Red dot on a pistol: what to do

COREY

COREY

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Good evening everyone.

A shooting buddy got out of shooting and I bought out almost all his gear. One thing I ended up with was a Sig P226 Elite Dark. We used to informally compete against each other and he was always nipping at my heels with this against my Shadow.

Now that I have it I am not sure what to do with it. I went from 1 9mm 16 months ago to 5 (Shadow, Sig Elite, Sig P320, Glock 17 (soon to be 19), and a JR Carbine). I am trying to find a role for it as it shoots well and has a nice trigger.

My thought for it was to put a red dot on it. The NSCC allows red dots now and I do not want to swap out the sights on my Shadow as I have LPA adjustables on it. My other thought was to sell it and get a gun set up for a slide mounted red dot.

What would people here do? Would you put a rear sight red dot adapter, mill it (not a fan but an option), or sell it like I mentioned before?
 
hatman must be looking for one LOL, I put a red sight on a 1911 and like it, old eyes and such, I have a sight mount for a 226, looks like it should fit my P220, 45 , but have not tried it yet. I would give it a shot, I have 400.oo tied up in the mount and vortex Viper, also have a Verom, the 1911 mount is Burris, the 226 mount is EGW.
I tried the verom on a Canik TP9SFX 9mm that has the slide milled to a red dot, but I need to shoot it more , If I keep it to get use to the trigger, You glock guys would be O.K., but I am use to single action match triggers.
 
Well I tell you right now. That Ive found red dot sighted pistols a huge disadvantage. I thought about red doting my Grand Power K100, till I found the cost of a mount for it. So I picked up a Glock 34 MOS with a FF3. Now the sights on the Glock were too low to co witness. I had to order the tallest sights ameriglo sells. I don't think Id like the idea of 1/2" tall sights.

W/o having any sort of BUIS. Its slower to acquire the target and if you gotta shoot one handed or weak handed. You spend some time chasing the dot. Only time Ive seen it be a advantage, was a further ranges. A few guys I shoot with, all swapped their irons to RX for IPSC production optic class, but a few went back to irons as they found they were not shooting better or faster.

Ive been flip flopping between the iron and red dot Glock. And honestly it's looking at has no advantage. Last week I used a iron sight pistol, I only scored 3pt less that the highest score I shot with the 34 MOS. Another iron sight pistol was 10pts less. The groups were might tighter in the one handed, or weak hand stages.

Now I'm hoping with the sights coming that I'll have best of both words. The dot for the longer range, and irons for the short.
 
Red dot speed all comes down to having perfect weapon presentation from the draw, or high/low ready. Anyone how has a hard time finding their red dot just doesn't have that skill so they blame the red dot. Watch any semi-professional shooter on youtube and they all tell you the same thing.
 
If you are intent on going to a red dot, and I have one on a PPQ Match the following are my experiences.

Get a slide ready for optics gun. S&W, M&P, SIG and Walther all offer excellent pistols. Choose the one you like best. I have the PPQ. There is nothing wrong with the others. I had my Vortex on my CZ New Edition for awhile mounted in the dovetail cut. I found the sight sat to high above the frame for my liking. Too, the extra weight of the Optic slowed down the slide cycling noticeably. A lighter recoil spring would have solved that issue. Personally if you can afford a new gun go with an Optic ready model.

Shooting an Optic without co-witness available iron sights takes some getting used to. I have to say I am not there yet. I seem to be chasing the dot all the time which is my fault not the design. That will disappear with practice.

From a bench and shooting freestyle there is a huge improvement in my accuracy with the red dot when I shoot slowly. I am not there yet shooting fast - see the above paragraph. If you have experienced eyes and corrective lens are not the answer you will find the red dot option a blessing. I still have glasses which solve my sight issues so mastering the optic sight is less important to me than others I suspect but I intend to do so as I want to play in Optic Divisions. The PPQ I have is expensive but the guns are incredibly accurate with excellent triggers for a striker fired pistol, probably the best you will find outside of the SiG 320 which from my limited experience has an very good trigger as well.

Good luck in finding the right blaster for you. I hope it works out for you.

Take Care

Bob
 
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