I’m ready to embrace pistol mounted red dots.

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  • rouchna

    Defund the ATF
    MDS Supporter
    Nov 25, 2009
    5,951
    Virginia
    Welcome to the dark side brother!
    :D

    They truly are a game changer. :thumbsup:

    I'm curious! I just obtained a pistol red dot. I'm not very familiar yet but plan to get very familiar with the set-up Why do you think your accuracy has improved due to the pistol red dot?

    I guess I should’ve been more specific. When I use to practice my holster draws with the standard sights, I was hitting my desired splits on the shot timer at 7 yards, hitting about a 6” group. Anytime I try to shoot faster, my groups would open up. With the red dot, I was hitting 3” groups at a faster pace.
    Be warned, patience is your friend. It took a lot of practice to have the red dot be perfectly aligned every single time you bring the gun up. All in all, it was a vast improvement for me.

    EDIT: I initially said 10 yards as this is the distance I use for most drills. The groups I mentioned were shot at 7 yards.
     
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    makijo

    Active Member
    May 31, 2013
    291
    Catonsville
    My FN FiveseveN with a Burris Fastfire 3 8MOA red dot.
     

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    outrider58

    Eats Bacon Raw
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 29, 2014
    49,810
    Did you compare the RMR to others? I’ve a DPP already in one and a Holosun coming for another. Want to try RMR and then standardize


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    I fooled around with a Fastfire II a bit but didn't much care for it.

    Once I got into the 80% thing, I decided to have another go at it so I went strait to the adjustable Trijicon RMR. As most people will tell you, red dots are a bit of a learning curve, especially on a pistol. Once you get the hang of it(it only took a couple range trips), they are way faster tan iron sights. I started shooting red dots back since Aimpoint began putting them out(not that they were the first) so they've been second nature for me for a while.

    This cemented it for me...

     

    cmb

    Active Member
    Dec 28, 2012
    499
    Conowingo MD
    Trijicon SRO

    Hey everybody, before I buy one of these SRO's, is there anyone who has one mounted (or not) that I can look through? I'm in Cecil County but I'd certainly drive a few miles,Mike.
     
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    MEGARMS

    KnowNothing
    Jun 3, 2012
    3,843
    Carroll County

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    AliasNeo07

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 12, 2009
    6,547
    MD
    For those of you who shoot irons and red dots, do you find the transition between the two to be difficult? For example, I don't want to put bunches of rounds through a range gun with a red dot when my carry guns are irons, etc, if it messes you up.
     

    Occam

    Not Even ONE Indictment
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 24, 2018
    20,230
    Montgomery County
    Hey everybody, before I buy one of these SRO's, is there anyone who has one mounted (or not) that I can look through? I'm in Cecil County but I'd certainly drive a few miles,Mike.

    I’m pretty sure you don’t want to drive to MoCo to look through my new one. So, here’s a quick snapshot looking through the SRO I just mounted on a new G17 build, using a milled slide.

    I have the RMR on a G19, and the SIG Romeo 5 on a P365 for carry ... still getting used to acquiring the dot on those smaller ones. The SRO is a bigger device and I went with 5 MOA, so it jumps right into sight. Having both eyes open on a pistol is still a novel experience. Used to it with a PCC, but wiring my brain up to draw and find it is taking some doing. The SRO sure makes that easy.

    7F68A037-F81B-4616-B8D3-14237432DC85.jpg
     

    outrider58

    Eats Bacon Raw
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 29, 2014
    49,810
    For those of you who shoot irons and red dots, do you find the transition between the two to be difficult? For example, I don't want to put bunches of rounds through a range gun with a red dot when my carry guns are irons, etc, if it messes you up.

    Some joggers like to add a sprint to the end of their run. The thinking is, your body will remember the faster speed for the next run.

    What about shooting a couple mags through your carry(iron sighted) gun at the end of your range session?

    I, personally, like to switch back and forth at the range between irons and red dots, mostly because I can't afford a Trijicon for every handgun. But it helps me stay fluent with both methods.
     

    Occam

    Not Even ONE Indictment
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 24, 2018
    20,230
    Montgomery County
    Wow, I was planning to swap my Romeo1Pro from my M17 to my X5 Legion but maybe I should look at an RMR. Any experience with how well the auto-brightness does it's job?

    The RMR's auto turn-on-and-brightness seems pretty dialed in. The SRO seems, when I wake it up in a moderately lit interior room, to start out a notch dimmer than I'd like, though I've only had a short time with it and haven't tried it in many interior settings yet. Outside, it seems to wake up quite bright and just right. Of course you can override that and set manual brightness ... so, if it's a bedside piece and you know you're going to always use it out of the sunlight, you can pick a brightness and stick with it. Likewise if it's always going to be daylight match gun used outdoors, etc.

    Automatic everything is never going to be just right for everybody, all the time. But they've got it pretty tuned in. The user interface would have to get a lot more complicated if they allowed you to fine tune the automatic behavior, rather then just switching to manual.
     

    Crosseye Dominant

    Ultimate Member
    Sep 1, 2018
    1,012
    I have astigmatism and was wondering if anyone with the same vision issues had a recommendation for a pistol sight? The Eotech on my AR has a dot matrix printout look to it, so I am wondering if I should be looking at a certain brand/model of pistol sight to avoid issues. I have read that a larger MOA dot can help. This would be more for target shooting than home defense.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    For me the green Holosun small dot and reticule combo gives the least astigmatism distortion. The bigger dots have a smudged shooting star look.
     

    Kirkster

    Active Member
    Jan 9, 2009
    329
    Severn, PRoMD
    Last December (2019) I was struggling with Irons and lots of vision issues, Astigmatism, Keratosis, Progressive lenses. Shooting glasses that made the front sight crisp but target blurry... Then I found the red dot. It went on a new pistol. Wholy crap this changed everything... I only have 2 pistols left without dots...

    C9808B81-9269-4C23-AE19-84AF3BC37380-scaled-e1618930337876.jpeg


    B4A026AF-B5F2-4E33-8768-4CC322B5ED69-scaled-e1618930362968.jpeg


    I have tried most of the popular dots, settled on Holosun and Trijicon. Though I won’t buy any more trijicon sites until they modernize their electronics.

    The Red Dot is the future of shooting. Irons though adequate are going to just become a backup.
     

    outrider58

    Eats Bacon Raw
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 29, 2014
    49,810
    Wow, I was planning to swap my Romeo1Pro from my M17 to my X5 Legion but maybe I should look at an RMR. Any experience with how well the auto-brightness does it's job?

    I use mine in manual mode. My HD stays dialed down for low light.
    I don't trust 'auto' anything.
     

    Occam

    Not Even ONE Indictment
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 24, 2018
    20,230
    Montgomery County
    I wonder why pistol dots are so much life expensive than rifle/subgun dots?

    Well, a really quality RDS for a long gun is expensive, too. That said, it costs a lot to design and build something as small as an RMR while keeping it duty-quality tough enough to beat up and still work reliably. A little electro-optical device that can sense your movement enough to turn on when needed while still surviving being violently slammed around on top of a pistol slide thousands of times - it's quite an accomplishment, when you think about it. And making that with optically good glass, even more of a challenge.
     

    MEGARMS

    KnowNothing
    Jun 3, 2012
    3,843
    Carroll County
    I wonder why pistol dots are so much life expensive than rifle/subgun dots?


    Well, a really quality RDS for a long gun is expensive, too. That said, it costs a lot to design and build something as small as an RMR while keeping it duty-quality tough enough to beat up and still work reliably. A little electro-optical device that can sense your movement enough to turn on when needed while still surviving being violently slammed around on top of a pistol slide thousands of times - it's quite an accomplishment, when you think about it. And making that with optically good glass, even more of a challenge.

    Agree with a lot of this, but not all. There is definitely a significant sunk cost to design, prototype, and test these, but I doubt they are starting from scratch each time a new one is introduced. The variable cost of producing each one can't be all that much, but is likely 3-5 times more expensive for the US produced ones. Some other expenses that we don't tend to think about are marketing and warranty expenses, which can be substantial. At the end of the day, these suckers are going to sell for whatever the market will bear.

    A few years ago I told my friend he was crazy for spending $200 on a Vortex Viper. Since then, my eyes got progressively worse, as did my shooting, all while his shooting got better. He since dumped the Viper because it lost its zero one too many times and then replaced it with a $500+ SRO. I begrudgingly did the same and have now used it in two matches. In my opinion, it was worth every penny. Hell, I saved at least 50 rounds of 9mm already because I wasn't missing my targets. With the cost of ammo today, this thing will pay for itself within a year or so.
     

    outrider58

    Eats Bacon Raw
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 29, 2014
    49,810
    I think durability is also a key in cost. Not only is the sight asked to absorb the kinetic energy of the shot through a handgun, but in most cases, the slamming action it encounters when mounted on a slide.
     

    Occam

    Not Even ONE Indictment
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 24, 2018
    20,230
    Montgomery County
    Exactly what is supposed to happen. :thumbsup:

    At distances where sights matter, isn't the whole point of a good RDS (which projects the dot at what seems like infinity) to allow you to focus your attention on what your adversary is actually doing (instead of lining up on a blurry sasquatch doing who-knows-what with his out of focus hands) while also having a nice crisp POI dog painted on his noggin?

    I also have aging eyes that are starting to betray me with iron sights, and getting that front blade in perfect focus doesn't do me a lot of good if it renders that bad guy into a giant puffball. An RDS (which also allows me to reliably keep both eyes open) is an entirely different experience once I get past point shooting range.
     

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