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Red dot on a carry pistol - worth it to mill a slide or nah?

PappyM3 said:
Very worthwhile consideration. This was not an exhaustive study and only included 24 test subjects, but the Sage Dynamics paper has other testing for hits/hit zone percentages from other studies too. Look to the bottom of the quote below for information on participants.


This particular force on force study, pardon the copy/paste reading:

…
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That’s a great study. Certainly not perfect and has a limited sample size, but the advantages are readily apparent.
 
M1911 said:
You will see wobble with your red dot. You get used to it in the same way you get used to using iron sites at various distances. At 5 yards, you know you don’t need an perfect iron site picture to hit the target — a flash of the front site on the center of the target and you are good. For head shots at 50’, you know you have to settle the sights and focus hard on the front sight.

Dealing with wobble of a red dot is the same sort of thing. At 5 yards if the dot is anywhere near the middle of the target you just hammer the trigger. For harder shots, you have to settle the dot more.

As for shooting at 40 yards, I can’t shoot fast at that distance whether with a dot or back when I could see iron sites. A good trigger helps and my Glock 43x certainly doesn’t have what I would call a good trigger.
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I get it, I really do. Maybe my oldness is coming out and just don't want to change. It's hard enough for me now that I'm not shooting every day and watching my skillset deteriorate. Moving to a red dot would be a learning curve on top of just getting worse every passing day.
 
Not at all a tactical guy, not really a great shot either, do have the Holosun on my 365, as well as most of the other stuff in the safe. even my gorgeous wood and blue 30/30 has a Fastfire 3 on it( oh the sacrilege, right?)It's just a huge advantage, especially to us folks that have some miles on the clock.
Been shooting dot sights for quite some time in the action sports, and I can tell you this...with a little (OK..maybe a lot) of dry fire there's no hunting for, waiting to acquire, or confirming the dot. You look at something and the dot is just there. Good bit faster than irons, pretty darn close if not equal to point shooting. Same thing shooting the gun. You practice enough you get the sensation you're knocking down the steel and poking little holes in the paper with your eyes.
Some guys do seem to not be able to get the hang of it though.
 
weekendracer said:
I get it, I really do. Maybe my oldness is coming out and just don't want to change. It's hard enough for me now that I'm not shooting every day and watching my skillset deteriorate. Moving to a red dot would be a learning curve on top of just getting worse every passing day.
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Getting old sucks, but it beats the alternative.
 
Broccoli Iglesias said:
This.

This stage on steel challenge is the fastest stage, no one looks at their sights. The 4 rectangle targets are about a torso size.

When you are that close, you draw and shoot. If you can't do it, you are not practicing enough.

I have shoot that stage in 2.7 seconds with a revolver and never aimed except for the stop plate.

A red dot is nice to have it, but I would train to not rely on it.

View attachment 661581
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Thats not true, good shooters will still use their sights. It literally doesn't take any longer to use use sights than it does not to use them
 
Supermoto said:
Thats not true, good shooters will still use their sights. It literally doesn't take any longer to use use sights than it does not to use them
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Some might, some won't. What I hear from everyone is that most don't see the sight on the first and sometimes second shot. By the time they get to the third they are using it and of course the stop plate.
 
PappyM3 said:
It’s the one non-solar Holosun I have. But it was pretty much the only option for the narrower red dots for subcompact pistols at the time.

For the 22/45, it was from http://www.maddmacsprecisiontactical.com/trijicon-rmrreg.html

However, it’s not low enough to co-witness factory Ruger irons. Maybe taller irons would work? I just wanted a lower height over bore than the picatinny allowed. That 22/45 will never need to be used in lethal defense.
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there are those - but i did not see yet how low the RDS can get, the plate you have seems to be low enough to try it out - with a stock rear sight kept in place, i do not want to swap that out.
dawsonprecision.com

Dawson Precision Ruger 22-45 Fiber Optic Front Sights

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Quite_Exasperated said:
Just one more thing to snag as the gun leaves holster. I assume daily carry you’ve got a snug IWB or OWB on the strong side under some layer of clothing and are not carrying Han Solo style..
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Excusefactory.com 🤣

If I could carry s***** 1911's with all that crap hanging off the ass end of the gun and not have it hang up then an RDS with rounded corners is easy..... you act like there's like a sharp hook on the hood of the RDS or something.... 🤣

"I don't like it" it is more valid an excuse btw. My advice would be to just stick with that one. Or "i don't want to deal with costs, batteries mounting and all that other nonsense".
 
Supermoto said:
Thats not true, good shooters will still use their sights. It literally doesn't take any longer to use use sights than it does not to use them
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The concept is 'Sight alignment by feel'. To prove the point, we had guns with no sights on them. Even the 'kids' would hit center mass at reasonable distances. One guy, better than me, could ping steel at crazy distances. But he worked on it, it was his schtick to impress.
 
Broccoli Iglesias said:
Some might, some won't. What I hear from everyone is that most don't see the sight on the first and sometimes second shot. By the time they get to the third they are using it and of course the stop plate.
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top shooters are using their sights on all shots, they are just doing it quicker than people that think they aren't need. Once again, it doesn't cost any time to use your sights.
 
weekendracer said:
The concept is 'Sight alignment by feel'. To prove the point, we had guns with no sights on them. Even the 'kids' would hit center mass at reasonable distances. One guy, better than me, could ping steel at crazy distances. But he worked on it, it was his schtick to impress.
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I can call and make 25 yard head shots withouts sights, but I still use them when shooting close and fast....because there is no downside for doing so
 
paul73 said:
you are getting to what i dislike the most. a distraction. with irons when it is critical - you draw and plant a shot. with a dot - you draw and then cannot stop but think, hmm, where is my dot there? ohh, here it is. ok. bang.
for most with a well practiced draw it means that your off shot with irons could have been 5-7 inches lower/higher before you adjusted it, but usually with not that much of the horizontal off. matters not on a human sized target at 15yds. with a dot - it may end up to be a no shot, as you will be thinking of where did the dot go. and, well, may be already dead by that time.

i never argue with facts - and it is a fact that once you got on a dot - the next target acquisition speed is much faster, it is way more accurate, all the good things.
if you carry for a duty, gun is always warm and clean - and check the status of the device religiously - why not.

but if one carries sporadically, gun sits in the dark safe with dot left 'always on' always - it is not going to end well, it is only logic. it will eventually either discharge mid-day, or will be forgotten to be turned off/on. but i think no matter what i say here the other side is on the stubborn mode now, so, to each their own.
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How many RDS equipped pistols have you used?
 
weekendracer said:
The concept is 'Sight alignment by feel'. To prove the point, we had guns with no sights on them. Even the 'kids' would hit center mass at reasonable distances. One guy, better than me, could ping steel at crazy distances. But he worked on it, it was his schtick to impress.
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I would put it slightly differently. Part of it is certainly the feel of your body. But you can also consciously or unconsciously use the gun itself as a sight. If the gun is below eye level, the the slide should look like a symmetric parallelogram. If the gun is at eye level, then rear of the slide looks square and if you see any of the side of slide it is symmetrical on both sides.
 
M1911 said:
I would put it slightly differently. Part of it is certainly the feel of your body. But you can also consciously or unconsciously use the gun itself as a sight. If the gun is below eye level, the the slide should look like a symmetric parallelogram. If the gun is at eye level, then rear of the slide looks square and if you see any of the side of slide it is symmetrical on both sides.
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Hey buddy, they probably paid a couple million dollars for the research that come up with that term. We used it :p
 
PappyM3 said:
I think 407k. 6 MOA dot. It’s the biggest dot I’ve used, but it works for a concealed carry gun.

Their new EPS Carry (only the Carry variant) has a built in iron sight too. It’s like a scaled down 509t. But I have no experience with the EPS.

Note that the milling should to be a specific height for the built in rear to be functional, or close to that height. I didn’t know if mine would, but I confirmed by lining up my irons and the dot is bisected by the front post. Good for me! My P365 milling was the lowest you can go with a 365.
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I have the P365x so I'm hoping for something that uses stock footprint with no plate needed. I have think holosun will work. I bought my Kusiak holster cut for a red dot just in case I get the itch...
 
Soundwave said:
I have the P365x so I'm hoping for something that uses stock footprint with no plate needed. I have think holosun will work. I bought my Kusiak holster cut for a red dot just in case I get the itch...
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I believe the P365 uses the Shield RMS footprint, so there are a number of options, including some from Holosun.
 
Soundwave said:
I have the P365x so I'm hoping for something that uses stock footprint with no plate needed. I have think holosun will work. I bought my Kusiak holster cut for a red dot just in case I get the itch...
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I got mine milled by Nameless Armament and they claim to mill it down to the same level as the factory 365xl (same as the x?). And I believe the 365x allows direct mounting of the 407k/507k. So it should be exactly like mine.

Edit: as mentioned the P365X/XL use a mounting pattern for a Romeo 0/Shield RMSc. However, Sig doesn’t use the full height of the front indexing pins and doesn’t use the rear indexing pins at all… which actually makes it a direct fit for the 407k/507k. I just had to look that up.
 
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PappyM3 said:
Steady aim is just one factor. Trigger squeeze another. But then you have sight picture, and inconsistent sight picture of pistol iron sights at distance can be a HUGE factor in poor accuracy. And those factors are additive.

Also, here are some data aggregated gathered from force on force training. It doesn’t lie. Red dot hits are more likely to be incapacitating shots. I cropped out the rear view because neither had hits there and I couldn’t frame it on my screen well.
View attachment 661687
View attachment 661688
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These charts brought to you by the RDS manufacturers association… [rofl]
 
Quite_Exasperated said:
These charts brought to you by the RDS manufacturers association… [rofl]
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Nah. Brought to you by Aaron Cowan. Watch some of his videos. He seems to be on the spectrum, but he does some extensive testing and abuse of red dots, like cycling the slide by smashing the red dot agains a post.
 

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