Tips for sighting-in Red Dot

[NBPD3682]

Hello,

I am planning on putting a C-More Small Tactical Sight on a Glock 35 for use in USPSA Open division shooting. Any suggestions on what distance I should use to adjust the red dot for use in a typical Level I USPSA club match? Any other red dot tips or comments for a first-time user?

Thanks.

[38supermatt]

my pistols are sighted in for 15 yards
At the clubs in this section, with the exception of Harvard, we typically don't see targets out at beyond 25 yards, so 15 is a nice balance.
the only other tip I'd have is, if you sight in that close, know where you need to hold to hit the A zone on targets out at 25-30 yards, and remember that.

[ipscdrl]

Hello,
Any other red dot tips or comments for a first-time user?

Thanks.

Three.

Practice.
Practice.
Practice.

You need to be able to draw and mount the pistol with your eyes closed and then see the dot when you open them, without moving the pistol. Not easy to do at first but dry fire practice at home will help tremendously.

Welcome to the dark side. (we have cookies!)

[scottb]

Try to get some sandbags or a good solid shooting rest when you sight-in. I try to move the pistol very little so I can stabilize the dot better. Your groups will be much better so your sight-in will be more valid. I like to use a diamond shaped target and place the bottom point at the top of the dot. Bring many as I find a clean target easier to sight in on. I sight in a little longer than Matt because I like to know exactly where I will hit at 50 yards but I don't discount anything Matt said - he wins a lot of USPSA matches. I just like to be prepared for the rare long shot.

[NBPD3682]

Thanks people for the tips... I appreciate it.

[Jose]

You need to be able to draw and mount the pistol with your eyes closed and then see the dot when you open them, without moving the pistol.

No advice to offer, but just a personal observation that shooting an open gun with optics (redundancy alert?) for the first time is an exercise in weirdness and that it will take some work to get used to it.

[Supermoto]

They guys above are talking about a standard C-more not the STS,

I used the STS on my open gun, I sight in for 50' and am 1" low at 10' but stay inside the dot out to 40 yards. Are you going to slide mount or frame mount? There is a lot less offset with the STS compare to the standard C-more so you will not have to worry about holdover

make sure you can index the dot in any position, nothing cost more time then the open gun wiggle. so its not just the draw, but also strong hand, weak hand, around barricades etc

also, don't follow the dot, focus on the target, snap your eyes to the next target, then see the dot

[GTOShootr]

You have to remember that you're shooting a 7moa dot sitting on your slide, where Matt and Scott have varying sized dots frame mounted. The offset is different, and in Matt's case with his 12moa rising-sun of a dot is way different. You'll have to experiment.

Instead of thinking in terms of the average distances of the targets you are likely encountering and your dot as a point in space, look at the dot as a cone extending out from your gun, in your case to 7" at 100yards, 3.5" at 50. Seeing it like that you want to pick a zero that keeps the point of impact closest to the center of the dot through the greatest range of target distances. For my gun 25 and 50 yard zeros do that much better than a 15 or 20.

It seems complicated but playing with that it itself is good practice and will pay off over the long run, especially with Harvard in our area.

[Lugnut]

Ah man I can't believe you are doing it! I feel the pressure.

Anyway this calculator may help you while trying to get an idea as to the POI with different ranges that you sight in your gun. If you know the "dot" height you should be able to use this.

http://www.handloads.com/calc/

EDIT: I Just thought of a question that is almost too embarassing to ask... but I will anyway. With an iron sight gun the sight height/and the view from the rear to front sight gives you an imaginary line to the POA. With a dot... you don't have this. So how does the "dot" know that your muzzle isn't tilted slight up or down or whatever?

[Supermoto]

http://www.bullseyepistol.com/dotsight.htm

you still have 2 fixed points, the diode and the lens (the dot is only 2 dimensional,so you can not look at the sides of it) either can be moved to adjust the location of the dot, The mirror is curve to adjust for parallax. Round lens allow for better parallax correction than do the rectangle lens of the Jpoint Dr or STS, when you get to the edges of these sights, the parallax can become a big issue