lasers/other lights on your weapons..

[forrestinmathews]

So I recently had occasion to shoot a night match with independent navigation and movement through stages. Anything went as far as sights and lights on handguns.
Here's what I learned from participation and observation:
• The urge to shoot at a strobe light shined in my eyes is real. A cop's kid thought he'd be cute and strobe everyone on a bay as they walked by. Naturally everyone thought it was a gun pointed at them and nobody bought his excuse of not knowing better and even dad sounded stupid trying to defend it. I digress, but you get the point the light draws attention.
• Gun smoke makes lights less effective at longer distances beyond fifteen to twenty feet. The higher the lumens, the bigger the problem. Think high beams in fog.
• Lasers are excellent even in smoke; advantage was seen in all shooter levels.
• Additional lights moving all over the place are very disorienting to the point of disrupting equilibrium and causing stumbles. You have no control over them and they affect your night vision and perception of the horizon.

My takeaway was that the light, laser, and night sight combination was best, but if I could have only one on the gun it would be the laser. Being able to effectively fire off of the traditional focal plane is a huge advantage.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

Did anyone use weapons with ported barrels or compensators? Muzzle flash at night can be surprisingly bright and a distraction. Shooting a revolver in the dark is exciting with fire coming out of everywhere. A ported barrel would seem to make the muzzle flash even worse by sending it vertically in front of your face. Your description of smoke and lights is interesting.

 

[L-2]

Practice and train for whichever perceived threat as best as one can. With the OP's analysis, it is prudent to start with the statistically close encounter.

Later, whether a day later or years later, consider getting whatever lower-light training which may include night-sights and/or weapon mounted lights. Now you'll have a choice (with an educated investment in more hardware) and have the knowledge to make a much better-informed choice.

The OP seems to be constrained by not wanting to buy a different gun. That's fine with me and I don't recommend getting rid of a handgun a person is already very comfortable with handling. If a person can't afford or doesn't want to try a gun with a light rail, with further expenditures in night sights and lights (I've got zero experience with lasers and they weren't authorized where I worked) that's a personal choice which easily can end up in the $1,000 range. It's not up to me to tell someone how to spend his/her money and this is just for the hardware; not any training to benefit the hardware.

What exactly was/were the question(s)?
Are night sights necessary? The can't hurt, but I haven't put them on all 15 handguns I own but do have a few which have night sights should I need them.
Is a weapon light necessary? That will also depend on one's training & experience along with the liklihood of being in darkness. I've got ~5 weapon-mounted-lights (WMLs) leftover from being a cop and my training involves also carrying a handheld light. The handheld light is the bare minimum and this training predates the WMLs.

"Blues7" seems to have the most experience using lighting and has the best advice. I say, at least, get one or two good handheld flashlights. I like the Streamlight and Surefire brands, but there are others. Later, consider night sights and a WML (again I've only got Streamlight and Surefire, but there are others; the two brands I own were the only brands OK'd for where I worked).

I admit, I don't change over to a WML'd handgun just to go out at night. I do have a flashlight on me even during the day.

 

[Realrez]

I have a light on my sig house gun and looking to get a CT combo for my sheild 45 EDC.

 

[zogger]

So I recently had occasion to shoot a night match with independent navigation and movement through stages. Anything went as far as sights and lights on handguns.
Here's what I learned from participation and observation:
• The urge to shoot at a strobe light shined in my eyes is real. A cop's kid thought he'd be cute and strobe everyone on a bay as they walked by. Naturally everyone thought it was a gun pointed at them and nobody bought his excuse of not knowing better and even dad sounded stupid trying to defend it. I digress, but you get the point the light draws attention.
• Gun smoke makes lights less effective at longer distances beyond fifteen to twenty feet. The higher the lumens, the bigger the problem. Think high beams in fog.
• Lasers are excellent even in smoke; advantage was seen in all shooter levels.
• Additional lights moving all over the place are very disorienting to the point of disrupting equilibrium and causing stumbles. You have no control over them and they affect your night vision and perception of the horizon.

My takeaway was that the light, laser, and night sight combination was best, but if I could have only one on the gun it would be the laser. Being able to effectively fire off of the traditional focal plane is a huge advantage.

Nice info. Thanks!

 

[digiroc]

Lady Smith gets Big Dot ...

Quality night sights allow aimed fire in low light conditions and in my opinion are an essential aid. The Lady Smith pictured above just got it's Big Dot Trigicon installed greatly increasing utility by providing a low light aim point.

The front sight being the most important element to aimed fire, the Big Dot is great in all lighting conditions. It's very easy to achieve combat accuracy. Just settle the large dot in the rear U channel and it shoots POA.

digiroc

 

[Old cop]

I agree w/Chief38, that's how I was trained when we were issued revolvers. In addition I've been in three deadly force encounters during my 30 year LEO career and just feel safer w/a revolver in one hand and the light, held away from me, in the other.

 

[Rastoff]

• Gun smoke makes lights less effective at longer distances beyond fifteen to twenty feet. The higher the lumens, the bigger the problem. Think high beams in fog.

This is an excellent point and should be emphasized more.

A common misconception is that the brighter the light, the better. This is simply not true. In fact, a light that's too bright, used indoors, will serve to blind you as much as the bad guy. It's not just smoke, but reflection off walls, floors and ceilings. Heaven forbid you accidentally point it at a mirror.

I too went to a night training. I learned that my 250 lumen light was far more than I would ever need in a self-defense scenario. I now have a 100 lumen light and it is perfect.

 

[digiroc]

My 1000 lumen light has a selector that starts out at a very low power. But you can rachet up in power with a thumb press, ultimately to blinding strobe.

Like OldCop I was trained to carry the light in my weak hand and well away from my body. Back then it was heavy D cell MagLights which were also an effective bludgeon.

digiroc

 

[white cloud]

I asked my Wing Chun sifu what he thought about the the Harries technique. When he quit laughing he confirmed what I already thought. It is not a very smart technique for ECQB.

 

[TomkinsSP]

Lets see, I have the IR spotlight, the Red Lazer to converge at 5 yards and a Green Lazer set at 15 yards. A seven LED lamp under the barrel and four decoy lamps on 15 to 20 foot arms. I have an IBM 7700.desktop computer configured as my fire control (it is attached to the furniture dolly though. IFF is controlled by a Bendix 1900 3 phase flat array active/passive radar system. It recieves input on wind speed, ambient temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure at 1, 2 and 4 meters above ground level from a Kestrel 564 metereological telometer. In order to function correctly it hangs from three helium filled baloons. Radar frequency jammer, strobe light, chaff and bananna oil dispenser are attached to tbe fourteen accessory rails. An Avco 350 RF device and six 190 servos (one to rack the slide, two to change magazines, one to clear jams and two for automatic up-down /left right control input from the IBM complete the setup.
It is a $37,000, 1600 pound KelTek PF-9, but it is so automatic I dont have to be home for it to function.

 

[Practical]

Smith & Wesson thought enough of Laser Sights and weapon mounted lights so as to BUY CrimsonTrace and before that has S&W logo CrimsonTrace grips commissioned for sale.

Weapon Mounted lights and lasers are the future and if included in a structured and well thought out training regimen are superior to NOT having them.

I am willing to be the anti-gun crowd will try to ban them.

That is more than enough endorsement for me to say they have a place.

I only have one laser on a J-Frame but it makes the gun 5x more shootable unless you practice a lot which tends to hurt my hands.

 

[ContinentalOp]

Smith & Wesson thought enough of Laser Sights and weapon mounted lights so as to BUY CrimsonTrace and before that has S&W logo CrimsonTrace grips commissioned for sale.

I don't think the fact that S&W bought Crimson Trace means anything other than they thought the investment would increase their profits/market share.

 

[dubshooter]

Never had a laser and didn’t like weapon mounted light on a handgun. I prefer a flashlight in a hand. My duty gun has nothing on the rail and I keep 3 flashlights (one traffic stop light, a search light and back up Incase one gets dropped in a fight or chase)

At home we have lights on throughout the house that keep a red light throughout the house. Not a tactical thing. My wife likes Himalayan salt lamps. I don’t mind them cause I can wake up to take a leak and not have overbearing white light coming in. Also nice when I get off night shift I don’t have to turn on any lights. Easy to sleep with (not on in the bedroom) but the ambient lighting from them allows me to see in the bedroom well enough. I do keep an old Inova flashlight by the bedside with the two guns when I come home (duty and BUG go on nightstand)

 

[Whitwabit]

only time my laser is on one of my pistols is when I practice trigger control dry firing .. same with my flash light .. not attached ..

Why ..

You'll light yourself up as soon as you turn them on giving your position away to anyone in direct view of your person ..

if the light is attached you will point your pistol at everything you sweep the light at ..

 

[cleans up]

Some interesting points. I'm surprised by the too much light comments. Short of 1000s of lumens light is a good thing. Yes gunsmoke makes it foggy, yes light reflects, but who is getting into high round count indoor battles? Pat rogers said after testing and running night classes that there's almost no such thing as too much light.

As always one has to try it and train w it before you'll know. And it's easy to add options like light/laser/ red dot, but they all add some degree of complexity. Remember that time to action is inversely proportional to number of options in most cases. 'tis hard enough to stay proficient so I think hard about anything which will add complexity.

Personally I like a light, both wml and handheld, as they do totally different jobs in my mind. But if there's a bump in the night at my home I have no need of a handheld. Anything thing I need to look at can be seen in the light spill from a wml, then have the gun pointed at it as needed.

The only lasers that make any sense to me are the crimsontrace type that don't require seperate activation, for the typical civilian.

 

[joeintexas]

I have owned more handguns over the years that I can even remember and never had any device added to them, never had an occasion to need one either. Recently bought a 38 Bodyguard with a lazer, jury is still out on whether or not I will ever use it other than to use it at the range to get used to how it works. In a home invasion scenario in the middle of the night I really doubt I would have the time to initiate it.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

What is there to initiate? I just pick mine up and the laser is on by my grip. Nothing to think about, it’s like a reflex. Lasers are an advantage in almost every scenario, and if you practice with them you will see their benefits.

 

[digiroc]

Model 69 with CT laser and FastFire 3 ...

The Crimson Trace laser gives my .44 close range quick target acquisition and makes up for the loss of iron sights, lost when I installed the FastFire.

The red dot provided by the FastFire is for longer shots and works quite well as an aiming aid.

digiroc

 

[joeintexas]

The Bodyguard I just bought has the Insight laser, you have to use your left hand to manually push the button on the right side of the gun, it's not grip activated.