A FEW GOOD REASONS NOT TO USE OPTICS ON A EDC/CCW GUN

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Where exactly in my post did you see me write that iron sights are unnecessary or undesirable?

I'm also not sure why you put the word index in quotes followed by magically?

Is the concept of an index something foreign to you and do you believe it works "magically"?

This is a quick explanation of what an index is from Ben Stoeger who is one of the top 5 best IPSC/USPSA shooters in the world.

The video confirms my understanding of what you (and apparently some others) mean by "index."

I find it hard to believe that achieving a proper index will always happen with all postures and varying number of hands controlling
the weapon. Depending on what other sighting equipment one has on one's weapon, a dot-equipped pistol may give no indication of
how to improve the aiming of the pistol when necessary, which may be less than what happens with stand-alone iron sights.

I have seen this with myself and one other person, with the same pistol. What have you seen?

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

COVER: Something that will stop incoming fire. For cops a engine block works pretty good. Stay in back of the front wheel too.

CONCEALMENT: Something that will hide your position. Does not stop bullets.

So you've taken cover behind the front of your cruiser and twist your body between the wheel and front bumper mostly curled up by the wheel as you stick your weapon around the bumper guards. Cool, how's that RDS working out for you now?

Geez, I'm reminded of the term Concealed Carry Hobbyist from another poster. RDS, Flashlights, Laser's and various night sights all have their place. But none of them replace intense training and constant practice with the weapon of your choice. KISS.

 

[SouthNarc]

The video confirms my understanding of what you (and apparently some others) mean by "index."

I find it hard to believe that achieving a proper index will always happen with all postures and varying number of hands controlling
the weapon. Depending on what other sighting equipment one has on one's weapon, a dot-equipped pistol may give no indication of
how to improve the aiming of the pistol when necessary, which may be less than what happens with stand-alone iron sights.

I have seen this with myself and one other person, with the same pistol. What have you seen?

So that's a great question and was always one of my criticisms of RDS:

Do irons offer an advantage over an RDS in situations where one is not standing upright and can't drive the gun the way they normally do? Are irons more forgiving because one is not looking "through" a window but instead they are looking "over" the top of the pistol and they can "adjust" the relationship of the rear aperture to the front post on the fly?

In theory that sounds right.

What I have seen in actual practice is that if someone can't center a dot then they won't be able to adjust the post in the notch either and the better option is simply target focusing and referencing the back of the slide or cylinder to the target. The time to actually utilize that perceived iron sight adjustment advantage, simply doesn't exist at actual gunfight speed.

Jim Cirillo called this a "weapon silhouette technique". Jim was the last real police gunfighter of the 20th century with a stunning 17 gunfights during his career with the famed NYPD stakeout squad. I was fortunate enough to spend a fair bit of time with Jim before he was killed tragically in a car wreck.

 

[TheTinMan]

For me it comes down to size and the ability to conceal and draw from concealment. A night sight isn’t any more of a snag than a regular sight. A red dot - even the most compact - is a potential snag and makes my pistol significantly larger and therefore more difficult to conceal.

I like red dots on an AR a lot, but I always have backup irons with lower 1/3 co-witness. Typically the front sight is fixed and only the rear is flip up. I just got a prism sight to test. It has an etched reticle even if the electronics **** out so we’ll see how that works. I’m even going to try a regular red dot on a lever action rifle - strictly for range use and to irritate Fudds on the Marlin forum.

If I felt comfortable with open carry, I think I’d go all in on a red dot because my nearly 65 year old eyes aren’t getting any better. Plus I prefer just to look at the target. However, open carry by private citizens where I live would be disruptive and some of the local police would not be understanding.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

So that's a great question and was always one of my criticisms of RDS:

Do irons offer an advantage over an RDS in situations where one is not standing upright and can't drive the gun the way they normally do? Are irons more forgiving because one is not looking "through" a window but instead they are looking "over" the top of the pistol and they can "adjust" the relationship of the rear aperture to the front post on the fly?

In theory that sounds right.

What I have seen in actual practice is that if someone can't center a dot then they won't be able to adjust the post in the notch either and the better option is simply target focusing and referencing the back of the slide or cylinder to the target. The time to actually utilize that perceived iron sight adjustment advantage, simply doesn't exist at actual gunfight speed.

Jim Cirillo called this a "weapon silhouette technique". Jim was the last real police gunfighter of the 20th century with a stunning 17 gunfights during his career with the famed NYPD stakeout squad. I was fortunate enough to spend a fair bit of time with Jim before he was killed tragically in a car wreck.

This seems to me to be an excellent general answer. However, for my sample of one (me, and limited experimentation), I have a slightly different observation.

Within the last year, I had occasion to try out a 3" K-frame revolver with no front sight. I was amazed at how inaccurate I was with it, even at very close range.

For me, the search would not be to get the front post into the rear notch, but just to get the front post, probably not lost in the first place, onto the target, trying to approach it with the rear while completing my trigger press. This is a little faster than actual alignment, and, at least for me, seems to be necessary in order to hit, unless I'm close enough to set his shirt on fire.

Of course, logically, this may only tell you that I am altogether incapable of defensive shooting, at least to your standards, but at present that is what I'm stuck with.

Meanwhile, I'm still not against RDS use by those willing to spend the time to learn it.

 

[SouthNarc]

Within the last year, I had occasion to try out a 3" K-frame revolver with no front sight. I was amazed at how inaccurate I was with it, even at very close range.

For me, the search would not be to get the front post into the rear notch, but just to get the front post, probably not lost in the first place, onto the target, trying to approach it with the rear while completing my trigger press. This is a little faster than actual alignment, and, at least for me, seems to be necessary in order to hit, unless I'm close enough to set his shirt on fire.

Your journey and experimentation is very common sir. One reason you're finding it faster is because you're only aligning two things in your eye-target line (post to target) versus three things (rear aperture to post to target). Your vision is less cluttered.

Essentially a dot and a front sight are doing the same: they are providing one with a single visual reference point of the gun to the target.

And to quote Jeff Cooper "Sights confirm stroke".

All ANY sighting system does, dot or irons, is confirm a consistent line of travel that you create, any time the gun moves from wherever (holster, nightstand, a ready position) to where you eventually fire it from. That final firing position could very well be from close to your body if you are shooting in confined space to full extension of your arms in more open space with a continuum of visual referencing that we could describe as coarse to fine.

Does that make sense? The sighting system doesn't create alignment. You do.

 

[SouthNarc]

A red dot - even the most compact - is a potential snag and makes my pistol significantly larger and therefore more difficult to conceal.

That is an absolutely legitimate criticism of any RDS and I agree.

 

[SouthNarc]

So you've taken cover behind the front of your cruiser and twist your body between the wheel and front bumper mostly curled up by the wheel as you stick your weapon around the bumper guards. Cool, how's that RDS working out for you now?

Kinda' like this? Not an exact example of your description but pretty close.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_-1Ll4q6V0[/ame]

 

[malph]

You get out of an RDS what you put into it.

If you have 30-40-50 years of experience with irons, it's no surprise your initial experience with an RDS is a step backwards.

Pistols with RDS can be shot extremely well but only after the required skills are built.

The follies I see with RDS is putting one on your gun and thinking it's some magical device which will automatically transform your shooting.

The other is buying an el cheapo RDS and then thinking all RDS are unreliable.

 

[SouthNarc]

Of course, logically, this may only tell you that I am altogether incapable of defensive shooting, at least to your standards, but at present that is what I'm stuck with.

Not at all. The actual REALITY is that MILLIONS of people defend themselves successfully with handguns annually with NO training.

I say that as someone in the BUSINESS of firearms instruction who has been formally teaching for 31 years.

It's been my experience that people who are TRAINED fare better than those who aren't. But the untrained? They ACTUALLY don't do to badly.

The untrained and ARMED generally fare better then the untrained and UNARMED.

 

[SouthNarc]

You get out of an RDS what you put into it.

If you have 30-40-50 years of experience with irons, it's no surprise your initial experience with an RDS is a step backwards.

Pistols with RDS can be shot extremely well but only after the required skills are built.

The follies I see with RDS is putting one on your gun and thinking it's some magical device which will automatically transform your shooting.

The other is buying an el cheapo RDS and then thinking all RDS are unreliable.

Completely agree.

If a handgun in your home is analogous to a fire extinguisher in that it's something you put away, don't think about, hope you never need, and only grab in an emergency, then putting a sparkly on top won't effect the outcome.

 

[ladder13]

Great thread guys

 

[AJ]

Great thread guys

It has been, though it has been fraught with opposing views. All good to know. The real truth teller is here: A poll on EDC pistols: sights

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

Kinda' like this? Not an exact example of your description but pretty close.

Vehicle CQB with William Petty - YouTube

Yeah, very much like that. Except the problem in say the South Bronx there's not to many bumpy dirt lots to park in. On pavement those guys were quite exposed to skip shooting. Which is why I like getting as much of me as I could behind a wheel. We did a lot of skip shooting practice. Both pavement , cement floors and walls.

Now I can't say I know of any bad guys that have a clue to what I'm talking about. But I have seen a lot of incompetent trigger jerking that would produce the same thing.

 

[SouthNarc]

Yeah, very much like that. Except the problem in say the South Bronx there's not to many bumpy dirt lots to park in. On pavement those guys were quite exposed to skip shooting. Which is why I like getting as much of me as I could behind a wheel. We did a lot of skip shooting practice. Both pavement , cement floors and walls.

Now I can't say I know of any bad guys that have a clue to what I'm talking about. But I have seen a lot of incompetent trigger jerking that would produce the same thing.

That’s a fair point about bad guys not intending to skip fire but wild indiscriminate shooting producing an effective hit.

Probably the best example of intentional skip fire to actually make hits was the Bank of America shoot out where LAPD used that exact tactic on one of the bad guys.

 

[AJ]

Yeah, very much like that. Except the problem in say the South Bronx there's not to many bumpy dirt lots to park in. On pavement those guys were quite exposed to skip shooting. Which is why I like getting as much of me as I could behind a wheel. We did a lot of skip shooting practice. Both pavement , cement floors and walls.

Now I can't say I know of any bad guys that have a clue to what I'm talking about. But I have seen a lot of incompetent trigger jerking that would produce the same thing.

We taught about rounds "skipping" along the ground in our shooting school in the late 80's and it was probably taught before that.

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

I first had it using a shotgun and 00buck in '73 at the NJ State Police Academy in Sea Girt, NJ. It was an old military base on very valuable beach front. Since the huge range was on sandy soil we got lucky with some flooding, then a deep freeze. We blasted away at the targets skipping on the ice. Cut the feet off at the ankles.

It was a lesson I remembered well and incorporated it in department training.

 

[chev37s]

I shoot irons, dots and lasers. All have their place. I am good enough with irons, much faster and accurate at further distances with the dots, and if with a laser, you can actually shoot and hit consistently without aiming when holding it out from behind cover. I’ve got really good hits standing behind a tree and holding the pistol out with the laser on target at 15 to 20 yards. No matter what anyone uses, it all about trigger control, practice and using what you’re good with. I believe in practicing at longer distances and getting good hits and not just practicing at close ranges like the statistics show. If you can hit good at 20 plus yards then the 5 to 7 yards is much easier. I also believe in carrying as much ammo as you can and still be practical. For me, most daily carry is 13 plus 1 and a 15 round extra mag. I had a 5 shot 38 +p ruger lcr. Great for carrying due to being light, but anything over 10 yards for me, was not getting good hits. Sold it.

 

[Magnum_PI]

Not a fan. Too costly. Too tacticool. Possibly unreliable, as stated.

Irons have always worked for me.

 

[Krogen]

The video confirms my understanding of what you (and apparently some others) mean by "index."

I find it hard to believe that achieving a proper index will always happen with all postures and varying number of hands controlling
the weapon. Depending on what other sighting equipment one has on one's weapon, a dot-equipped pistol may give no indication of
how to improve the aiming of the pistol when necessary, which may be less than what happens with stand-alone iron sights.

I have seen this with myself and one other person, with the same pistol. What have you seen?

Regardless of the sight on your gun, I think indexing is a key skill to develop. Indexing is a new term for me, but one could substitute "fit." Akin to fitting a shotgun so it shoots where you look and point it. I want a defensive pistol to fit me in a similar manner. Some guns, N-frame smiths in particular, don't quite fit me. If I close my eyes and bring the gun up, I guarantee you that the muzzle will be high relative to the rear sight. Way high. Although I shoot a Ruger MKIII just fine, I have to work it. The grip angle does the same as the Smith does to me. So for a defensive gun, I want that intuitive fit - index - so the gun goes where my eyes look and my hand points.