With the development of the basic red dot sight it was soon found that when used on handguns which are difficult for some people to control and which also provide the shooter with a very short aiming radius, the scope style to red dot (housed) view or HUD (heads up display) can change things very quickly when it comes to performance.
Due to the handgun's short sight radius, any off-target movement can be greatly magnified compared to sights used on a long-barreled rifle.
What the sight will do is eliminate all reference to sight alignment, as you are now dealing with one point of aim versus two (front and rear sights). And now all the shooter has to do is put that dot on the target and send a downward shot.
However, there are issues with using red dot sights for handguns, and here are some things you will need to practice for when turning to this glass sight system.
Sight wobble
Since the glass sight is magnified or at least superimposed on a glass screen like in HUD sights, there will be excessive or exaggerated red dot movement when aligned by the shooter. This oscillation, as I call it, will vary depending on the shooter's ability to control the weapon in hand.
Just as the rifleman must develop breathing and trigger control, the hand gunner must develop a soft grip and learn to eliminate as much of that wobble as possible. In this case, less is always more in terms of performance-based standards (achieving low-end targets).
One method that always works is to shoot from a rest. I've shot the Remington XP-100 on a 22 Hornet and a .223 Rem for years on long-range prairie dogs, but I've always used a special little bench-rest setup. Trying to keep that view of a dog's body 200 yards away was a bit too much for my aging carcass.
Eye relief
When considering applying a red dot sight to the
hand gun holsters, special consideration should be given to the amount of eye relief that is designed into the pistol sight. Why is this important? Because of the recoil. And also, the stance and form of shooting is different from rifle or shotgun shooting.
Machine gunners need a considerable distance between their eyes and the rear sight lens. Failure to do so, and being forced to compress against the scope to aim at a target, will result in serious damage to the shooter's face or eyes.
Large caliber guns, like the 44 Magnum, 500 Smith & Wesson, or 454 Casull, fCasualmple, require at least 17 inches of eye relief. The recoil is huge and the gun returns very quickly to the shooter.
No time or place to dodge the weapon's reward move, and even if you could get away without getting hit in the face, the shooter will likely flinch and send the shot off target.
In terms of red dot sight design, I like the HUD style using the wide open wide-opendow with the red or green dot superimposed against the glass. This gives the shooter a wide open view around and beyond the sight window, and at the same time allows very precise control of the red dot when on target.
For example, I shoot ith the Truglo 'Open Dot' sight. This unit is small, has an easily acquired glass screen, and is comparable to optics-ready gun sights.
The other type of sight is a tube or has a round housing design that requires looking through, much like a scope sight, when shooting the red dot sight. In this case, you lose peripheral vision regarding the areas around the main target and also observe your target in a very specific viewing area.
I shoot the Truglo at a Ruger MARK IV 22 LR target game or gun. The pistol is a Black Hills Ammunition presentation model and is ultra-accurate, reliable, and deadly with the use of a 3 MOA red dot.
The red dot sight removes the traditional approach to shooting with a handgun. The only major downside to this system is that it requires batteries and can turn itself off just when you need it most.
The second issue is the size of the HUD or tube-style sight. In this case, special trunk-type
western holsters are needed to transport the weapon abroad.
If you are strugIfng to get your hands on the RDS-compatible
1911 holster, get in touch with an expert.
