This weekend I took MDFI (Michigan Defensive Firearms institute) HG1 and HG2 which was taught by Erik Utrecht of Blue Cell protective services and Tom Fineis of Raven Concealment. I had just picked up the Glock 19 from Doug a local machinist (he does slide/trigger work for Steve Fisher and Chris Costa of Magpul). I promptly zero’d the the RMR and just put a few rounds through the gun before putting it away for the weekend. Over the weekend I ran roughly 700 rounds through the gun. The first advtanges I noticed from the RMR were speed, I could quickly get hits on both steel and targets past 15 yards…much faster than I was with Irons, another advantage is the huge RMR on top of my slide, which allowed for a ledge for either racking the slide or press checking. The only disadvantage I really noticed was shooting close up, anything closer than 5 yards and I was much slower with the dot versus irons, at that point if it wasn’t precision shooting and just COM hits I was using the RMR as a huge ghost ring, which worked pretty well.
I think one of the biggest advantages with the RMR came with one handed manipulations…most of my guns have had some type or rear sight wiht a ledge, which helped for one handed racking the slide, but sometimes the ledge would slip off the holster or belt or you could miss the surface entirely, with the RMR it was ridiculous, I could rack the slide off of my knee or really any surface, the huge window of the RMR was a huge help in that category.
I first shot a red-dot pistol close to three years ago, and I’m still spending time with the concept. Most people end up slower at closer distances trying to find the dot. Seeing the iron sights coming into your vision is typically enough ‘guidance’ for our hand-eye coordination to line them up and press our shots off.
Unlike a rifle, there is no solid cheekweld to force our eye to look through the red dot. I find most people (myself included) end up pointing the pistol higher than it needs to be, and have to move it downward for the dot to become visible. Once you find the dot, it seems fairly easy to make good hits and find the dot again quickly after recoil.
I’m not totally sold on it, but we have had a lot of students that it works well for. Aging eyes especially have benefited from this set up, and guys with very serious eye dominance issues have had good luck as well.
It’s a lot of fun clanging steel at 100yds over and over, though. As the distance increases, the dot becomes more and more of a multiplier, IMO.
For my use, I’m fairly certain I will stick with a good set of irons, but this setup can be beneficial given the shooter and situation.
I’ve never used one of these, so take this for what it’s worth, but isn’t “chasing the dot” the reason some people object to lasers as well? I’ve been told RE: lasers that one should use their normal visual reference, but when that is an issue, such as low light, shooting on the move, etc. that the laser is beneficial.
So should one rely on irons at close range, and utilize the dot when it becomes an advantage? Or is the optic obtrusive enough that it would preclude you from doing this?
This. If you can see the irons, you can see the dot. And if you have a choice of irons or dot, I would choose the dot. The problem is getting the proper press out and sight picture to consistently find the dot quickly. It’s a training issue, but even with a lot of practice on them, I’m still not totally sold (for my uses).
On day one that’s what I was going doing and I thought pretty well, but for some reason on day two I was getting lazy with my press outs and started to chase the dot, it definitely showed with my speed being much slower.
I’d like to chime in since I just finished a week-long handgunning course at FAS with my RMR’ed Glock 17. I have both the RMR and cowitnessed irons. If you set yourself up with an iron cowitness, then you can transition to irons if you feel more comfortable doing so because they will be there if the “electronics fail” argument comes to play. With irons on there, it shouldn’t be slower than a factory pistol.
It’s definitely a system you have to get used to. You have to retrain yourself so when you bring the pistol to bear, it aligns with your eyes naturally…like switching between a Glock or 1911 and having to retrain the natural point of aim due to grip angle differences. If you’re forcing yourself to find the dot instead of the dot coming up naturally, retraining is required to find that sweet spot.
I will concur that the frame of the RMR is a perfect ghost ring for point shooting. If you don’t have time for acquiring the dot, you really don’t have time to find irons either. The ghost ring will give you “good enough” center mass hits up close. You don’t necessarily even need irons for close work like that. We practiced drills in daylight and low light by taping up our sights. Your natural point of aim, and being target-focused with consistency in grip and stance works well out to about 5-7 yards. They won’t be pretty one-hole groups, but you’re still getting a nice miscellany of center mass hits.
The red dot starts to shine when you get out further. A-zone IPSC hits at 50 yards prone were relatively easy and I am a very novice shooter.
The upcoming custom Blade-Tech WRS holster for Suarez International/One Source Tactical molded for the Glock RMR is also the cat’s ass. I’ve already handled the finished product and TSD is going to sell them mighty quick to folks running the RMR rigs as duty guns. The molded logo also makes it extra sweet. It’ll be the solution for folks that don’t want to remold or chop up their current holsters. The substantial hood protects the RMR from collecting lint and dust on the front side.
I have a One Source Tactical/Lone Wolf slide for G19 w/RMR. 8MOA dot. Suppressor sights.
Took it to the Vickers Adv Pistol/Carbine a couple weeks ago. Actually took a dremil to my Safariland holster to make room.
My impressions were much slower to acquire dot at close ranges. Should have tried the “ghost ring” technique. Past that it was a tack driver. Took it all the way on the walkback to about 120m on steel…
As stated already, if you look for the dot you tend to aim high. I find that bringing the gun to line of sight while keeping eyes on target, like you would with iron sights, at least puts the dot visible in the glass. Practice will put it right on target.
The tall suppressor iron sights are easily picked up through the glass. You have to train yourself not to look for the for the dot and it does take some time.
Yes, I hit it briefly with a heat gun and just slipped the Glock in until the Kydex cooled. It only needed to remold a small portion near the front, lower left of the RMR.
It worked awesome for class, the only issue I had was during the night shoot…our targets had white backgrounds so once I activated the x300 the dot would wash out…I immediately transitioned to iron sights without even really thinking about it and continued getting hits on target. This was the third class that I ran my glock through and really I have no complaints whatsoever, the RMR definetly made making hits at 25 yards pretty easy…I was noticably quicker than the people around me landing 5 good hits on COM.
