Maybe your eyesight is fine and you want to extend the effective range of your handgun. Or maybe you just like the latest and greatest gadgets out there and want to be ahead of the curve when it comes to firearms innovations. No matter your motivation, red dot defensive pistols are clearly no longer a niche market, but are instead becoming a viable choice for the beginning shooter.
Prior to joining the team at Ammoman. Kevin has been a gun writer since , writing articles on the new reality of gun ownership in the U. Learn More. Running a red dot sight takes some practice. About The Author.
Kevin Creighton Prior to joining the team at Ammoman. Related Posts. Fullfield II. SpeedBead Shotgun Sight. RT Long Range. Close Quarter Kits. AR Prism Sights. Signature HD Binoculars.
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In a defensive gun situation, this can be the difference between taking 4 seconds to carefully align the sights for a hit in the bullseye and taking 2 seconds for a hit inside the 7-ring. Defense cares little for how close to the bullseye you can get, and everything for fast hits on target. That said, in my opinion, and in real-life, combat hold is king for defensive shooting. Instead of trying to painstakingly bisect the bad guy with the top of the front sight post requiring precious time and concentration , all you have to do is get the sights aligned and get the front sight post on center mass.
Sight acquisition is much faster, which means your defense is much faster. Flash Sight Picture is a product of the late Lt. Through extensive testing Lt. Cooper determined that, between roughly 3 and 10 yards, a shooter could attain an acceptable defensive accuracy by firing as soon as the front sight was roughly aligned with the rear sight. This could be accomplished in fractions of a second and allowed defensive shooters to get shots on target quickly.
The further the distance to the target, the higher likelihood of missing the target altogether. Key point: to be accurate, FSP requires a proper pistol grip and good trigger control.
There are no two ways about it, FSP is an advanced technique. Without a solid foundation in draw, proper grip and good trigger control, any shot fired using FSP is just as likely to miss the target. It is, however, a proven technique for rapid sight picture with acceptable accuracy.
Remember, sight picture is all about sight alignment superimposed onto the target. In order to have a solid sight picture, the shooter needs to be able to properly reference the target. Darkness adds an entirely different realm to the pistol shooter with iron sights. Center holds are near-impossible to judge in low-light because both the target and the front sight post are dark colors. The shooter will have great difficulty determining if the front sight post is actually bisecting the bullseye, or just near it, leading to huge variations in both vertical and horizontal impact.
With a proper focus on the front sight post, the bullseye will just fade away. No solid reference means a poor sight picture. Two dark colors meshing together, make it very difficult to determine if the front sight is fully beneath the bullseye, or just covering part of it. Vertical point of impact will vary significantly.
By driving the front sight post into the center of the bullseye, the shooter can compensate for color blend by covering all of it.
Even better, if your pistol is equipped with night sights, the front sight post will be the proud owner of a glowing dot. Place the center of the glowing dot center mass of the dark target.
Speaking of adverse shooting conditions, how should the sight picture change for shooting at a distance? How about an uphill or downhill? Fair warning, some of this is a bit of a brain bender. Generally, most ranges we all go to have a maximum distance of 25 yards. That is the distance with the best combination of economic factors larger ranges cost more money and some indoor ranges are even more limiting and shooter ability.
The level of skill required to reliably shoot beyond 25 yards increases dramatically. But does that mean your pistol can't shoot effectively past 25 yards? Not by a long stretch. But we have to change our approach a bit to get those shots on target.
Bring on the physics. The moment a fired bullet leaves the barrel of a gun, gravity begins to drag it back towards the earth. Gravity is a fact of life we are all familiar with, so that should come as no surprise.
The long-term trajectory of a fired bullet will resemble a parabolic arc. Full disclosure, the bullet does not actually rise after it's fired, the sights on a rifle are designed so that the barrel is actually pointed slightly upward. Pistol bullets behave similarly, with similar design features, but the initial path upward is so slight, it may as well not actually be there remember, rifles are designed for a long distance, so their barrels are designed to gently point up.
The peak and downward arc, however, follow the same path as the rifle bullet. Now, unlike a bullet, your eyes can see in a straight line, unaffected by gravity. The reality is, your line of sight can continue at a great distance without changing path. The pistol bullet you fire, however, will begin that downward arc immediately after being fired.
The key is, upon being fired, the bullet will retain maximum velocity for this, forward speed , and will travel much further horizontally, than gravity can bring it down vertically. For most pistol cartridges, the drop is less than. Your target is 20 yards away. You line up the sights and fire the first round. The round will hit the target right where you aimed it. Same process, you line up your sights, get a good combat hold on the bullseye, and pull the trigger.
That bullet now has to travel yards, losing velocity the entire way slowing down and having gravity drag it down. How close to the bullseye is your shot going to impact? So how do we counter bullet drop over a distance with a pistol? We adjust our sight picture to higher than our intended point of impact. With a rifle, we'd be able to make a whole series of sight adjustments to compensate for the distance and allow for the sight picture to remain the same, but on a pistol the sights are essentially fixed in place.
At its roots, Arkansas elevation is an educated guess. The iron sights on a pistol don't give the sort of feedback one would need to make really solid adjustments, and the distance to the target further limits the amount of feedback the shooter will get from the target. So the implication should be rather clear: we do not make critical shots with pistols at ranges that require Arkansas elevation.
I am including this portion of the guide for fun shooting purposes only. That said, the next time you get the opportunity to shoot pistol past 50 yards or so, practice with your Arkansas elevation. The further out you go, you may find that your sight picture needs to be aimed at the top of the bullseye, or even the top of the paper, depending on the distance. The further from the target you are, the higher you will need to aim.
We've established that a long distance shot will impact the target lower than aimed. Where will a distance shot uphill impact? How about downhill? They are not designed to help you shoot in small tight groupings. Rather, they allow you to get on your target quickly, bury the front sight in the rear notch and press the trigger- making them the right type of sight for the job. White dot sights are similar to combat sights, with a white dot on the front sight and two dots on the rear sight.
They come standard on most factory guns. White dot sights promote good visibility at the range. They can be fixed or adjustable. Bury the front blade in the rear notch on your target, line up the dots horizontally and press the trigger. Fiber optic sights provide a popular upgrade. Both front and rear sights have fiber optic tubes that gather ambient light and enhance the visibility of the sights.
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