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Thread: I learned something with iron sights

  1. #1
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    I learned something with iron sights

    I learned pistol mainly with dots.

    I learned PCC and long guns ONLY with dots.

    As part of my “want to know what I don’t know,” I set out to get some time with irons on a long gun at speed.

    My only competitive outlet for this is Steel Challenge PCCI, so I spent a little time training up for it in my goal to make “A” class or higher consistently with equipment I don’t normally use.

    It struck me how much more consistent I needed to be with my cheek weld and support grip. Things needed to be EXACT to get going at speed unlike with RDS where as long as you can see the dot, you’re on target.

    I did some experimentation and a similar thing was happening with pistol irons.

    Whereas with optics, I can still make confident shots with the dot on the sides of the window, with irons I’m kind of constricted to essentially using the equivalent of just the middle stripe of the window to call shots.

    I think to me this is a fundamental reason why I feel I’ll always be faster and more accurate with dots barring equipment issues, I have more degrees of freedom available to me to make shots at speed.

    But that being said, going to irons on a long gun (and on pistol) highlighted things that I could use a tune up on.

    To the point where I think I should make PCC and Pistol irons a regular training thing.

  2. #2
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Jun 2013
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    Great point, @JCN. I'd like to think all the years I put into irons on pistols made me a better shooter, and I was just talking about this with another PF member at last Sunday's USPSA match. Shooters can be sloppier with their index with a dot, as long as the dot is visible. However, if the index is so jacked that the dot is 'lost', it's typically harder to realign. Irons provide alignment information over a very wide range of angles. But as you point out irons are a lot less forgiving because there is only a narrow range of alignment. For me, a sloppy dot index (and a bigger window) help in speeding up positional carbine shooting (e.g. VTAC barricade).
    Last edited by Clusterfrack; 11-21-2022 at 12:52 PM.
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  3. #3
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    Jun 2019
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    @Clusterfrack re pistol irons versus dot on gross misalignment

    I feel like this is where a lot of dot trainers are remiss.

    They present the dot window as the only sighting system and that’s what the novice shooter gloms on to.

    That IMO is why unsophisticated trainers think dots are slower than irons close up.

    It’s a failure of training students to use other cues separate from the actual red dot and window.

    Whether it’s BUIS or a general awareness of slide outline, target focused doesn’t mean you should be oblivious to everything that isn’t the target.

    If I were designing a red dot program I would do some early dot turned off speed exercises to beat that in.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by JCN View Post
    [MENTION=7807]
    If I were designing a red dot program I would do some early dot turned off speed exercises to beat that in.
    Can you expand on that part?

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by JCS View Post
    Can you expand on that part?


    So obviously you wouldn’t end with no dot completely. But just getting new dot shooters to not be enslaved by the dot.

    If they’re super new and aren’t going to practice, BUIS or even something like the DPP Micro as augmented irons might be a first step.

  6. #6
    What you are describing is very apparent on VTAC boards and other barricades that don't allow a good index.

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