I have a mild astigmatism only about 10 degrees, and I have actually find the reverse of this to be the case. I have both EOTechs and Aimpoints, and I have found the smaller 1MOA EOTech dot blooms much less than the 2 or 4 MOA Aimpoint dots. I can shoot the EOtech more precisely at distance due to the smaller dot, and faster at close range due to the circle than the Aimpoint T1 with or without glasses/contacts.
Cameron
RDSs are a requirement for me and as many have stated, have way more advantages to personal survival than the Irons ever can. Having said that, it is still prudent to be proficient with the Irons in case your RDS goes tits up, for any reason. Irons only for any serious social purposes? Hell no.
Wrong…you forgot position and biomechanic involvment in excellent marksmanship. Everyone should learn with irons and the analog way of doing things and work up. A red dot is a snap to a trained marksman. Yeah…go shoot that silhouette at 50M. I’m sorry but that is a joke to someone that is an expert marksman. Speed is lost, but much is gained that you are over-looking.
Dry-firing, establishment of NPOA and trigger control is essential to be a great marksman. The only way to acquire this is through dry-firing and iron sight shooting. NPOA becomes a reflex and cannot be taught well using red dots.
So, I whole-heartedly disagree with folks either too ignorant or lazy to learn fundamental marksmanship skills. I can pick up any rifle on earth and shoot it well. Why??? Because I learned the fundamentals of marksmanship and that did not involve optics. I can take a person well trained in analog and get them shooting accurately with an Aimpoint/ACOG in minutes, not so the other way around. They understand the fundamentals.
Shooting irons also allows one to appreciate dope more precisely. Irons can be used effectively out to 6-800M. Don’t BS b/c I routinely shoot 1000 YD with an M14 and well at that. Red dots are too inaccurate unless you are closer than 200M.
Learn to shoot the irons and then move on. Otherwise, when your optics fail you will be a liablility to those depending on you, either the family you are trying to defend or your cadre around you.
The issue is that learning the fundamentals of marksmanship is labor intensive. You have to dry-fire to learn trigger control and establish a natural point of aim. Consistent cheek-weld is also necesaary. These fundamentals are not possible to work out with a red dot b/c the red dot is not precise enough to allow target feedback to what one is doing incorrectly.
I never could get myself to a carbine class b/c I found it ridiculous to shoot 1500 rounds at targets 50M away. I won’t miss unless I experience a failure or am concussed. I can learn mag changes, gear placement, and failure drills on my own. Don’t need to destroy a rifle to do it and doubt I will ever be able to survive an engagement where I shoot that many rounds. All these tactical to practical folks thinking they are going to survive with a 2 man team against an assault in which they dump through 8 mags. Yeah right. The guy you don’t see b/c it is impossible to maintain 360 degree security with 2 men is the one that puts you down.
Just some things to think about. I am sure all the dogmatists will try and poke through my arguements. I could care less, b/c I proved them to be correct for myself.
your avatar betrays your bias. too bad you couldn’t be bothered to get to a class, so you could speak from a position of experience instead of one of ignorance.
you haven’t proved anything, other than you’d prefer to jam your fingers in your ears, scrunch your eyes up tight, and holler “nananananananana” whenever an opinion you disagree with comes along.
I find it ironic that you’re talking about civilian use of firearms in the same post as shooting to 800+ yards with irons sights, and poo-pooing CQB-distance skills.
Bob,
I have an eight year old and I’ve struggled trying to teach him sight alignment and sight picture with the peep sights on his little Savage .22. I have access to a S&W 15-22 and I think putting my M4 on the gun will help him. The RDS or scope gives a new shooter confidence and the ability to concentrate on other fundamentals. I still want him to know how to use his sights but you bring up a good point. I want to avoid the idea that his sights are not important. When he is old enough to drive I want to teach him how to drive a standard too, that may prove difficult. I also believe having confidence in your irons helps when your optics are not available for what ever reason. My serious guns all have optics. I want a gun with irons only for fun and nostalgia.
I first came to a RDS about 12 years ago. I was in a class by a guy named “Jim Crews” and he had some sort of RDS on his gun. Back when battery life was in the 10s or 100s of hours.
I was shooting irons and I also wear glasses. Well, at the time I wore glasses, I have since had IntraLASE Lasik correction. In this class I was shooting pretty well from standing or kneeling positions but from prone positions I was shooting about 12" or 15" low on average (I don’t remember the exact amount).
Mr Crews wanted to find out what my problem was and watched me shoot. He handed me his rifle, with RDS, and from the prone position I had no problems at all. We figured out that in the prone position, I was looking through my glasses at an angle instead of straight through and the light was being bent enough to make me aim 12-15" off when dealing with a 2 position (front and rear) iron sight. The single red dot of his RDS did not have this problem. I believe it was a sort of parallax.
So I went out and got myself a Trijicon reflex sight (no batteries etc). That worked well enough for me until I learned about Aimpoint and CompM2/ML2, and that the battery life had been improved significantly at which point I traded up.
I figured that’s how the yellow hat guy would respond. You always did make fun of my avatar. Your issue is you only look to find fault with anyone’s position when it differs from yours instead of finding any commonality.
A rifleman that finds error in learning to shoot analog is just not a competent rifleman. The CQB stuff is OK, boring in about 5 minutes to someone that can handle a rifle. Folks take it way too far as being the only skill necessary. You need both and the long-range shooting is much more difficult to master and requires thought. You have to know dope and environmental factors. Not so with just shooting hundreds of rounds downrange at a 50M target. What bozo can’t hit a target at 50M with a red dot??? You still aren’t a marksman b/c you won’t be able to hit crap at 500M.
I just think rationally about what threats I actually may face. Someone or 2-3 people breaking in my house or a mugger on the street. I’m covered. The rest is a death sentence. All these carbine class fools either need to join a militia in Montana or join the military. Without support you would not last but a few minutes in combat. It’s the guy you don’t see that kills you easily. How can you maintain security with 2 people??? You would have to disengage and maneuver to find concealment/cover or die quickly. The scenerios presented are just ridiculous to anyone with a basic knowledge of small unit tactics. The pretense it that you have a unit to depend on in the first place. You need at least to be able to form a wheel/360 degree defensive screen.
I didn’t make fun of it, I pointed out that you’re a wooden-gun guy, with a wooden-gun mentality. Is that not true?
A rifleman that finds error in learning to shoot analog is just not a competent rifleman. The CQB stuff is OK, boring in about 5 minutes to someone that can handle a rifle. Folks take it way too far as being the only skill necessary. You need both and the long-range shooting is much more difficult to master and requires thought. You have to know dope and environmental factors. Not so with just shooting hundreds of rounds downrange at a 50M target. What bozo can’t hit a target at 50M with a red dot??? You still aren’t a marksman b/c you won’t be able to hit crap at 500M.
I’d love for you to come out with all your skills and test yourself. I personally think you won’t, not because you disagree with the concept but because you’re afraid all of your bravado won’t translate to results.
I also don’t see where anyone has said anything about only skills, not further learning distance shooting, etc. What Bob was talking about was initial approach out of the gate, and I happen to agree with him. Your insistence on learning irons first is as outdated as your guns (to “make fun” of your avatar again).
I just think rationally about what threats I actually may face. Someone or 2-3 people breaking in my house or a mugger on the street. I’m covered. The rest is a death sentence. All these carbine class fools either need to join a militia in Montana or join the military. Without support you would not last but a few minutes in combat. It’s the guy you don’t see that kills you easily. How can you maintain security with 2 people??? You would have to disengage and maneuver to find concealment/cover or die quickly. The scenerios presented are just ridiculous to anyone with a basic knowledge of small unit tactics. The pretense it that you have a unit to depend on in the first place. You need at least to be able to form a wheel/360 degree defensive screen.
So which is it? You’re engaging at close range, in which case CQB skills are the necessary tools, or you’re engaging at distance and accepting your “death sentence”? and what does one who believes the fight, and the legally defendable fight, will take place close range have to do with a military or a militia?
At this point I don’t think you can even cohesively make your own argument as I frankly can’t follow your posts or your “logic”. What is it that you think you’re preparing for by only testing yourself at long range and ignoring the close range? Or is it just your assumption that you’ll pick right up on speed loads, tac loads, hold over, shooting on the move, use of cover and concealment, firing from unconventional positions, assessing the intended final resting place of your projectiles vs. what flat paper has taught you is the aiming point, on a moving target, in the dark… and all with iron sights?
In regards to the OP, I think a RDS is the most important upgrade to any gun intended for home defense right behind a flashlight. Without a flashlight you can’t identify your target so you can’t shoot, and if you’ve identified a threat you will want to have effective rounds flying to meet them as quickly as possible which is where a RDS shines.
I think it’s silly to neglect a sighting system that is extremely effective at night on a HD rifle. It’s also easy to show how much faster a RDS is compared to irons on the same gun. The only real obstacle is the entry price.
I have a friend with an astigmatism and his problem is with EOTechs. I think the upshot is that if you have an astigmatism, try a RDS before you buy it!
out of curiosity, which is it?
I just think rationally about what threats I actually may face. Someone or 2-3 people breaking in my house or a mugger on the street. I’m covered
Simo Häyhä? Is that you?.. You lost me on the above statement. You are defending a distance w/ irons skillset, spatting on carbine classes, but admit your realistic and rational threats are CQB distances…What is the probability that you will be posted up in a tree pinging targets at that distance? Train for whats practical right?
Answers in red.
vet,
When I was with my old girlfriend, I would take her son to the range as often as I could. Great kid, miss him.
What I did first, was give him a Ruger MK Govt model w/ a heavy barrel and Tasco propoint. I put it on a sand bag, lined up some soda cans, and let him have at it. Once he got it out of his system, and was hooked. I told him, if he really wanted to learn to shoot, I would teach him, but it wont be fun, and it’ll be work. He was in to martial arts at the time and working towards his blackbelt, so he understood.
I got him a marlin youth single shot .22, with another cheap RDS on it, so he didn’t have worry about getting a good cheekweld on a still to long stock, s trying to line up three things, what to focus on, blah blah blah, he would loose interest fast.
Again I put it on the sand bag, and had him shoot at the cans, teaching him to press the trigger properly. Pretty soon he moved to dots on paper, when he saw ME shoot little groups, I told him, when he can do that, I’ll get him a new gun, the seed was planted and we were on our way.
Unfortunately, me and his mom “broke up”, so it all went to waste.
The plan was always to move up to various other fundamentals, once he could make little groups from a sandbag. Once he understood all that, teaching him to line up sights would be easy.
Bob
NPOA becomes a reflex with practice. You don’t need to think about it, your subconscious mind just does it. That’s what training and dry-firing is for. So your reflex response is the correct one. You have to train your body to align the sights correctly. You don’t have time to think it through when rounds are flying.
Good luck with that 2 man thing.
So, whats with all the insults, fools? bozo’s? You get your feeling hurt at the 50mtr line once?
I think about my most likely scenario also, its way more then 2-3 people, or a mugger, and they’ll be better trained and armed then MS13, that’s for sure.
If you haven’t been to a course, how do you know what the scenario presented is?
Where did you learn your basic knowledge of small unit tactics? you don’t need a wheel to get 360 degrees.
Somewhere around here is a thread by a young marine, who’s now paralysed, and still attending training. The thread is along the line of how his official/dogmatic training, mostly in long rang shooting skills, with iron sights, failed him in combat. Perhaps that would be a good read for you.
Bob
That’s BS, period. It may work when you have all the time in the world, on a flat range, with impossibly blue skies and wispy white clouds.
Try it when your cold, wet and tired, having just humped a 100 pound load for a few klicks, wearing armor, and a heaving chest, and johnny jihad pops up and starts popping rounds at you.
Unless your telling me, you are so hard working, because I’m lazy, right? that when you go to the range, you practice NPOA under every possible condition you might find yourself?
Why don’t you stick to yellow glasses, & battlerifles.com
Yea NPOA can and is important under certain circumstances. I never said it wasn’t. I only said, you do not need to learn to shoot iron sights first, to be a proficient marksman. After you master trigger manipulation, everything else is cake.
What you are advocating, is taking a young shooter, and throwing him to the wolves.
So now he’s laying there in the prone, trying to remember every little nuance that you told him is of paramount importance. Gritting his teeth, try to maintain his steady position, NPOA, breathing, grip, focus on front sight, but make sure you line it up in the rear, back to front, center of mass on target, back to front, steady position…and snatch!!! he’ll miss
Remove all that, teach him trigger skills, then slowly add in all the other fundamentals.
Bob
Bob
To the poster who has 5 or 6 rifles all with irons only: Maybe next time consider your mission priorities, or work on developing them a little further. You may find that instead of 5 or 6 rifles that two rifles with red dots might be more effective. I expect you can only use on at a time anyway. That and a backup are all you really “need.” I suspect you will still have money left over for ammo and training.
You need at least 4 to get 360 security. One person cannot watch 180 degrees and catch movement.
I learned small unit tactics from FM 7-8 Infantry Platoon and Squad. Also through intensive studies of Soviet small unit engagments during WWII, mainly Stalingrad, Poznan, Breslau, and Berlin, and studying the Vietnam conflict. Haven’t gotten into Iraq or Afghanistan history yet as not much has been written. Korean Conflict was mainly a large scale conventional war. Not much to learn there except Cold War politics, which are very interesting in their own right.
I don’t think about any of that while I am shooting. It is all reflex and only took me a few years to master. if you train right…you don’t need to think, but you must be trained properly. You can’t train a marksman with a red dot. How will you learn sight alignment with a parallax free dot??? You will never get any feedback about head position and cheek-weld. You will also never get a consistent sight picture b/c of the 2-4 MOA dot. Learn the fundamentals and then move on. What other occupation/sport does not teach the fundamentals before moving on to more complex topics??? I can think of none.
You obviously know a lot more about tacti-cool stuff and I’ll call it that unless it is your profession. If you are military than step up, if not then step off.
I get all the need for the CQB stuff if I were going to combat, but I am not. I am defending my home, family, and person. I am not going to attack anyone. I read about this stuff out of curiousity. I have read more than 3k books concerning conflict. After that many you start to pick up on unit tactics and can even begin to devise one’s for yourself with the fundamentals of security and movement in mind.
Bob,
Great idea. The M4 is a little on the heavy side but with a good rest he should be good to go. With the little ones you need to catch them early and keep their intrest. The first time I had him shoot the .22 he complained about the recoil. He was only three. :laugh: