Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Red Dot Sights On Pistols: Ken Hakathorn

Lots of red dot sights have some kind of instant awake technology, they go into a dormant or "sleep" state after a given amount of time (a few minutes to several hours depending on the brand, some let you program the timer) but the dot instantly appears when you move them. I tried this with a Holosun by turning it on and setting it on a table. After ten minutes the dot disappeared, then the slightest movement, just bumping it with a finger, caused the dot to appear.

A year is 8,760 hours long (365 x 24) and most of the better dot sights these days have battery lives measured in tens of thousands of hours even when the dot is on continuously. Change the battery on New Year's or your birthday and battery life is a non-issue.

One of the things I notice, having lived a long enough life to observe a lot of human nature, is that guys with bizarre sculpted facial hair are worthless attention craving clowns & should be avoided if you value your time.

Hackathorn certainly doesn’t change my mind.

I was disappointed initially with my first dot on a pistol. It took sitting home sick for a of couple days and spending a lot of time on dry fire drills for it to click for me.

Hackathorn summed it up with his comments on spending your whole shooting life conditioned to thinking front sight, front sight. As soon as I realized that a dot was a lot more like traditional archery, and similar to shooting clays with a shotgun. That it requires full focus on the target while letting the hands naturally bring the gun up the dot started to “magically” appear plastered over where I was pointing. As soon as I came to that realization it started to fall into place.

A lot depends on individual eyesight to. I’ve always had an astigmatism but otherwise had excellent eyesight. It’s gradually gone downhill starting in my late 20’s. I’m in my late 40’s now my vision isn’t great anymore. Even with the astigmatism a small dot set to a low setting makes range shooting more fun. A lot of shooters like a larger dot but a large dot blooms too much for me.

Figuring out the dot size that works for your eyes is key just like with irons maybe more so with a dot if you have an astigmatism. I like taller irons with a narrow front post and a wide rear notch for a cleaner sight picture and getting on target faster. I was a lot less particular when I was 20 or 30 years old.
Dots are great on range pistols for plinking. They extend your range by a lot and make quickly plastering a dot over the target and shooting it simple and fun.

Both of my primary carry pistols have dots. A Sig 365 XMacro and a Glock 19X that I had milled for a Trijicon. I’m still not sold on the dots on carry guns being an advantage over good night sights at typical defensive ranges but I don’t see a disadvantage at those ranges either. The biggest pro to me is being able to easily see that dot with my glasses on or off under any conditions albeit with some bloom and being able to focus on the target. The biggest drawback is not being able to look down slide and acquire the dot in the same way that I can with irons. Obviously you shouldn’t be doing that as a practice but it’s reassuring to know that I could if I had to with irons Vs. the possibility of momentarily loosing the dot in an extreme high stress situation.

I’m faster with the dot. There’s a definite learning curve to them but once you learn to present the pistol with that dot sitting on the target ready for you to shoot with everything all in one focal plane it’s cool stuff.

therealhawkeye: 22 minutes and 52 seconds - NO THANKS!
I would only marginally be more interested in what YOU think about red dot sights.
I have kill't Ground Squirrels with my several red dot affixed 22 L.R. semi-auto pistols out to 85 yards! Laser ranged, from a window bag rest, and done so rather often!
I simply could NOT have done that with those semi-auto pistols and their iron sights!
PERIOD!
Red dot sights definitely have a place in certain pistol shooting applications - I could care less what what your linked to video says - and what YOU don't say.
I won't be shooting 85 yards with my various self defense and home defense pistols so they do NOT have red dot sights affixed.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have an itchy on my pee-pee

Hackathorn summed it up with his comments on spending your whole shooting life conditioned to thinking front sight, front sight. As soon as I realized that a dot was a lot more like traditional archery, and similar to shooting clays with a shotgun. That it requires full focus on the target while letting the hands naturally bring the gun up the dot started to “magically” appear plastered over where I was pointing. As soon as I came to that realization it started to fall into place.

I wanted to see what these red dots were all about so I ordered an RMR for my 1911. I wasn't so convinced that I should mill the slide, so I bought an EGW dovetail plate mount that took the place of the rear sight. Yes, I could target shoot that handgun more accurately. Then I got to thinking how I use a handgun and it isn't for hunting or long range shooting. It is a .38 Special for concealed carry and a .22 for a small game finisher, both of which are close range situations. There isn't anything that I can do with a handgun that I couldn't do better with a rifle other than the convenience of carrying something lighter. I haven't found much need for my larger framed handguns other than target shooting. That RMR was a long range solution on a short range platform. To move that red dot to be sitting atop my J-frame looked like just one more thing to get snagged on the way out of concealment and pretty useless for a finisher when the range is in feet instead of yards. No, it didn't work well for me and I'm glad that it found a better home with Travis for his Glock.