Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What is your objection to red dot sights?

Mackay, what make/model is that one?

2x Leupold pistol scope.

That's not an issue.

Are you asking about the red dot or the Holster?


The Red dot is a Trjicon RMR on a Glock 17 9mm.

The holster is a Milt Sparks Optics Ready holster. Super comfortable, straight drop. Conceals nice. I use the holster both for guns that have an optic on the slide and ones that don't. I just really like how comfortable the holster is.

It was the holster I was curious about - Thanks!

I remember these same arguments when red dots were being considered for rifles. All the older crowd were piping the same old lines:

Fundamentals!

People will get killed when the batteries suddenly die!

You gotta learn iron sights first!

Red dots are worthless and never as good.

Iron sights have worked for hundreds of years!

TWO WORLD WARS!

Ad Nauseum.




The Aimpoint PRO has a battery life that allows it to stay constantly on for over THREE YEARS without needing to replace.

As it ended up, people didn't get killed.

The grumbling old timers were just plain wrong and eventually either retired or had to take their issued rifles with the new RDOs and go qualify.



One such old guy who stopped learning decades earlier kept a state agency stuck in the 1980s for the longest time. He hated any sort of technology. Hated ARs, Hated Glocks. Hated Red dots. Shortly after he retired we sent out a notice and the rest of us who were firearms instructors scheduled a gathering and brought the agency into the new century. Got rid of the Mini 14s and 1980s handguns and replaced them with select fire Colt M4s and Glock .45 autos. Now they have Aimpoints and Surefire flashlights. Welcome to the current century.

Get used to red dots as a modern aiming device.

You can continue to learn and improve yourself or you can stay stuck in the "Back in my day" nonsense.

DJ Shipley has a video somewhere on YouTube where he's training somebody to shoot with masking tape over the red dot optic. It's not just simulating a dead battery, it's simulating not being able to even see the front sight through the glass.

He aims with the back plate and correct positioning of the pistol.

Interesting to watch.

Would be interested in seeing that. I’ve seen and done occluded shooting where the front side is covered to teach target focus instead of dot focus.

But I’ve heard of folks taping over the front sight to teach point shooting I guess but that has limited range.

Been practicing that for years, before RDS on pistols were ever a thing. Even iron sights can fail.

Beat me to it.

A very large part of this going to be based on the individual and their level of training and commitment to do so.

Being proficient in presenting a weapon takes thousands of repetitions. When you have done it literally tens of thousands of times, as some competitors have it becomes a matter of unconscious competence. In other words, a person does not have to think about it they can simply perform the act.

Much like an individual who has been driving a stick shift for a few decades does not think about what it takes to run a stick and clutch while shifting and going through the gears and maybe negotiating an obstacle, an experienced shooter does not think about a weapons presentation.

Red dot optics for a person who has put in 10s of thousands of reps are exactly the same. If the RDO is taped up like above, based on the previous thousands of reps, the weapons presentation is still going to be the same. You can present the weapon and perform the same trigger press and you are going to get a hit on a reasonably sized target within a reasonable range.

It is not "instinctive shooting", it is merely muscle memory built in through untold thousands of reps.

Guys who complain about bringing an RDO up and not being able to find a dot, have simply not put in the time and effort to learn a new skill set. Learning iron sight shooting is no different. Nobody instantly was a Grandmaster class shooter the second the fired their first shot with a handgun.

The comments in this thread about inability are indicative of lack of training and ability and unwillingness to learn, Not of any mechanical shortcoming of the equipment.


I was talking with Rob Leatham one day when he was visiting a mutual friend John Shaw. We were going to dinner. Leatham is a professional shooter for Springfield armory and a very accomplished shooter. John Shaw used to compete on the national and world level as well. Long story short, we were talking about the topic of older eyes and shooting. Leatham had said that (paraphrasing, and this is a number of years back) you don't need to get a perfect sight picture as long as you have a great draw/solid grip and excellent trigger control.

I replaced the Trijicon RMR dual illuminated on my G17 Gen 5 MOS with a Leupold Delta Point Pro. The back up iron sites that cowitnessed thru the RMR aren't tall enough with the DPP. The sight are exactly as high as the base on ther DPP. So they won't cowitness thru the window on the DPP like they would the RMR.



When I shoot the pistol using the red dot on the DPP, the dot on the front sight is visible in the lower 1/4 of the window. That dot, and the two dots on the rear sight form and inverted V, a /\. I've gotten to where if I turn the red dot off, I can still shoot accurately because I know where the red dot would have been in relation to the dot on the front sight that I can see thru the lens. I just form that /\ with the sights, make sure the front sight is in the lower 1/4 of the window, and put the target in the center of the window. Been doing it for sometime now and it works very well. Sounds complicated, but its really easy to master. I'm pretty happy about that. I didn't want to replace the sights with extra tall sights just so they would cowitness. I don't think it would work with lower sights, because the front sight would not be visibile in the window at all taking away that reference point I use with these sights and the red dot off.

Which Holosun sight is that?

Especially when the person theorizing never practices their draw and doesn't own a timer.

I would like to piggy back off this:

Learning to use a dot has done more to correct my grip and presentation than anything I've ever used in the past. I still have to use irons on certain guns and since acclimating to the dot, I shoot everything better than before.

I took some training about a year ago and the instructor used a pistol with no sights on the slide to demonstrate how critical grip, presentation, and trigger work was to handgunning. He could shoot just as well all the way back to the 20 and demonstrated this at the start of the class.

I also liked your use of the word occlude.

HS507K X2 - the newer 'micro' size that came out in the last year or so.

Red dots are awesome, but they're harder to track under recoil imo.

As far as co witnessing iron sights with a RMR, is it better to get the higher iron sights or a raised mount for the RMR?

I have a slide milled for RMRCC so it sits low and the read sight is in front on the RMR

I need the RMR because irons do me no good without glasses and I don’t wear contacts.
It works for me