Considering a red dot for my defensive pistol

[MontereyC6]

I know that I'd dearly love something like this... But just don't (and won't) have the extra money.

-J-

You and me both. I can do the slide work myself, I just need to justify it right now. I already need to put suppressor sights on my threaded M&P.......

 

[Rookie]

I'm pretty sure the RM02 is a fixed brightness.

 

[phylodog]

I'm pretty sure the RM02 is a fixed brightness.

It should auto adjust depending on the available light

 

[Rookie]

You're right, I looked it up. The drugs I'm on is kicking my butt.

 

[Rob377]

You should race a decent shooter with irons to 1. introduce a little bit of stress, and 2. determine whether spending $$$$ on an RDS is a better use of resources than training and practice with irons.

THAT would be a cool test.

 

[Rookie]

Phylodog with irons, and Esrice with RMR.

 

[42769vette]

Ill be interested in seeing how this goes aswell. I carry the razor red dot, but Im Very far from being good enough with a pistol to be able to give cold hard facts on positives and negatives to putting to dot on a pistol. I have one on my glock 17L but I still have not gotten around to milling out the slide.

 

[phylodog]

I recorded a side by side run of a course with irons and with the RMR after I'd had it for about a week. I flubbed my presentation on the string with the 180* turn which ended up being the only string I wasn't quicker with the RMR.

RMR target from the course

Iron sight target

 

[jve153]

i would say that the RMR is the clear victor there, however, from my experience with rifles, there is still a need to practice without it. i ran a red dot on my AR for a long time before i started using iron sights, and as fun as it was to be able to hit targets effectively with the red dot, i still needed the iron sights to work on the basics. that said, i suck with a pistol, and i have been looking into the red dot idea for a while as a possible short term solution to a longer term problem. i like the idea of point and shoot, and the ease of the red dot, however i can see myself relying on it and not getting the iron sight practice i sorely need.

 

[phylodog]

It's bad juju to rely solely on an electronic sighting system. I ran AR15 rifles with iron sights and pistols with regular sights long before shooting either with a red dot. I still practice regularly with irons on both systems.

 

[42769vette]

i would say that the RMR is the clear victor there,

Have yor ran with the razor? Im not saying your right or wrong, I just dont know how you can call a clear winner unless you tried both.

 

[phylodog]

Have yor ran with the razor? Im not saying your right or wrong, I just dont know how you can call a clear winner unless you tried both.

I think he was talking about my runs with standard sights vs the RMR rather than the RMR vs another red dot.

 

[Tom Fineis]

Hey Evan,

I'm a big fan of the RMR. I have them on both of my carry Glocks these days. It took me a bit of time to settle in to them but once I have, I really like their benefits.

 

[Rookie]

Esrice, don't forget the M&P has the CORE model which would save on mill work, finish, and sights.

 

[swampdonkey]

i use the red doc on my FN combat pistol while deployed! works very good! if you reflex shoot a lot then you will get full value out of them!

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

i use the red doc on my FN combat pistol while deployed! works very good! if you reflex shoot a lot then you will get full value out of them!

Can you please tell me more about the FN combat pistol that you used while deployed?

Who were you deployed with?

 

[Rob377]

Can you please tell me more about the FN combat pistol that you used while deployed?

Who were you deployed with?

He must have been dual wielding like all the bad mofo operators do.

i use a HK MK 23 for carry, used this weapon on several deployments to iraq! after carrying it i will never use another pistol! one of the best pistols ever made!

Though, everyone knows the bad mofo operators really use Sig P226s in 10mm.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Though, everyone knows the bad mofo operators really use Sig P226s in 10mm.

I'm so bad...I wasn't ever issued a weapon.

 

[Rob377]

I'm so bad...I wasn't ever issued a weapon.

A Tier 0.5 operator!?!?!?!

 

[esrice]

*****UPDATE*****

I apologize for the delay in updating this thread, but I encountered a bump in the road that I will explain below.

The week after I received the Bowie RMR'd M&P9 from Rookie (late December 2012) I was able to get some trigger time down at lovemywoods' range. It was a cold, wet, muddy day, but I was determined to at least get a hard zero on the red dot and start familiarizing myself with it.

You can see from these pictures the heavy fog that set in as the snow on the ground was melting, turning everything to mush.

I was alone on this particular trip so my gear list was short and simple-- eye and earpro, holster and mag pouch, M&P, and a bucket of 9mm.

I started by shooting at a 9" paper plate with an orange dot in the middle. I was semi-supported by shooting over the seat of a 4-wheeler. I was roughly 3 yards away from the target. It was already pretty close and just a few clicks here and there had me putting round after round on top of each other.

One thing I remembered from my previous experience with a red dot on a pistol, however, was that every single tiny thing that disturbed (traditional) sight alignment is magnified when looking at the dot. Even the smallest movements would send the dot over to the left or right, up or down. Ultimately this is a great thing, but it really takes some getting used to. It forces you to focus on applying the fundamentals correctly.

Next I spent some time running the Bobcat Steel dueling tree and plate rack. Being able to have a target focus (opposed to a front sight focus) is great when transitioning from target-to-target. As long as my trigger control was smooth the hits kept coming.

Then I wanted to look at accuracy at distance. I've heard some pretty amazing stories about RMR'd pistol shots at 100 and 200 yards, so I was curious how "easy" they were.

To test this I did what I call a "walk back" drill. My target was a 66% Bobcat Steel AR500 IPSC target. Starting very close at ~10ft. I fired 1 round. Hit. I then turned around and walked back 3 steps. Turn around, fire, hit. Repeat. I was curious how far back I could get before I started throwing my shots off target. As I reached the back of the 25-yard pistol range I was impressed with how easy the dot made things. I still had to do my part in terms of trigger control, but I didn't have to worry about traditional sight alignment at all.

Continuing the drill I walked across a small creek and then on into the woods. I hadn't yet missed any shots and I was every bit of 50 yards from the target. And that's when it happened. . . .

Bringing the gun up to eye level I was searching for the dot for my next shot. But instead of a single dot I now saw 3 smaller dots. In fact they weren't dots at all, but rather small fragments of light. Looking down into the RMR itself I noticed what looked like a piece of snow that had fallen on the emitter window. It was snowy out so it was a reasonable conclusion. I first tried blowing the snow away, but when that didn't work I actually spit on it to melt it away. (sorry Rookie! ) Oddly that didn't work either. Heading back to the range for better lighting conditions I was able to better see what the problem was-- the tiny window that sits in front of the emitter was shattered. This explained why the beam was coming through in fragments.

I immediately snapped a few pictures, but they aren't great.

After briefly considering going into hiding from Rookie, I took the M&P back up to the house and into lovemywoods' reloading room. There I was able to put it under some light and see that it was definitely FUBAR'd.

I contacted Rookie and gave him the rundown on the RMR. We agreed that I would return the gun directly to him so that he could send it back to Trijicon for repair or replacement under their excellent warranty program. I covered the shipping costs and he was very understanding and polite about the situation. He shipped it out around the beginning of January and I just received word yesterday that Trijicon returned his repaired RMR good-as-new, complete with a fresh battery and a $0 invoice. Whew.

So, where do I now stand on RMR'd pistols? Let's look at my original goals and see how things stacked up (new thoughts are in RED):

To find the answers to these questions I'm going to:

• Carry the RMR'd M&P in my Raven Phantom.
  • I noticed little difference when carrying the RMR'd M&P concealed in my Raven Phantom. Weight difference-- none. But the corner of the RMR did poke out away from my body just slightly more than it would without any optic. But not so much that it became a problem.
• Run the same "50-yard engagement" scenario that I used when testing my Glock 19 to my M&P9.
  • Unfortunately this didn't happen due to my shortened range trip.
• Engage steel targets at distances out to 200 yards.
  • I got to 50 with relative ease, but wasn't able to try any farther.
• Run several drills incorporating draws from the holster.
  • Didn't run as many as I would've liked, but when I did I noticed no difference in overall presentation.
• Set up and run various malfunction drills.
  • Did not get to any malf clearance, but being able to rack the slide with the palm of my support hand off the RMR hood was awesome.

Ok so I've defined my goals for my time with the RMR'd M&P. Here is what I'd like to be able to determine:

• Is carrying an RMR-equipped pistol any more of a burden? Heavier? Larger?
  • No. Depending on how one carries it makes very little difference overall.
• Is my long-distance accuracy enhanced?
  • Yes. Not because I can get lazy with the fundamentals, but because the dot forces me to focus on them.
• Is it difficult to switch from a front sight focus to a target focus?
  • No. The same target focus that makes rifle red dots so useful also helps when shooting a pistol.
• Am I slower on my first round hits?
  • Was not able to test.
• Are normal manipulations hindered?
  • Was not able to test fully.

I'll admit, having the RMR fail to any extent really surprised me, and it cooled my jets a bit on the whole idea. I certainly don't think red dots on pistols is a bad idea, and I don't think RMR's are bad optics, but I think I'm going to wait until the industry produces an optic designed specifically for defensive pistols. I would love to see what Trijicon, Aimpoint, or EOTech engineers could come up with if they were tasked with designing a small purpose-built optic for defensive pistols. I think that time is fast approaching.

So for me, for now, I'm gonna take a wait-and-see stance. I look forward to learning about new options as they come available, and hope that I can later get some more time behind a pistol optic (without breaking it).