Today’s feature, by Dave Spaulding, Handgun Combatives, is from our companion service - the Shooting Wire.
The first time I saw a compact red dot sight on a combative pistol was on the Glock 19 belonging to J. Kelly McCann. A former Marine with an extensive background in special ops and a master instructor in hand-to-hand combat and firearms, McCann wanted to have the same visual sight on his carry pistol that was on his carbine. Aging eyes was also a factor, so he placed a Docter optic on his Glock and began to run the gun. The Docter was originally intended to piggyback a magnified rifle optic for close quarter engagements but fit well on the Glock slide. The concept was not new to me, having used larger red dot optics (scopes, really) on my competition guns, but on a fighting pistol, a gun that would likely take abuse? Well, that was worth a closer look.
Fast forward to today and their use is so popular that custom gunsmiths across the country are now mounting these sights into a pistol’s slide by cutting a dovetail to offer a lower profile and allow for co-witnessing with iron sights in the event of failure. Many gun manufacturers are also offering their guns pre-cut for the optic as well due to their growing popularity and most all sight manufacturers now offer optics directed at handguns.
In the mid-2000’s, copying McCann’s idea, I used one of the early versions of the Mini Red Dot Sights (- not all are red these days -) for a year for a series of articles for LAW OFFICER MAGAZINE, examining their future use on law enforcement handguns. I had a slide cut by the good folks at Caspian before it was common, mostly because I wanted to use the notch on the rear of the J Point sight as my rear sight, which would offer less “clutter” on top of the slide. During the year that I used the red dot, I also used a fixed sight slide as a control. I carried the red dot in all weather conditions, as well as a few competitions and training courses, all in an attempt to see how well the sight would hold up. Although it takes time to get used to the red dot after a shooter grasps the concept, the red dot sight is fast and accurate and allows the shooter to look at the target through the sight. Make no mistake, at conversational distances you WILL be looking at that which is trying to do you harm…been there, done that … Don’t let anyone, regardless of notoriety, tell you otherwise.
I passed this gun around during SWAT training for a local team, and all who shot it liked the idea that the pistol sight looked the same as their rifle sight. Such continuity would be a real plus during training and operations. Folks who were more oriented towards competition were all on board for the concept, liking he idea of their carry gun offering a similar sight to their competition firearm.
Do I believe these are the next generation of pistol sights? It doesn’t matter, they are here. Moving forward, continued popularity will depend on durability and what their cost will be. Will iron sights go away? – No, no more than they have for carbines. A contingency plan is always a good thing and having sights to fall back on in the event the optic fails is just good practice.
The following are my thoughts on red dot sights on COMBAT pistols based on my experiences over the last decade plus:
• The sights are fast and accurate. Though I don’t overly abuse my sights, they seem to hold their zero through normal-to-rugged use. Losing zero concerns me more than the sight losing its dot. If the dot is still there, I will be looking at it not realizing it is no longer accurate which could be a serious problem in a fight! If the screen goes blank, I will just revert to an alternate sighting method.
• When going from cold to hot environments and vice versa, the sights can fog over. I tried several different defog products and most worked as advertised with ‘Cat Crap’ being the best. I found that wiping the sight with saliva worked well, much like on a scuba diving mask and I always have a supply of that on hand.
• The sight got in the way of older rotating hood-style police duty/SWAT holsters. A thumb break worked just fine, as well as open top concealment holsters, which is what I use most of the time. More and more duty holsters are now being made for these sights.
• The sight window can be chipped by extracted brass that ejects back instead of out. This doesn’t affect the sight or obscure the dot in my experience, but it can be frustrating on a relatively expensive unit.
• The sight was no harder to conceal in a proper belt holster than traditional fixed pistol sights and was just as fast to draw from the holster once the deliberate action required is mastered (see next).
• The BIG problem with using the MRDS is PRESENTATION to the target whether it be from a ready position, holster, following a reload or stoppage manipulation, especially at close distances. The sight is great at distance, which is obvious, but can be a challenge to use close up. Biomechanics can overcome this problem.
• Overhand manipulation of the slide can result in a sweaty palm print on the forward side of the optic lens.
Dave Spaulding is a professional firearms instructor with 36 years' experience in Law Enforcement and Federal Security. The recipient of the 2010 Law Enforcement Trainer of the Year Award from the International Law Enforcement Training and Educators Association (ILEETA), Dave has worked in all facets of law enforcement including communications, corrections, court security, patrol, evidence collection, training and investigations. He was a founding member of his agency’s SWAT Team and acted as its training officer for 8 years. He spent a year in an undercover capacity and was the commander of a multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force, has been an adjunct instructor at the former Heckler & Koch International Training Division and the Tactical Defense Institute. In addition to his many published articles (over 1,400), Dave is the author of two acclaimed books, Defensive Living and Handgun Combatives. He currently operates his own training company that focuses exclusively on “the combative application of the handgun” www.handguncombatives.com.