Red dots on handguns

[UncleEd]

Prediction:

As soon as the market seems glutted by red dots
on handguns and sales begin to fall, a new
sighting technology will be offered.

Gun trainers will immediately start pushing that
technology and all true pistoleros will say they
need it to keep up with Tom, Dick and Harry.

 

[RUT]

Yup, that pretty much sums it up! It's called FOMO.

 

[Phaedrus/69]

Yeah, back when the market was flooded with flintlocks they started flogging those fancy breech-loaders to goose guns sales.

 

[Varminterror]

Why hasn’t that happened to rifles? Rifles used to be predominantly equipped with iron sights, but now for a few generations, all of them come with provisions for scopes - so much to the point MOST rifles are sold today without irons at all…

I appreciate cynicism as much as the next guy, but I think this prediction isn’t apt.

Red dots remain an increased cost, and a niche within handgun models, not to mention, they’re not standardized to a common footprint - a rifle owner can buy any rifle and mount any scope, whereas RDS’s all require a handful of footprints, else they are stuck using adapter plates. We’re not seeing handguns being sold without iron sights yet, and for all market indications, there will not be motivation to remove sights from pistols, so they’ll remain relevant features, and a detraction if removed. Irons on most rifles were teats on a boar, nearly useless within the context of the rifle being used, and significant hindrances to standard performance, hence they were preferentially supplanted with scope mount options. Pistols don’t have that motivation in the market, so it’s false logic to suggest the market will be glutted with RDS’s - at least not any more than it already has been.

In fairness, RDS’s do beg for improvement - but improvements have proven to be expensive and slow moving, met with limited success. We all want SOMETHING about every one of our RDS’s and prisms to be better, at least in some way. Whether that’s battery life, faster/easier battery changes - but not compromising reliability or adding bulk to the profile, non-battery illumination, shake awake - but not shake awake that wakes up while bouncing in the truck, adjustable dot size, bigger windows, smaller profiles, better light/brightness adjustment - but not better adjustment which requires more button presses, and overwhelmingly, we all want lower cost… so there are a lot of problems with RDS’s which all of us perceive, and all of us want solved, so I do expect continued innovation in this space. RDS’s came about because we wanted something faster than a scope and more forgiving than irons - there have been multiple options in market to that end, but none have taken off as have RDS’s.

It is also a fallacy to suggest the firearms market can be “glutted” with anything. There are ~3500 Americans born each day which will grow up to own firearms; ~1.3 million new gun owners born every year. For most of the last few years, we’ve been selling around a million guns per month…

Plainly, we’ll run out of food and clean water to sustain life in our nation LONG before we run out of people to buy new guns.

 

[CorsairF4U]

As an older person with eyes that aren't what they used to be, I can vouch that the red dot optics aren't just a gimmick.

When your eyes lose their ability to focus on iron sights, the red dots are a game changer. I can shoot long range better than I ever could before, thanks to the red dot. They are a much better solution than the big dot express sights I was using before to accommodate my reduced vision.

For me, the downside is that they are not as fast to acquire a sight picture when drawing, which is a matter of proper presentation that I haven't mastered yet.

For me, the red dot optics are very much worth the extra expense, and the time spent sighting them in. I don't think that they are just a fad.

 

[Choctaw]

I have a Holosun 407C on my Glock 40 and it works very well for hunting. Actually, a nearby police department has cleared them for department use and several of my fellow officers carry them on their duty guns. Yeah, they are just a fad.

If you can improve your ability to hit the target then you are foolish not to do so.

 

[Phaedrus/69]

I think RDS/optics will come to dominate the handgun market almost as thoroughly as they do rifles. Rifles average 7-9 lbs so adding another 10oz for an Aimpoint on Scalarworks mount isn't a big deal. But miniaturizing a RDS to where it will fit a handgun and be light enough to not affect slide velocity is a harder technical feat, and ruggedizing it to survive being worn all day has also taken a bit of doing. I feel like we're right on the cusp of that now though. Certainly the ACRO-P2 and a couple of the Holosun dots have good track records for ruggedness and reliability. New technologies always take a little while. If you watched the first Lethal Weapon there's a scene where Danny Glover's character uses a car phone and it's the size of a WWII field radio set! Few people were in the market for something like that but eventually they got small enough you could almost lose them in your pocket. Your phone now has more computer power than the entire world had when the first moon mission was completed. As RDS get small enough, cheap enough and reliable enough it will be increasing rare to see sidearms without optic cuts.

 

[JR24]

Disagree, kinda. I think the next evolution will be integral dots (with multiple reticle options). More durable and stable if it’s just part of the slide. Durability is always increasing and things like the Holosun SCS means battery life will soon be pretty much a non-consideration.

Once I’ve spent enough time with dots it doesn’t make any sense to go backwards.

 

[Overkill870]

I like the simplicity of iron sights and I have good eyesight so I have no issue using iron sights.

That said there are some advantages to pistol red dots. I'm thinking about getting my standard (non MOS) G19 slide milled for a Holosun EPS carry.

 

[P89DCSS]

Red dots are a fad used only by shallow followers that fear missing out...lol. That's why the US armed forces are converting from irons to electro-optics. Some General is FOMO, right?

 

[JR24]

They are a much better solution than the big dot express sights I was using before to accommodate my reduced vision.

Agree, I like the dot and circle RDS because it’s quite easy to put on target, much like the big dots were.

For me, the downside is that they are not as fast to acquire a sight picture when drawing, which is a matter of proper presentation that I haven't mastered yet.

You’ll get there and when you do it’s hard not to be faster. Focus on target and draw, when the gun is on line so is the dot. No looking needed, not half focus to see the front sight while threat focused, no need to find the font sight for front sight focus. Just look at the target and wait for the glowing dot to arrive, which happens to be when your barrel is on target too, nice!

 

[Ks5shooter]

No idea what these red dots you are referring to.......

 

[dannyd]

After a young man let me use his I went from none to four and working on number five. For old people there great, as usual Your Mileage May Very.

 

[.38 Special]

In high-level competition, dots are slightly faster and - maybe - slightly more accurate.

In inexperienced hands, dots are significantly faster and much more accurate.

There are downsides, of course, but I don't see the trend declining any time soon.

 

[irving]

Amateur astronomers were using these things (Telrad) to aim telescopes way back in 1978. To put one on a gun would have seemed stupid at the time. I still think they're ugly, but evidently I'm in the minority.

 

[Dan-O]

I prefer green dots…..

Swamp Fox makes good ones for a lot less than the big names, and are built like brick poo houses.

 

[dannyd]

I put them on the twins

 

[botofogo]

I tried them and outfitted several pistols with them. I’ve since removed them all. I think, for me, in a SD scenario I’m plenty competent with iron sights.

 

[Risky buisness]

If folks want this kind of stuff, ok.
I see these as a very ingenious solution to a non existent problem. If not seeing the front sight is an issue big dot sights work amazingly well, tritium avaliable too. No batteries or sensitive electronics to fail. Having seen some examples, the sight ( dot) acquisition seems wonky and slow and the attachment to the handgun weak. Not real sure if the devices, at least the ones I saw, would survive a table edge slide rack in the event one had to use that method. Im sure their are varieties that are .......i guess their are at least.

 

[dannyd]

I use them for target shooting they work great. Took me back 30 years with my eyes.

 

[Varminterror]

I’ll admit, I started using RDS’s in the late 1990’s, and was trained they MUST be used with frame bridges such the sight isn’t reciprocating. It was a lot of years later before I finally accepted a reciprocating red dot mounted on the slide instead of a bridge - and I still don’t like it as much. But… I recognize saddle mounts add a LOT of bulk which isn’t ideal for carry use, so I concede to slide mounts. I will acknowledge, however, that my current favorite defensive pistol is an integrally suppressed SiCo Maxim9, which has a fixed mount for the RDS, so life is pretty good when I can OC, or carry under a jacket.

 

[Rex B]

For me, the downside is that they are not as fast to acquire a sight picture when drawing, which is a matter of proper presentation that I haven't mastered yet.
.

I recently bought 2 identical Beretta pistols, APX Carry A1. These came with slide cuts and a free plate. The first one I bought the Holosun so bought a K-series green-dot for $240. I had presentation issues with that. If I brought the gun up it seemed I needed to tilt the barrel up to make the dot come into view. It was NOT natural.
The 2nd pistol I ordered with the RMS plate, and bought a $99 Riton red-dot from CDNN. On an identical gun, it presented naturally - I did not have to hunt for the danged dot.

Beyond that, I have astigmatism which makes that red dot look more like a jagged cloverleaf. Still usable but not a nice crisp aimpoint. The Holosun green dot was worse because it was larger and brighter. The Riton was small enough to be as good as it get for my eyes, and not to bright.

For my money, that Riton was the way to go. Both were shake-awake, both hold zero. The Riton had to be removed to change the battery where the Holosun changed from the top.
I mounted the same Riton model on my SU16 carbine.

And yes, at a certain age iron sights are pretty blurry. That said, I have an old .22 bolt gun and a Browning SA22 that i can shoot irons very well with. Doesn't work as well with pistols. You'd think it would work the other way around.

 

[Old Dog]

If I were 25 years old again, with the 20/15 vision I used to have, I'd be the biggest fan of red dot sights ever. Even though I was great with the pitiful Government Model sights on the military 1911s.

These days, if you have any degree of astigmatism, worsening myopia or the beginnings of cataracts (in other words, you've developed "geezer eyes"), you already know that your night vision is suffering and the taillights of the cars in front of you when driving at night turn into huge blurry masses with halos or big blurry star clusters with rays shooting out. So shooting handguns or long guns with RDS optics can be even worse, with huge "starbursts" or just totally blurred out reticles.

For me, a HWS (i.e., EOTECH) or an ACOG presently works a lot better for me than an RDS or LPVO.

In natural day light if I'm not using a scope, iron sights, most especially aperture rear sights with a front sight post, are still the most effective sighting system for my failing eyes when shooting at distance (50 yards and beyond). In low light and darkness, an illuminated reticle can be helpful, depending on the type of optic and intensity.

All this said, in the last couple years before I retired, using an RDS (Leupold Deltapoint, then a Trijicon RMR) on the pistol for qualification during daytime at the outdoor range was very nice once I learned to get the pistol up, keep my chin up and ignore the iron sights. But I never shot substantially better than with iron sights, perhaps just a hair faster.

But yeah, with the way technology keeps developing, it's always the next big thing.

 

[JR24]

If I were 25 years old again, with the 20/15 vision I used to have, I'd be the biggest fan of red dot sights ever. Even though I was great with the pitiful Government Model sights on the military 1911s.

These days, if you have any degree of astigmatism, worsening myopia or the beginnings of cataracts (in other words, you've developed "geezer eyes"), you already know that your night vision is suffering and the taillights of the cars in front of you when driving at night turn into huge blurry masses with halos or big blurry star clusters with rays shooting out. So shooting handguns or long guns with RDS optics can be even worse, with huge "starbursts" or just totally blurred out reticles.

For me, a HWS (i.e., EOTECH) or an ACOG presently works a lot better for me than an RDS or LPVO.

In natural day light if I'm not using a scope, iron sights, most especially aperture rear sights with a front sight post, are still the most effective sighting system for my failing eyes when shooting at distance (50 yards and beyond). In low light and darkness, an illuminated reticle can be helpful, depending on the type of optic and intensity.

All this said, in the last couple years before I retired, using an RDS (Leupold Deltapoint, then a Trijicon RMR) on the pistol for qualification during daytime at the outdoor range was very nice once I learned to get the pistol up, keep my chin up and ignore the iron sights. But I never shot substantially better than with iron sights, perhaps just a hair faster.

But yeah, with the way technology keeps developing, it's always the next big thing.

For what it is worth, using the circle dot on Holosuns (and I’m sure others make them now) completely eliminated the starburst and slash shape regular dots get from my astigmasm.

Sure, the sight is a little more busy, but it works fast at close range and with a little practice it’s not too hard to focus the center dot for loner range precision shooting.

Trijicon also has the triangle that works much the same for my eyes (but it’s on their silly dual illumination optic that’s useless with a WML or other odd lighting situations).

 

[FL-NC]

Not for me. Another object adding to the dimensional footprint of something I may want to hide, and there is no way I would spend the $ to put them on every handgun I own. I like consistency when it comes to something as important as what I am using to aim a weapon.