Red Dot Sights - Opinions

I’m thinking of mounting one of my 9mm and/or 45’s with red dot sights. I’ve never used one and would like your thoughts on them. I need to re qualify for ccw and am thinking they may give these older eyes an advantage. I have 20/20 vision but they look like they can improve accuracy. Your thoughts and experience?

 

Agree. Once I got used to them I'm not only faster on target but much more accurate too.

 

Been curious about them for a while now. I don't love the way they make a handgun look tbh, but I'm sure they would help with accuracy.

 

Let me preface. I had an injury to my dominant/right eye a couple of years back that left me nearly blind in that eye, I do have okay vision in my left eye but must wear glasses. I have been using a laser on my edc since the injury but find it to have limitations.

I recently bought a Sig 365XL and a Halosun 507K with the combo 2/32 moa dots to be my new edc. It's replacing my trusted OG S&W Shield with green CT laser grip.

Before mounting the optic I did shoot a couple hundred rounds to get comfortable with the Sig. I mounted the dot and zeroed it at 10yds. Then came the wasting of hundreds of dollars in ammo to get used to the new dot. The hardest part for me was that I'm shooting right handed while aiming with my left eye so bringing the gun up and getting the sight on target took some time and many rounds to become proficient at.

So just two weeks ago and after approx fifteen hundred rounds and many hours at the range I retired my beloved Shield and have started carring my new Sig/Halosun as my edc.

So back to your original question. Yes I highly recommend you put an optic on your pistol. I find target acquisition is so much easier, especially with the large 32moa circle. There certainly is a learning curve, though yours is not likely to be as long as mine, and it will help you be a better shooter.

 

Great information, thank you!

 

What do you holster that in with the light? I have a 365X and would like to put a light on it but I'm having trouble finding something that is OWB that will accommodate the light.

 

I've got an iwb but pretty sure I saw an owb listed. Check out
4 Brothers Holsters

If you want leather you can try GB Leather Co. I've bought a couple of holsters from George his stuff is high quality and he can make you pretty much whatever you need.

 

Thank you sir

 

I've had good experiences with Vortex and Holosun, but in the rifle/AR realm.

 

Red dots have a quick learning curve and will let you shoot quicker and more accurately than you currently can with iron sights. The only difficulty new shooters have with them is focusing on the dot instead of the target (target focus). Once you learn what you're doing, you will kick yourself in the rear for not switching over sooner- experience: master in USPSA carry optics.

 

With red dots, you can shoot with both eyes open. So no need to worry about cross dominant aiming. Any where that dot shows up in the window is where your round is going, provided you do your part. And as someone else mentioned, once you get use to having both eyes open, focus on the target. Don't get tunnel vision around the dot. The main advantage to the dot is be able to focus on your target versus the traditional front sight focus on iron sights. Good luck to OP switching to a red dot. It's game changer for sure.

 

Go rmr or dpp

 

They’re wonderful.

 

Almost at 50 posts! lol

 

You should stop by the LGS and see if they have a pistol with a dot for rent. There are different size dot and color. Trying out as many as you can before buying one would be great.

 

My shooting is absolutely ratfucked.

My left eye is nearsighted, my right eye is 20/20. But... I am left eye dominant... And I shoot right handed. It's a serious honest fight to get my left eye off the sights, to the point where I almost have to wear an eye patch and pirate it.

I can maybe hit a barn if I'm on iron sights. I can drill the center of the paper if I'm on holographic or a laser pointer.

All of my non-scoped long guns, including shotties, run red dots or holo. I've been meaning to get all of the pistols on electric sights too. I've been resisting in a desperate bid to retrain the eye. But I'm about to just give in and have fun hitting paper.

 

I can offer the opposing experience.
Been shooting Glocks and Kahrs since mid 90's. About 3 or 4 years ago, when pistol red dots started becoming a thing, I put an ALG 6 second mount with an RMR on a G17.
Compared to a milled slide, this setup added an extra 1/4" (I'm guessing) of height for the dot above the center bore.
And man was it a disaster. I practiced a ton and never could break the muscle memory when bringing the weapon up for targeting... just being that little bit off and the red dot was nowhere to be found.
Yeah, maybe I could have kept at it, but the frustration was more than I wanted to deal with. Accuracy was at least as good as irons, probably better, but not being able to reliably find the damn dot was a non starter for me.

I use RMRs and MROs on a lot of long weapons and think they're great. But the pistol thing just didn't work for me.

 

It's the same as ARs, it's here to stay and most departments I know are both allowing and training officers up on it. Hell, riverside pd just bought 500 staccato's with dots!

You can now stay threat focused instead of front site focused, and shooting with both eyes open is never a bad thing lol

 

As others have stated, there's definitely a learning curve as you need to kinda relearn to shoot your pistol but I have a RMR mounted on my Glock 19 and I'm happy with it.