Coal Dragger
member
I'm a felony entry team member and none of us uses a low-power scope. We all use red dots because of fast target acquisition. Also, I am very, very capable with iron sights. I shoot at the master level with revolver, pistol, rifle and shotgun. I work in a very intense, very stressful environment. I'm not talking about plinking at the range with the boys. Not everyone is going to do things the way you do.
OK.
There’s a whole bunch of dudes in the various SOCOM units that have been running around shooting baddies in the face on the regular, who are going to low power variables with daylight bright illumination of the center reticle. Witness the adoption of the Nightforce ATACR 1-8X24, before that the Vortex Razor HD 1-6X24 was seeing some use (SOCOM’s use of that optic is what got Bill Geissele into making scope mounts). Given the past 18 years of GWOT going on it’s a pretty good bet that a lot of these dudes have stacked up a lot of bodies, and might know a thing or two about killing people with firearms and they seem to be heading in the direction of variable low power optics for their daylight sights. Not saying RDS’s are bad, just that good LPV’s have come a long long way.
My own experience in combat is far more limited, but even fixed magnified optics didn’t get me killed. My only current options to compare between an RDS and LPV are a beat up old Aimpoint and a Nightforce 1-4X24 NXS. Up close the RDS is faster, at 25 yards they’re about the same, but once distances go past 50 yards on a difficult or obscured target, or 100 yards and beyond on any target the LPV puts the boots to the RDS.
Plus the LPV can be useful in positive target ID. I have a little time on the Vortex Razor HD 1-6X24 and the eye box on 1X is so good that I actually think it might just as fast as an RDS, it’s stupid heavy though. None of the LPV’s on a carbine will ever handle as well as the same carbine with an RDS.
Anecdotally the last time I shot head to head with other good shooters in a training environment was a Pat MacNamara class and I ran the 1-4X24 NXS. Came in 2nd on the rifle challenge, and got edged out by a good shooter running that Vortex 1-6X24. We left the RDS equipped students in the dust. Pat Mac showed us all up with his Aimpoint, but he designed the course of fire, pretty sure he’d have been faster than us chucking spears at the targets too, but he’s also a freak of nature.