I work as an administrator at a high school at a Guardian Campus, which means that I along with several others CC every day. This poses a long list of problems and topics I could go into but this aiming issue is my concern right now. Initially I carried a p365 but I have decided it’s the wrong tool. If there is an event it will probably won’t be like a self defense situation in public. The distance will be further and I will be in need of a bigger clip with more rounds. So I got a Glock 19 Gen 5. Now I have to address the issue of being right handed and left eyed dominant. After talking with guys with a lot more experience than I have I have put an optic on and have started to train with both eyes open. So what are your thoughts here ?
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Learn to train NPOA/NPOI so you won’t rely on a dominant eye trying to line up the sights.
Adding an MRDS will make aquiring your target quick just keep in mind that if the battery dies/optic were to break, you will be used to shooting with both eyes open on target.
Hth
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I don’t know what NPOA/NPOI is.
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Sorry,
Natural Point of Aim/Natural Point of Impact.
It is learning to draw from the holster and putting your rounds on target without using your sights.
Hth
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Thanks.
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Greetings & welcome to the community, Ed179! We’re thankful that you’ve chosen to join us.
I agree with Karacal and second the recommendations offered. It’s important that you train both with and without your optic, both eyes open.
As for the P365 vs the Glock 19, or more specifically the magazine size, I’d suggest using whichever is a better fit for you, the one that you’re more accurate with. As you’ll be in a school where there’s a 100% chance of innocents in very close proximity, it’s far more important that your shots are on target rather than how many you can fire before you do a magazine swap or are empty.
Good luck to you, my friend and, again, welcome!
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Have you trained here yet? If not, I highly recommend it.
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I’m not a great communicator. Let me try and be more clear. I moved to the Glock because I thought I could be more accurate with a little bigger gun. The move to increase rounds is because my role could very well become an offensive action and I so i thought I should be ready for that.
Who would have ever thought we would get to a place like this in our schools.
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Thanks for the info.
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I am left handed and right eye dominant and have never had issues using iron sights. Though I started out pretty much from day one shooting with both eyes open. My head and arms just naturally shift the very little bit needed to get the sights lined up with my dominant eye.
I have recently started trying out a red dot sight on one of my pistols. Works the same as iron sights for me with both eyes open. It is even more important with a red dot to work on automatically lining up your pistol on target as @Karacal suggests. It can be a lot harder to find the red dot than iron sights if you can’t get the pistol naturally on target as you extend.
Mike Ox has some excellent training and drills working with thin bungy chords and lasers that can really help get your pistol on target as soon as it leaves the holster. And keep it there until you finish extending. He also has some red dot specific training that I haven’t tried yet but would bet is worthwhile.
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If you are in an admin position/location, I suspect you could have to protect more than a few students. ARe you sure that a pistol is the right tool at all? Maybe something to augment which only you would have access to?
I agree about longer barrel, more rounds, heavier to stay on target, so long as you can comfortably carry it all day every day and shoot it with precision. A tiny CC pistol might be a good backup, but not primary firearm.
How about pepper spray also?
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I am a righty with a dominant left eye as well. I have spend 55 years closing my left eye, learned while shooting rifles and shotguns. With iron sites on handguns I kept with the same method for constancy. But am now using red dots on pistols and find that with practice I can now keep both eyes open. Occasionally I can’t pick up the not immediately but a quick wink of that rascal lefty I’m on target and good to go.
I recommend a lot of dry fire reps of your draw stroke to get it mastered. Hang in there.
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And some self defense focused martial arts training like Krav Maga or Damian Ross’s Self Defense Company techniques. A firearm isn’t always the best tool especially in tight spaces or in a crowd of innocent kids. Plus there are many incidents that may not require deadly force. It is good to have options.
And most importantly in a school full of kids you need to be able to retain your own firearm if you get in a struggle with a student or group of students. Active shooter events are very. Having to get in the middle of an old school scuffle to separate the kids is a much more likely event.
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Your point is definitely true. In the majority of these kinds of events, the aggressor usually has a long gun, putting us at a big disadvantage using pistols. There is so much open space. I am told the guy who developed the Guardian Program thought that pistols should be used to get to long guns in a gun safe. I don’t have the answers to these things, I’m just trying to keep up.
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I have mentioned this in other threads, but will repeat here. Moving from years of iron sights to dot optics requires some retraining.
- First, do a LOT of dry fire to practice bringing the optic up with the dot in the window. One of my instructors says it can take thousands of events to really lock in. There are a number of YouTube videos with help on that presentation practice. I recommend ones by Brian Hill, found on Active Self Protection Extra channel or app.
- To link your past experience with iron sights, keep in mind that now the target is your front sight: focus there. The dot is your back sight; expect it to be fuzzy.
- If the dot is anywhere in the window and on target, you are aimed. It is a waste of time to try to center the dot in the window.
- If you have back up iron sights (BUIS) on your gun, do not try to use them to assist in aligning the dot. That wastes time by shifting your focus back and forth from target to front sight to to target. They are there only if your dot fails and you need to go back to your well learned sighting steps.
Also a couple of other thoughts: If you have the chance, test both red and green dots in a variety of light conditions. There are situations where a red dot is hard to see but a gree one stands out. Trade-off is green dot sights tend to be a bit more expensive, and also have shorter battery life.
BUIS make sense on large enough pistols like the 19. You may need to replace the stock sights with suppressor-hight sights to see them through the window. There may not work on micros like the 365.
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Thanks
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You gotta trust your brain, dont 2nd guess.
I was in the opposite situation. I smashed my hand in the military and had to learn lefty while right eye dominant.
Had a really good range coach. The mental part is hard to overcome
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Thank you for your service
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First being a Highschool Guardian makes you a Straight Up Bad A$$ in my eyes, So thank you for being willing to step up. I have sight problems but it’s a bit different than your (If the site is clear the target is blurry, if the target is clear the site is blurry) So for me, it’s practice. Instead of trying to get good at both I choose to practice where I can clearly see the target and understand how to locate and align a blurry dot. Practice Practice Practice until you don’t have to think about sight alignment etc., remember, in the fog of war you don’t really get to think about much but act/react.
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