Tips for sighting-in Red Dot

[NBPD3682]

I am planning on mounting the STS right on the slide. I have an extra Lone Wolf slide coming for the GL35 and I'm only going to put the channel liner in it. I will simply remove the cover plate and transfer the firing pin assembly, spring loaded bearing, extractor, etc. from my stock slide. This way I can leave the stock slide set up for Production or IDPA and have a dedicated slide for the red dot. There is a mount that is set in the rear sight groove and the STS is mounted to that - it is not too high above the slide.

[NBPD3682]

The STS I bought has a 3.5 MOA dot, I could have bought one with 7.0 MOA but I figured for USPSA in our section the 3.5 would be the size to go with.

[NBPD3682]

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

Please, I'm gonna have to ask you to let me shoot this GL35 with the red dot and the powder puffs to try and keep up with you and 3M (although he did jam his finger...)

[Supermoto]

The STS I bought has a 3.5 MOA dot, I could have bought one with 7.0 MOA but I figured for USPSA in our section the 3.5 would be the size to go with.

You might find it too small. everyone shoots 6-12moa, 3.5 is usually best for rifle

[NBPD3682]

You might find it too small. everyone shoots 6-12moa, 3.5 is usually best for rifle

I was thinking that in our section we don't have a lot of really long shots, except for at Harvard, and I figured a larger dot would take up a bigger part of the "A" zone... We'll see how this works out.

[scottb]

Remember that dot moa size is subtended @ 100 yds. In other words The dot will cover approximately 3.5" of the 6" wide A zone. At 50 yds the A zone will appear twice as big (12") while the dot is still 3.5" so the A zone is covered only approximately 25% (a little more than a quarter of the A zone). At 25 yds the A zone appears twice as big as at 50 yds (24") so the dot will only cover and 1/8th of the A zone, etc. The closer the dot to the target the smaller the dot appears.

The problem with a small dot (less than 6 moa) is seeing it clearly while you're moving or running. If I was standing still I'd go with the smallest dot pratical. Believe it or not, it's pretty easy to 'lose' the dot when your running and gunning. I find my limit is an 8 moa dot. Anything smaller I tend to not see it clearly if I'm shooting on the move or even running from position to position. GTOShootr uses a 6, 38SuperMatt uses a 12, and I believe Supermoto uses a 8 so it goes to show that one size doesn't fit all but you'll notice that 6 moa is the smallest you'll see generally at USPSA matches. Obviously you'll need to experiment. My belief is you need to do it under match conditions to get valid results. The practice range is OK to evaluate equipment if you can recreate all the stress of a match. That's not all that easy to do actually.

[NBPD3682]

Thanks, Scott... I'm built for stealth, not speed :) so I don't think that the running and gunning issue will be a major factor. I suppose the smaller MOA dot will be good to engage smaller targets at longer distances (i.e., poppers on a larger pit like at Harvard). I just received the Lone Wolf slide I'm going to mount it to and I'm planning on going out on 11/11 to shoot it for the first time. The directions recommend starting at 10' to make sure you are on paper and then set the target out to the farthest distance you intend to shoot and sight it in for there... I'm going to follow Supermoto's advice and sight-in at 50' and then take note of where the hits are at closer and longer ranges. I'll try it out at Bass River in December, maybe in Dorchester in November and see how things work out.

[NBPD3682]

Got a chance to shoot this rig for the first time today - not bad, but I broke both sides of the sight adjustment tool that came with it - just snapped off. I'll have to use a little screwdriver from an eyeglass repair kit now.