Red Dot Sights/Officer Involved Shootings

[Lawdog Dago Dom]

Article has links to a 5 year study on Officer involved shootings using Red Dot Sights on service pistols.

 

The verdict on pistol red dot sights in law enforcement: Insights from a 5-year survey

[Crooked River Pete, SASS 43485]

I like red dot sights, but green is better. Much more accurate than iron sights.

[Black Angus McPherson]

Summary of link information:  A 5 year survey was conducted.  35 incidents recorded.  Zero data listed concerning the incidents, but you can download a file with, supposedly, more info.

 

Angus

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

3 hours ago, Crooked River Pete, SASS 43485 said:

I like red dot sights, but green is better. Much more accurate than iron sights.

And for some reason uses more battery 

I prefer green also....

[Alpo]

A five-year study. 35 instances. And they've reached a conclusion.

 

In a country this big, 35 instances over a 5-year period.

 

And they've come to a conclusion?

[Texas Maverick]

3 hours ago, Alpo said:

A five-year study. 35 instances. And they've reached a conclusion.

 

In a country this big, 35 instances over a 5-year period.

 

And they've come to a conclusion?

At least the liberals have been able to come to a conclusion. LOL 

 

TM

[watab kid]

in reading through this and my personal experience with LEOs in shooting i think this makes sense , my experience includes three gun on a high level as well as basic monthly practice shoots , these had regs on the firearms that would have classed the normal handguns out of the optics in general , 

 

anything that better equips our LEOs is something i support , they have a tough enough job to do without being hampered by some regulation that deprives them of an important asset , 

[El Chapo]

8 hours ago, Alpo said:

A five-year study. 35 instances. And they've reached a conclusion.

 

In a country this big, 35 instances over a 5-year period.

 

And they've come to a conclusion?

 

A conclusion can follow from a single observation.  Is there a magic number where "conclusions" are acceptable?

 

35 incidents is a pretty big sample.  The 63% hit probability is a big deal.  The national average is in the neighborhood of 20% the last time I looked at the data.  During the 8 years where I would have been involved in investigating OIS incidents, I don't recall any where multiple shots were fired and the hit probability was anywhere close to 63%.  The aggregate was, as would be expected, close to the national average.

 

I think what I would take away from this is that people who don't shoot very often or very much do better with a dot than with sights because the dot is hard to ignore.  I recently got my first pistol with a dot and it remains to be seen if I can shoot it faster.  By the winter I will have an idea by looking at my scores, but right now the jury's still out.  

Edited June 2 by El Chapo

[ShadowCatcher]

13 hours ago, El Chapo said:

 

A conclusion can follow from a single observation.  Is there a magic number where "conclusions" are acceptable?

 

35 incidents is a pretty big sample.  The 63% hit probability is a big deal.  The national average is in the neighborhood of 20% the last time I looked at the data.  During the 8 years where I would have been involved in investigating OIS incidents, I don't recall any where multiple shots were fired and the hit probability was anywhere close to 63%.  The aggregate was, as would be expected, close to the national average.

 

I think what I would take away from this is that people who don't shoot very often or very much do better with a dot than with sights because the dot is hard to ignore.  I recently got my first pistol with a dot and it remains to be seen if I can shoot it faster.  By the winter I will have an idea by looking at my scores, but right now the jury's still out.  

I've shot iron sights for some 50 years now, and made the transition to a "Red" dot about 2 years ago.  I found that the hardest part was the presentation, getting the gun up flat and not front sight proud, like I do with irons.  The green dots serve me better during day tie outside, they're brighter and faster to acquire.  Yes the batteries go faster, but if I only get three years instead of 5 I can adjust.  I replace all my batteries (lasers, dot sights, smoke alarms, etc) every Christmas anyway.  I'm finding  that my 'students' at the range who are newbies pick up and learn to get hits much quicker than learning irons, and while that's good, we also have to go back and work irons later, because stuff happens.  I'm finding out that as my 70 year old eyes do their natural aging thing the Dot sights get me back to 20+ yard hits (free style) and with a good support (table top, wall edge, etc.) I can get meat out to past 50 yds.  My words of advice for someone just starting is to get the largest window they can (my SRO is 26 mm) and the larger dots sizes (5-8 moa) and green if they plan to use it outside in the day light or if they have any astigmatism.  Once you get your presentation and follow up shots dialed in, then a small dot on a smaller pistol might make good sense.  Regarding dot sizes: a a 5 moa dot is 5" at 100 yds, or .5 inches at 10 yds.  I zero at 25 yds, and at 1 yd my shots hit about 1" low, pretty flat for my intents.   My Beretta compact with SRO.

 

SC

[Pat Riot]

23 hours ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

And for some reason uses more battery 

I prefer green also....

That’s because it takes twice the electronics to create the green dot over what it takes to create red dots therefore it draws more power and costs more. 

[El Chapo]

I never liked green fiber optic tubes in my sights although I did try them and one of my guns even came with it.  I replaced it with red a long time ago.  The red dot is a lot more natural for me because that's what I'm used to looking at on my front sight.

 

I do agree with the big dot; mine is 6 MOA.  I'm shooting a 2011, so it has a narrower slide and the RMSc cut.  The Vortex Defender CCW is one of the larger windows available for this bolt pattern so that's what I'm running.  Like I said, this is my first dot pistol so I'm not that familiar with all of what might be out there but it's doing the job for now.  A few of my cowboy friends and I will be going to the state level USPSA match in September so this is the division I'm picking for that.

[Whitey James]

With my astigmatism I can see the green dot much better than the red dot. The red dot is much more blurry for me.

[ShadowCatcher]

Sending my EMP 9mm slide in for machining to mount a red dot as we type!  

I'm mounting a Swampfox green 3 MOA dot on it, it uses a RMSc mount, and I

am having it direct mount for low dot height relative to bore axis.

 

I'm not planning to Cerakote it yet, so it will be in stock colors (black slide over stainless colored receiver). 

I could be tempted to go with the Imperial Storm Troopers motif, but maybe not!   

 

 

[DeaconKC]

I have spent the last 3 months and a good deal of ammo trying to learn to shoot the red dot and today removed the second one I tried. I am cross-dominant and I think this has caused the problems for me.

[Sedalia Dave]

14 hours ago, DeaconKC said:

I have spent the last 3 months and a good deal of ammo trying to learn to shoot the red dot and today removed the second one I tried. I am cross-dominant and I think this has caused the problems for me.

 

For me it is the fact that on my current firearms the red dot sits too high, making me continually hunt for it. Guess I have been shooting iron sights for too long.

 

Unfortunately, none of the manufacturers of the semi-autos I currently own offer a slide with a milled cutout for an RMR optic. I know I could send out my current slide to be milled but if it turns out I still don't like it then what do I do?

[ShadowCatcher]

17 hours ago, DeaconKC said:

I have spent the last 3 months and a good deal of ammo trying to learn to shoot the red dot and today removed the second one I tried. I am cross-dominant and I think this has caused the problems for me.

I've found that for my cross dominate shooter friends that if they keep both eyes open (like they should with a any sights but especially with a red dot) and

just float the dot to the target, they get hits.  Don't know if you've tried that or not.

 

SC

 

 

[ShadowCatcher]

2 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

For me it is the fact that on my current firearms the red dot sits too high, making me continually hunt for it. Guess I have been shooting iron sights for too long.

 

Unfortunately, none of the manufacturers of the semi-autos I currently own offer a slide with a milled cutout for an RMR optic. I know I could send out my current slide to be milled but if it turns out I still don't like it then what do I do?

Typically the sight height affects parallax, so POA isn't POI at different ranges from zero.  One way to fix that is extend the distance for zero, maybe out to 25yds.

 

Hunting for it is a presentation issue, not dot height.  Most of us learned on irons, so we can present the gun front sight proud and level the gun as we finish the

presentation, using peripheral vision to adjust.  With a red dot you have to have the gun level as it comes up to eye level.  So far for me the easiest way to sort that

has been to present the gun from draw to a high position in front of my face, level, an then fine tune dot position as I extend to shoot.  More of an exaggerated L shape, 

gun level and brought to eye level, then pushed out. After a while the hand learns to keep the gun level.  If I had to fire sooner than I planned it's level, it will hit, perhaps

not a precisely as I would like - but it will hit.

 

Others will co-witness the dot over the front sight, and just look for the sight in the window.  It works but I'm not a fan as the two sighting systems have different

parallax issues and can cause errors at distance.

 

I've had slides milled and not liked the result, many of them have a cover plate that screws onto the slide to make it seem like it came from the factory red dot ready.

My Glock 43 ended up that way, and a friend who wanted to try a red dot finally bought it from me, so it worked out in the long run.

 

Brownell's sells many aftermarket slides machined to take a red dot, and there are a number of gun hot-rod companies doing that as well.   You can experiment without

altering your original gun that way.

[El Chapo]

18 hours ago, DeaconKC said:

I have spent the last 3 months and a good deal of ammo trying to learn to shoot the red dot and today removed the second one I tried. I am cross-dominant and I think this has caused the problems for me.

 

I have very weak eye dominance and I a red dot is the first time I was able to shoot with both eyes open.

 

I also just got the most incredible training tool I have ever seen, a Meta Quest 3 and the Ace shooting game.  It is so real I walked into the wall.  Hopefully that will help me find the dot.

[DeaconKC]

Yup, I do believe it is just me that cannot adjust to the reflex sight, as I can use a red dot on my rifles.

[ShadowCatcher]

18 hours ago, DeaconKC said:

Yup, I do believe it is just me that cannot adjust to the reflex sight, as I can use a red dot on my rifles.

Rifles are easier as they typically have four points of contact and almost always present aligned.

A hand gun can have lateral or up/down tilt much easier and make it harder, until you retrain your

presentation to be flat.  Frankly I struggled for a year and gave up, until I had a coach spend a weekend

helping me adjust grip and presentation.  I'm going for my second gun with a red dot now, but would never

put one on my full size Colt 1911's, they need to stay pure!  

[DeaconKC]

I asked a trainer/teacher for advice on adapting. Followed his suggestions and also did about 200-300 draw/presentations. I never could get to the same immediate speed that I could with the dot removed. Since it is my primary carry gun, that was not acceptable.

[ShadowCatcher]

20 hours ago, DeaconKC said:

I asked a trainer/teacher for advice on adapting. Followed his suggestions and also did about 200-300 draw/presentations. I never could get to the same immediate speed that I could with the dot removed. Since it is my primary carry gun, that was not acceptable.

I understand that - that was my initial issue, and why it took almost 2 years before I felt ready to adopt a RDS on a carry gun.  I had 50 years of muscle memory to overcome and that didn't happen in a year, it took 1 1/2 for me before I was within fractions of a second of my earlier times, but I have to acknowledge that being 70 YO my presentation times are slower than when I was 30, with any gun.  It was vision issues (focus at close range) that drove me to learn it.  Of course switching from SA to DA/SA also came into the mix!

 

SC

[El Chapo]

On 6/5/2025 at 2:04 PM, DeaconKC said:

I asked a trainer/teacher for advice on adapting. Followed his suggestions and also did about 200-300 draw/presentations. I never could get to the same immediate speed that I could with the dot removed. Since it is my primary carry gun, that was not acceptable.

 

That seems like a good start.  Once to get to 2-3000 presentations I bet it'll get a lot easier.  Also practice your draws in front of a mirror and practice picking up your dot before your arms extend.