FAQ #1
Big Dot or Standard Dot?
With so many selections how do you pick the one that is best for you? First off let’s go over the basics.
Where?
These situations for the most part occur at 21 feet or less, usually a lot less. Department of Justice annual reports state that 90% of police shootings happen at this range or less. A study of shootings over 100 years in New York City have more than 90% of shootings at 10 feet or less. The DOJ study includes figures from sheriffs departments and highway troopers and Border Patrol. Encounters by these agencies can occur at longer ranges (more than 21 feet but less than 25 yards) so they will skew the average range figure a bit.
When?
In the “when” category, about the only common denominator was that light conditions were less than adequate. In our own research we found there was a gap in the visibility of most sights on handguns. Plain black sights rely on having sufficient ambient light to see them against a contrasting background. Such target sights are black and meant to be aligned against the white of the target paper and held in reference below the round bull of the target. This is fine until the background becomes the blue, red, plaid, etc of clothing and then the sight blends in to the point where it might as well be invisible. Contrasting inserts help but are generally too small to be readily seen. Night sights were a big help in low light to no light situations. But since the tritium vials are a weak source of light it does not take much ambient light overpower them leaving you unable to adequately see them in the half light to low light realm. And because they are installed in the same place where a contrasting color insert might be, they remove the ambient light reflector that you might have used in this half to low light range.
What happens that is so different?
If people were only attacked by static pieces of cardboard, then we wouldn’t build our sights the way we have. The same can be said if all shooting situations gave you a walk through before hand and if everybody involved was clearly marked as to whether they were SHOOT or NO-SHOOT people. But they don’t so you’ll have to have to make a whole bunch of decisions, in the moment and on the fly. What you’ll need is information. Information like body language, intent in the eyes, movement of the hands, and/or are there threats from other directions? This means that your eyes will be bouncing all over everywhere except on your sights. Only if a point is reached where deadly force is required, will you need sights and the time it takes for your eye to shift back to find them and get them on target is critical. The stress reactions by your own body are working against you quickly finding your sights. Proof that you can easily miss a man-sized object at 3 feet is found by looking at police qualifying scores versus percentage of rounds that hit in actual gunfights. Most LE Agencies require that officers qualifying score is at least 70% of the possible total, while the average number of rounds that actually impact is less than 15% of those fired. If this isn’t a clear indication that what works well on a target range under target conditions is next to useless under tactical conditions I don’t know what is.
What we offer:
Shallow “V” express rear notch.
This eliminates the billboard found on each side of a standard notch rear sight. You have better access to the front sight and it is impossible to hide the front sight behind the rear sight. The “V” is not a bull’s-eye sight and you will not get the same tiny groups that you can get with such sights. You will get plenty of tactical accuracy and not take forever to find and align the sights in doing so. The vertical bar in our sight is readily distinguished from the front dot. This eliminates any confusion as to which dot is the front sight. Available in the 24/7Express series our most popular sights can be had with this bar as a tritium element.
Big white dot with tritium (Big Dot Tritium/BDT).
The bigger sight is easier for your eye to pick up. Easier to see when your focus is out beyond the front sight locked on the possible threat. The large white area is huge reflector of ambient light and will be seen way on down into the very low light range. At that point the tritium vial in the center of the dot comes into play and begins to take over the sight reference duties giving you a positive front sight reference on down into the no light spectrum.
A better Point of Aim (POA) / Point of Impact (POI) system.
When your eye is making that shift in focus it will lock onto the brightest thing first. The brightest part of the dot is the center. Placing that over the desired point of impact is a natural reaction. From 15 yards on in our POA/POI is center of the dot. As the range increases and you have more time for a refined sight picture we take advantage of your pistols ballistics. Bullets start out below line of sight and the barrel angle is such that they rise to line of sight. By having the under 15 yards POA/POI at the center of our dot then as the range increases to 25 yards the bullets flight will take it to near the top edge of the front sight. Now you have the best of both worlds. A stress sight picture that is quick and easy to find and index on the target and a more precise POA/POI when you need it at longer ranges.
The Standard Dot Tritium.
We have it around because no matter how logical and sound the Big Dot system is you just can’t convince everyone as to its advantages or that you really can shoot accurately with it. The Standard Dot Tritium gives them a better front sight so they will have some improvement. We sell quite a few of them to the gamers who want a better front sight but shoot in a world where the targets are generally static and clearly marked as to which ones are hostile and which ones are not.[emphasis added]
