rondog, not to pick you out but I have to address this as many other than yourself have said it, or something similar.
But, IMO, they suck for target shooting because the laser beam and bullet path will only intersect at the exact point where the laser is zero'd. The farther away the target is from that point the farther off the bullet impact will be. Plus, laser beams are straight and bullet paths are curved, etc
I just have to disagree, at least to some extent. I'll keep the limit to 50 yards (because that's the distance I can make the best argument at
)
A quick google search found a 124 gr. Federal American Eagle at 1120 fps (at muzzle) drops only 1.8 inches at 50 yards. So if you stretch it out a bit when zeroing up to 50 yards you can still easily hit targets, unless your targets are significantly smaller than mine!
I do admit the laser is perfectly straight and (usually) starts out below the bore, but honestly it's not that much below.
Say you zero it 25 yards, the bullet will drop an additional 1.5" and yes the laser is pointing up, but again it's not much. Say its pointing up and is and extra 1.5" at fifty yards that's only puts it in the neighborhood of 3" above the projectile.
And if you back it up to 40yards that bullet drop is an entire inch less, at 60 it doubles from 1.8 to over 3"
Anyway the point is you can zero the laser at 20-30 yards then easily hit a 12" target by the laser out to 40-60 yards depending on many variables. even the fat, slow, rainbow 45acp doesn't drop enough to really matter in the first 40 yards.