Red dot VS. Iron sights on your carry firearm

This. I have co witnessed irons as well and practice shooting the same gun both with the red dot on and with it off using the irons through the red dot glass. Best of both worlds and keeps you sharp no matter what the pistol you pick up has on it.

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I shot iron sights on handguns for 40+ years. When the red dot sights came out, I thought ā€œNo wayā€. what if it doesnā€™t work, what if the lens breaks, overheard at the range ā€œI canā€™t easily locate the red dot down rangeā€.

Well, after a ton of research and the maturity of red dots, co-witness suppressor height sights, military ruggedized, and more holster options, Iā€™m in.

It truly has changed my shooting. Iā€™m getting older and my eyesight isnā€™t as good as it used to be, but it is now with the red dot.

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Gotta love clint smith!

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I want to like red dot sights (carrying a Hellcat with a Sig red dot right now). However, itā€™s something else thatā€™s fragile and can fail or get damaged. Canā€™t pack it at work. Dirt/ dust gets into the sight.

Iā€™ve found red dot sights without auto brightness to be somewhat impractical and annoying.

Tritium iron sights seem to be the best option for me 90% of the time. Very durable. Very reliable. Very accurate. They work in bright and dim environments alike.

My opinion is a person should learn iron sights first. Iā€™ve found new shooters to have problems finding the dot in reflex sights. An emergency is the wrong time for an inexperienced shooter to be hunting the window for the dot. Iron sights are easy to understand and align. Red dot sights are very intuitive once people find the dot. Regardless, the sighting system is irrelevant. Practice until you can draw and when the gun comes up on target, whatever system youā€™ve chosen is aligned with the target without making significant correction.

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Weak, ageing eyes definitely need more than iron sights. Iā€™m 85 and can maintain a 6" ring with red dot. Without it Iā€™m lucky to get all on the paper. Properly sighted in I know where ever the red dot is, the bullet will be, assuming good trigger control.

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I shopped for a micro-sized 9MM yesterday with a red dot sight. I thought it would be easier on my old eyes. It wasnā€™t. I am so used to my EDC sights now that I can bring it on target much faster than ā€œfindingā€ the dot when I need it. On a rifle, the red dot is really useful, but on my EDC pistol, I reckon Iā€™ll stay with what I have already practiced with for years.

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Iā€™m lucky to hit a silouette target with iron sights at 10 yards. I bought a red dot and it helps me at least hit the target.

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One thing I learned yesterday is the importance of the grip and how it changes things. I was going through ā– ā– ā– ā–  and found my CZ backstraps, so I decided to experiment and put the bigger one on. I changed everything immediately. Draw stroke seems better, definitely a better grip, and Iā€™m getting a more consistent and faster sight picture off the draw. While itā€™s not in-line with the optic or irons topic, it has an affect on accuracy and speed of sight picture.

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Thunder Ranch has a two-day class coming to Vegas in February. Iā€™m really trying to go to that one.

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My carry firearm is iron only and I will likely keep iron only. For my use I find the red dot to be too bulky, especially on a p938, and I find using iron sites is much faster for me than finding a red dot.

I do have a Sig Romeo5 on my AR and love it. Just not my EDC.

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Pilotone440
I prefer Night Sights on all my pistols.
Reason being, after flying airplanes for 50 years. the consensus among pilots is:
ā€œif it has a wire running to it , it will eventually fail you.ā€
Relying on an electronic dot to hit your mark could be trouble if the battery or the connection becomes inop for any reason in that life or death nano second, it could kill you

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When I look at a target all I want to see is the post and the target and I dont have time to look for a red dot, focus and loof for the target.

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This may be beyond the scope of this discussion, but I really like ArmaLaserā€™s TR series (instant-on) lasers, and 5 out of the 7 pistols that I routinely carry have them (as does my backup in my backpack). The other two have Crimson Trace red dots. It took me a while to get used to the red dots, but now I am becoming proficient with them. And, they co-witness should they malfunction. As an aside, one thing training with the red dot has done is to help me with presenting the pistol from compressed ready. Picking up the red dot during presentation has helped prevent ā€œarcingā€ the weapon. Now, I just push straight out and pick up the red dot along the way. I know a lot of people do not like lasers, but I am really proficient with them and in a stressful situation, you donā€™t really have to ā€œaim,ā€ just find the green dot. Just my $0.02 worthā€¦

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I bought a red dot for my carry but discovered astigmatism is a known problem. I went back to iron sight. Happy with the simplicity and accuracy.

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Sort of off topic a bit, but I got one of those micro 3x magnifiers for my Vortex AR red dot and it took away the astigmatism effect. My astigmatism is not terrible so I still can shoot red dot pistols no problem, but it got me thinking.

If a magnifier gets rid of the astigmatism cloud, would it be possible to have a very slightly magnified red dot on a pistol for people with astigmatism? Iā€™m talking like 1.25x or something just to get that effect. It also could be the eye relief thoughā€¦ the eye relief on the micro 3x is like 2.75" or something, normal pistol red dot is about 24" for me.

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Iā€™ve always wondered about those magnifiers. I might just have to try one out.

Stay safe.

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Admittedly Iā€™m a little late to this discussion but hereā€™s my 2Ā¢: whatever you can shoot most accurately and most quickly is always preferable.

Since most of us developed our shooting skills in the iron age, pistol optics take some - okay
a LOT of - getting used to, but shouldnā€™t be dismissed simply because it takes time to learn a new skill.

Iā€™ve been using pistol optics for a couple years and invested much time in dry fire to develop new habits, including raising the pistol in front of my dominate eye (left eyed/right handed), keeping both eyes open and putting the dot on my target.

I probably wouldnā€™t have made the switch but Iā€™m now in my early 70s and my eyesight isnā€™t as good as it was in fourth grade when I first started wearing glasses.

So whatever works best, go for it. But donā€™t expect to make the transition to optics overnight.

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Dots.

  1. I agree that up close and personal distances may not be sighted. But every round had to go somewhere. And somewhere other then the deserved will be a big problem.
  2. Go to the range. Figure out your maximum range to reliably hit a man-sized target in under 1.5 sec from the draw. Now go back a couple days later and see if you can shoot at that distance first shot. (There are no warm-ups in a DCI.) Now apply a rule of thumb postulated by a SWAT-trainer: ā€œunder stress you will only be as good as 70% of your BEST day on the range.ā€ (BTW, every round must go somewhere.) Why do police who can pass a standardized qualification have only a 20-30% hit rate? Suddenly, you might find that your ā€˜reliable hit distanceā€™ (above multiplied by 0.7ā€“if youā€™re lucky) might not be as far as you thought and to have the required accuracy requires a dot. (Did I mention every round must go somewhere?)
  3. Dash cam vids show the human reaction to DF is threat-focused. So Iā€™m not going to fight nature. Try some (supervised) force-on-force training and gauge whether /you/ see the sights.
  4. Learning (pistol) dots takes practice. Supervised practice can help shorten the curve but ultimately you have to ā€˜grooveā€™ your draw. If you use iron sight techniques with a dot, you are likely to be unhappy. One teaching point: press the gun straight out, donā€™t bring the gun up (as works with irons).
  5. Aging or surgically (cataract) corrected eyes struggle with close focus. Donā€™t fight nature when you get there, youngā€™ins .
  6. I agree with knowing well iron sights. Be able to fight regardless of the platform or condition or the tool. But I believe in dots.
    Get training, continue to reinforce training through ā€˜dryā€™ practice, ā€˜pressure testā€™ your skills though competition, f-o-f training, shooting standardized (FBI, your stateā€™s LE Qual) or other methods to make sure you can prevail under adverse conditions.
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Welcome to the family brother @Richard581 and God bless you.

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