed. However, with the small guns, I saw, once in awhile: Failure to get the mag in the wall. Grabbing the mag and then throwing it away as you grabbed too fast with the small grip. Then, grabbing the first mag first - throwing it away and at the same time, snagging the second mag and throwing that on the ground.
Lots of reload planning as USPSA paradigm. Probably wouldn't do that on DA STREETZ. Avoiding slide lock is a thing, not like IDPA.