red dot sights on handguns, where are we?

[Shadow9mm]

I had what I hope will be an interesting thought.

I know many things have been debated from whether its needed, to whether its is effective, to whether it can get dirty and make shooting impossible among many others. In short whether its a good or useful thing, or not, on a handgun.

I don't want to re-hash all that.

What I hope to understand is, where are we are right now. What is the current state of affairs. Who is doing it? Who is not doing it? Who is do able to (bought guns with cuts or rails) but has chosen not to. not in the future, not planning to, but doing right now. In the mail is fine, will be ordering does not count.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For the purposes of this post and poll, while they are pistols, can we try to exclude the.... de stocked, braced, SMG/ SBR RIFLE design type family. While I love them and I think the NFA needs to do away, they seem to disproportionately have red dots compared to... traditionally styled/designed handguns.

[101combatvet]

I've been thinking about putting one on a 1911 that has factory-fixed sights. I purchased adjustable sights for it but may go the red dot route. I'm still on the fence with this one.

[Sevens]

I don’t particularly like many handguns that are made today, I get most of my enjoyment from ones that are out of production.

One of the parts of the hobby I enjoy are the aesthetics and that absolutely kills optical sights on handguns.

So for me, I have zero plans now or ever. Certainly, that could change, but knowing myself the way that I do, it would be a big surprise if I changed.

[jetinteriorguy]

I just picked up a Hellcat a few months ago and love the sights it came with. But I’m struggling to overcome shooting it about an inch and a half to the left. I’ve tried drifting the rear sight with my sight tool and no matter what I do it won’t budge. If I can’t overcome this I’ve given some thought to adding a dot sight to get on target. I’m sure it’s a matter of me getting my technique corrected and with more practice I’ll be fine, I’m just conserving ammo these days so not shooting as much until I can restock primers.

[wild cat mccane]

In my mind, there is a demographic distribution of red dot owners. I don't know what it is though because there is no "red dot ownership survey."

I would think it follows the gun ownership distribution; rural owner, older, multiple gun owner.

Because they are "cool" I bet the second largest gun owner group, millennials. Millennials tend to not shy from a high price item and high experience product.

I also bet the aging eye largest gun owner group baby boomers and slightly older gen X make up the largest chunk.

Do you need to buy a red dot cut gun when buying new just to "future proof" your resell if you ever needed to sell? That is a good question for sure.

One thing is for sure, guns are going to have as much a wild ride as the last 10 years in the next 10 years as baby boomers decline more and the amount of guns owned by that group.

[TunnelRat]

I have 6 pistols with red dots attached, with 1 more that’s capable but I haven’t gotten to it yet.

I have vision issues that always made iron sights on pistols somewhat problematic. Without my glasses I can see the front sight perfectly, but the target is fuzzy (I’m nearsighted). The reverse is true with my glasses. I don’t have this issue with rifles. I think the focal point on my glasses is such that the distance to a pistol front sight is in a bad spot. Red dots take care of this for me as I am not aligning multiple focal planes, but superimposing the dot on the target. I also like the amount of the target I can see while using a red dot.

I still have handguns that only have iron sights. These include 1911s, revolvers, and older target pistols. I still enjoy shooting those other pistols and I don’t find using a dot primarily has hurt my iron sight shooting. In fact I’ve found the opposite. Part of the difficulty for many people in using a red dot is “finding” the dot when they present a pistol. This is overcome by developing a good “index” with the pistol such that the red dot is in its correct position when the draw is finished. Developing this index also helps shooting with iron sights.

In addition the more target focused shooting of red dots has helped me relax the extreme front sight focus I had with iron sights. I’m not saying front sight focus is bad, but I have found there’s a balance where allowing some target focus with iron sights can improve your speed without a negative impact on accuracy. Essentially I look at the target and as the sight come into view I use the rear sight for a coarse sighting (relative to the target) and the front sight to just finish the sight picture. There’s a clip from a livestream between two competition shooters that summarizes this well if I can find it.

I do around 5-6 defensive firearms courses a year. In the past two years there has been an explosion of red dot pistol use among the students in the classes with me. It went from very rare or almost nonexistent to so common that this year in a course I had with Kyle Lamb iron sights on pistols were the minority (I think 3/12 students), and the course wasn’t even focused on red dot usage. This has been true across all ages, though I do agree with wild cat that younger and older students seem to be more prevalent with middle aged students not using them as much.

Red dots on pistols have been very helpful to me. If I am buying a new pistol and it has an optics ready version I will wait until I can buy that version of the pistol. At the same time I’m not selling all my other handguns that don’t have red dots.


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[44 AMP]

I only have one red dot sight on a pistol, one of the older tube type that mounts with scope rings. It on a T/C Contender .45-70 14" barrel. Since you aren't counting AR types you probably won't count single shots, but its the only one I have with a red dot sight.

I don't, and won't have them on semi auto pistols that might possibly see defensive use. I could mount the red dot I have on one of my Desert Eagles, but along with increasing the already tremendous bulk, it would up the weight to over 5lbs, and at that point, I usually opt for a carbine.

I've seen the small red dot sights made to go on service class guns, but have no interest in them, so put me in the group of guys who "doesn't do it".

[Schlitz 45]

Love the red dots on my CZ TSO & AR's not so much on my P365, never have carried it with the red dot. Trained for several weeks with the 365 & got my draw from concealment & first shot on target times down but never as fast as iron sites-always seemed to be a fraction of a second to pick up the dot most times drawing cold.

[NoSecondBest]

I have red dots on all my target/hunting handguns. Years ago when I shot IHMSA Silhouette I qualified at my first shoot as AAA Standing class and shortly moved into International class. My eyesight was 20/10(L) and 20/15(R) back then and today at age 72 it’s still 20/20. I can shoot irons about as good as anyone I’ve ever met. In spite of that, I put red dots on my hunting/target guns because I can shoot better and faster with them than without. My carry guns don’t have them due to bulk and concealability. Shooting steel plate competition you can get on target much faster with a red dot and for hunting there’s really no handicap to using one. In spite of all the hype about not being able to accurately shoot with a red dot, it just ain’t so. I once put on on an 1886 Win 45-70 I own and it will shoot five shot groups of 1.3-1.8” at a measured 114 yards (my deck to my backstop) on a regular basis. That would be good for a scope and that caliber/gun. I don’t disagree with those who choose not to use one, but they’re not ahead of the game shooting without one. They do look out of place on a classic revolver, but if hitting the target is what it’s all about, put the dot on the gun.

[reddog81]

I've tried red dots on a variety of handguns. It makes shooting at longer distances much easier. The front sight on most handguns is way too big for plinking at 100 yards. A 3 MOA red dot makes hitting a 8" plate at 100 yards a fairly simple affair with the right gun.

[shafter]

I don't own any for my handguns yet but they definitely look to be the future. I was at several classes over the last year and all of the best and fastest shooters were using them. One of the classes was run by a former DEVGRU operator who swears by them and uses one on his CCW as well.

I would probably make the switch, but there is a learning curve to using them quickly and I don't think I want to adjust to having a dot and not having one when using a duty pistol vs my compact off duty weapon.

[wild cat mccane]

Someone is eventually going to figure out how to make the red dot feature be part of the gun without all the bulk.

Not yet. But the whole concept is a genius band aid to a real solution. Call me crazy

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by wild cat mccane

Someone is eventually going to figure out how to make the red dot feature be part of the gun without all the bulk.

Not yet. But the whole concept is a genius band aid to a real solution. Call me crazy

If you look at a lot of the red dots out there now the bases really aren’t that tall. By the time you mill the slide and insert the red dot the base is moderately encapsulated in the slide. Some designs allow the optic to sit much deeper than others and direct milling as opposed to using an optic plate helps the optic sit lower as well (though then you’re locked into one footprint). You can’t go too deep into the slide or you interfere with the striker/firing pin channel. The Leupold Deltapoint Micro went an interesting route of using the rear dovetail and hanging the electronics off the back of the slide. However, this means Leupold has to have specific versions of the sight for different manufacturers based on rear dovetail sizes and their relation to the rear of the slide.

Really the biggest protrusion is the optics window itself, and shrinking or removing that isn’t easy. Shrinking it reduces the window size meaning the range of orientations from which the optic can be seen is smaller than it would be otherwise. If you reduce the housing itself then you place the window in damage of breaking. Some designs, Grace Optics M1, omit the top of the housing entirely, and suffer the durability problems you might expect.

I imagine at some point in the future it will be less bulky, but I don’t think it’s an easy task, especially as in order to warrant the costs of research & development and production these optics need to be able to fit a range of pistols (larger user base means more chances to recoup costs). In the electronics world a lot of what has helped development is standardization of certain formats and connections. However, in the firearms market where many manufacturers produce what are essentially slightly different versions of the same thing and need to use differences to set themselves apart, that standardization could mean less profit for some of them.


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[Willie Lowman]

I mounted a SRO on a Gen 5 Glock 34. I shot it extensively in carry optics division USPSA and in informal shooting for a year to see what I thought of dots on pistols.

At first I had a lot of trouble finding the dot. I added suppressor height iron sights and by seeing the sights in my peripheral as I raised the gun I was able to align with the dot sight.

What improved with the use of the dot was my long range accuracy. I found that I was able to make A zone hits at 25 yards easily and quickly.

[JDBerg]

As a myopic baby boomer who tends to shoot at dimly lit indoor ranges, a red dot sight is a nice thing to have, but I don’t have one yet.

But when I lived in Cali, I had a chance to shoot a Gen3 17 with a red dot and a light Pyramid trigger, that had been worked over & sorted by the GlockStore in SD. It really was fun to shoot accurately at longer distances than I typically shot at this range. I could never imagine carrying a rig like this, but it was some fun range shooting for the few times that I tried it.

[AzShooter]

double post

[AzShooter]

I'm in favor of the red dots on my target pistols. Here is my Ruger Mark IV and my Black Mamba with C-More sights having 12 MOA dots on them. For steel shooting the bigger the dot the better.

I started shooting with a dot in the early 80s. I found that for me, my accuracy improved a lot.

[stephen426]

So the crazy thing is a bunch of guys from our shooting club showed up with red dots on their guns. It literally went from no one with a red dot to about 40%. I wanted to buy a slide from my Springfield Armory Hellcat, but they do not sell them. I found a good deal on one that had the Hex Wasp Red Dot on it. I may eventually sell off my non-red dot gun, but I have to dial in my gun and break it in first.

[Carriertxv]

Age is what’s putting them on my handguns.

[Rob228]

My EDC (Shadow Systems MR920) has a red dot. It takes a lot of getting used to, and it is a lot less forgiving than irons, but I've found that once I trained myself to use it, there are some noticeable advantages over irons.

I still have plenty of pistols without dots on them.

[raimius]

Yup.

They make small, distant, and/or moving targets MUCH easier to hit.

[Adventurer 2]

I fit all of the above. Have a Swamp Fox Sentinel on the way. My CZ Shadow 2 is the only pistol I currently have a red dot mounted on that I like. I tried to like a CZ P10S w Delta Point - after a few hundred rounds fired I removed the red dot - I’m faster and more accurate on that handgun with out the red dot

[Brutus]

Bought a 365XL with the Romeo zero sight, went through about 800 rounds with it before I gave up. Put the fixed night sights on it and my groups improved immediately.
Just couldn't get used to it.

[9x19]

I have one on one of my on .22s

My 9mms are all setup around defensive use, and I am much faster from the holster to the first hit with conventional sights.

[Doc Intrepid]

I have tried red dot sights on friends' handguns. I don't own any. Most handguns I own are set up for concealed carry and self-defense - sudden close range encounters - and like 9x19 "I am much faster from the holster to the first hit with conventional sights."