I really like his white paper - I feel like he did a pretty good job with a lot of his neuroscience background info for someone without a lot of formal study. I also really liked the way he set up his "experiment." Bright guy.Originally Posted by JCN
He’s also a great example of someone who wasn’t an SME.
But became an SME through intelligent study and experimentation.
Interesting how we judge things differently. I thought that the physiology bit was nothing but an attempt to make the paper look scientific. A whole bunch of fight or flight references to 19th century papers and eye anatomy that was totally tangential to questions of feasibility of use and outcomes. Some of the stuff was misinterpreted too, I thought.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
There's a lot of "why" to that phenomenon, IMO.
Having spent the last 20+ years watching people draw a handgun, the number of people who have taken the time to build a reliable, repeatable, efficient draw that will show up under stress is miniscule. I regularly watch even people who have some significant level of training present the gun while looking completely over the thing under the mild stress of an audience and a timer.
For someone to see a useful sight picture or the dot, they have to present the gun up into the eye line...often what people do is present the gun forward from their chest or their chin. It never makes it up to the eyes because under stress the gun tends to stay at the level it pushes out from.
And, of course, their head is usually moving at the same time this is happening. If we factor in the narrowing of vision under stress in addition to all that...assuming adrenaline has had time to work...then it may well be that a number of people never even saw their gun, much less their sights.
The advantage iron sights have is that you can see the front sight when it's not directly in your point of focus because protrudes from the top of the gun. If you can even stack it on top the rear, you have some useful feedback on alignment that will help guide a shot at close range. Mas Ayoob's "Stressfire Index" is based on that. With an RDS you won't get a dot unless the gun is up in the eyeline and reasonably close to aligned on target. Features of the RDS can be used to help steer that in...but either requires you to have the gun up into your eyeline to see a misalignment, your brain to be able to process that it's misaligned, and for you to correct before or as you are working the trigger.
Most people have not habituated that kind of discipline into what they are doing. The occasion where most people are grabbing a handgun is one that has typically gone beyond their control in rapid fashion. The typical user of a handgun, be they in uniform or out, has not repeatedly exposed themselves to producing a handgun from a holster and firing an accurate shot in less than 2 seconds. So, to paraphrase Tom Givens, we have somebody who did all their driver training at 35 MPH who is now trying to pilot a vehicle at 100 MPH. The results are usually ugly because that person is trying to do something they don't really know how to do at a speed they've never tried to do it at.
At that point they are probably operating entirely from the amygdala which essentially letting the dumbest part of our brain fly the plane. There's no "Draw to 5 inch circle hit in 1.5 seconds" program installed on the command console so it just mashes the gas straight to the floor and tries to do ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW!!!
This is, incidentally, why I don't buy the idea that red dot sights will reduce mistake-of-fact shootings. People aren't confusing a wallet for a gun because they are too busy looking at their sights to see the difference...
It may turn out that people who habituate to putting the dot on the target will make every attempt to get that dot on target under stress. One of the true advantages of the RDS (as opposed to some of the fictional ones people talk about) is that it's a coach sitting on top of your gun critiquing your presentation. Just having that glowing visual feedback can help someone develop a more reliable, repeatable, and efficient draw. It can also help them develop a better understanding of a useful shot process.
Let's face facts: To most people toting handguns, the process of firing a shot is a complete fucking mystery. They have no idea why bullet holes appear where they do. Under stress, they grab at the gun, throw the thing towards the target while still grabbing at it, and crank off a shot with all the sophistication of a nearly blackout drunk frat boy smashing into the keg while drunkenly attempting a keg stand.
Typical firearms instruction does a pretty poor job of demystifying this for most people. Yelling at people to FOCUS ON THE FRONT SIGHT! and STOP JERKING THE TRIGGER! seems to be about all the exegesis that many instructors are capable of, usually because that's all they got when they were a pup.
To the extent that the dot demystifies what's happening and frees up mental resources usually dedicated to trying to figure out a sight picture that most people shooting handguns will never be comfortable with, it may help people improve performance under stress dramatically. It's too early to say.
My hunch is, however, that once people work with it some a lot of these benefits will begin to manifest.
Someone who doesn't work with it won't see them...but they weren't going to work with irons either, so nothing is lost.
I don't agree that sights aren't necessary at realistic self defense distances. It is entirely possible standing still on a static range with targets that don't move in ideal lighting conditions for someone with some skill to draw a handgun and fire shots that hit an acceptable area of the target at up to 10 yards...sometimes. Especially if they practice this.If backup sites are not necessary at realistic self-defense distances.... then are red dots necessary?
Key word: Practice.
But when I change those conditions all that shit goes out the window real quick.
The scores of Fairbairn/Sykes/Applegate/Bryce/Jordan weebs out there who extol the virtues of a more "natural" system of aiming also, when pinned to the wall by facts, admit you have to train to actually accomplish that feat reliably.
Train, eh?
I often hear citations of Jordan, but nobody likes to talk about the fact that Jordan used to take 50 primed cases, press them into a block of paraffin wax, and make himself 50 wax cartridges that he would then consume practicing his draw to unsighted shot. And that he did this Every. Day.
That's what it took for Bill Jordan to be able to build and maintain that skillset. There's not a goddamn thing "natural" or "instinctive" about that.
...but this is the point where the weebery gets stupid and they start insisting that their list of heroes is the deadliest group of gunfighters in the history of forever because THEIR DAD CAN BEAT UP YOUR DAD! APPEALS TO AUTHORITY!!! MISQUOTING LEGENDARY NAMES!!! LOUD NOISESSSSS!!!!!!!!
As I explained above, plenty of people in the history of fighting with pistols have shot without a sight picture and have achieved exactly bupkiss in the process.
Put me down for requiring some form of verification the gun is aligned on target. In a tangle, that verification can come from the gun anchored at a solid #2 position. At just out of contact distance, seeing the profile of the gun more or less centered up on the high chest of the threat can be sufficient verification. Beyond that you're going to need some form of refined sighting reference that can tell you about slight misalignments that mean the difference between hitting dude in the aorta and not hitting him at all.
So sights are necessary, even at "realistic self defense distance".
Tom Givens has had just shy of 70 of his students involved in gunplay. These people are not running SWAT teams, coming out of Tier 1 units, or winning national titles for action pistol shooting. Their accuracy rate is over 95%. People can be taught this stuff with the right instruction.
Last edited by TCinVA; 06-03-2021 at 10:41 AM.
3/15/2016
@TCinVA... Please never stop posting in here.
Fun facts:
1) Every mechanical device will fail eventually.
2) hits are more consistent when using a sighting reference rather than luck.
Given these two undisputed facts, I find this to be one of the more inane questions I've seen on this forum. George, I know you're all in on the red dot Koolaid, but come on.
I swear to God, dotters are the new vegans or crossfitters.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
I have Dawson BUIS on my carry dot gun that are just barely visible in the bottom of the RMR window but still very usable, but not on my training gun.
Fun fact. Good shooters align the pistol using their developed index, and a combination of what they see with their sights and what they feel in their press to call their shots. That is something very different than point shooting, and very similar to what good iron sight shooters do. To better understand your perspective, how much experience do you have shooting a red dot on a pistol?
How many of your "sighting references" do you see in this picture? I see at least five.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Here's a study - https://blog.krtraining.com/red-dot-study-key-points/
ADVICE
My advice to those considering the investment in a slide mounted red dot sight on their pistol is:
Baseline your current performance level. Use the IDPA classifier or the FBI qualification test as a thorough assessment of what you can do with iron sights. IDPA Expert or 80% on the FBI qualification test are good goals.
Analyze your skills (part 1). If you can get the gun aligned with the target and are missing because of poor trigger control or grip problems, spend your red dot sight money on training or other gun modifications (trigger upgrades, for example), and invest some time in dry practice. Purchase a SIRT pistol, Laserlyte pistol, dry fire mag, or other dry fire training gear. Purchase of a red dot sight will help you aim at longer distances a little better. It will not make your draw faster nor will it fix any other problem with your fundamentals.
Analyze your skills (part 2). If your primary challenge is difficulty getting a sight picture, I would look for opportunities to try a laser and a red dot sighted pistol before spending money. Many (most) of the highest skill level shooters I know and have trained with use a solid black rear and narrow fiber optic front sight, like these from Dawson Precision. A narrow front sight provides more light around the notch, and only having a dot on the front sight, as opposed to dots on front and rear, makes it easier to maintain front sight focus. A cheap way to try this is simply to black out the rear dots on your existing rear sight and replace the front sight. I don’t recommend the fiber optic sights sold at retail stores, as they are all standard width (.125″) and generally not as rugged as the pro-grade sights that can be ordered from online vendors. Get a front sight that is .100-.115 in width. Switching to monovision glasses (dominant eye corrected for front sight length and non-dominant corrected for vision) is another option that can work not only on the range but for everyday wear. All of my glasses are set up for mono vision. That made a big difference in my scores after I turned 50.
If you want to explore the slide mounted red dot sighted pistol, configure your gun with tall backup iron sights, and commit the time in dry and live practice to getting your skill with the red dot pistol up to the level you measured with iron sights (or beyond). Spend time getting the dot sighted in at 15 and 25 yards, and check that zero at 5, 50, and 75 yards, so you understand how the dot and the trajectory of your carry or match load align at those distances. Closer than 15 yards your bullets will strike lower than the dot, similar to holdover with a red dot on an AR rifle.
Evaluate your skills. After you’ve put in the work to learn the dot, retest yourself using the same drills you ran in step 1. If the scores show improvement using the dot, keep using it. If not, either put in more work, try other sighting options (laser, different irons, different glasses) until you find what works best for you.
That was the study I remember and this is the key to that:
“There was not time in the testing to give participants significant training time to learn the red dot or the laser. They were allowed 10 or less dry fire presentations before testing began. Red dot advocates insist that finding the dot on presentation improves with training, and I found that to be true...”
So yeah. Can’t just throw a red dot to a noob and expect greatness.
I think a noob needs irons plus a huge ass dot window to correct for misaligned index and poor shooting habits.
But the question of “does the average shooter need BUIS” versus does @GJM or similarly competent red dot shooter need BUIS is a different question.
Reply With Quote