THANK YOU Mr Howe, good insight, personally I have no experience with firearms. However I do have experience machine operating...(blue collar woodworking) and people operating machines there are those who put in the "time and effort", and those who are "not interested". These different outlooks on life show themselves sure enough in how the machine runs and the results that are produced. Again many thanks for your time and effort bringing us this information.
As a retired (but still teaching on a limited basis) L.E. Firearms Instructor, I ALWAYS find your instruction, your comments, and your REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE invaluable Sir. Ironically, my department is in the process of making this very transition at present and I look forward to sharing your expertise and knowledge with my officers. Again, THANK YOU for everything you do!
Love the content / information. I’ve had great improvements in speed and accuracy after training in recent weeks with an occluded/taped red dot. Also mitigates the sun/brightness problem.
Thanks for the debrief, CSM. I shot RDS's on my sub-gun and rifle almost my entire career. It was second nature. Transitioning to a pistol RDS was a challenge for me at first. I still occasionally have issues with one-handed presentation. Now I'm teaching civilians how to use them, which has helped my own capabilities quite a bit. My old eyes aren't what they once were. To quote my fellow teaching partner, "If you aren't shooting red dots/green dots, you're pistol Amish." As a side note, I have a Holosun 509T on my P320X-Five. I have snapped two sets of screws on the mount, each after around 500 rounds. Anybody else seen an issue with that sight or sight pistol combination?
First, the two-day students were great and grateful for the training. Each two-day class was a bit more refined than the previous. This included getting holsters fixed prior to the range. Further, no RDS Sight came loose as they were put on correctly. Instructor students were managed by the Lead Instructor and all students were on the same line the first day. Any information that would be put out that was unclear would be corrected by the lead instructor. I set up the zero station and further worked with students getting hard zeros. If you have taught/instructed, you know you can only get a student so far in 16 hours and it will vary from student to student. Instructor students who did not qualify received a certificate of attendance (thank you for coming) and have a year to qualify under a certified CSAT Instructor and then they get a certificate of completion. Finally, we attempted quals more than in a regular instructor course as I wanted to see how long it took a shooter with an RDS to qualify. Sadly, most instructor students came without practicing and it showed. I have the standards on my website and will send out videos of how to if contacted prior the course. What I cannot fix is lack of initiative from someone who does not want to prepare.
I was one of your student instructors in the past and paid my own way to get there. The expectations couldn’t have been more clear up front and I was thankful for that. In my class, several received (deserved and got) a cert of completion. There were no excuses for it then and there couldn’t have been any this time. My experience at CSAT couldn’t have been better and it remains the best of all classes I’ve been fortunate enough to attend. I still incorporate the CSAT standards in my training/teaching and hold myself to them, some 15 years later. RDS classes can be tough to teach for a variety of reasons. It seems like something new comes up every class. I appreciate you taking the time to share this info. I’m a training Sgt and am constantly looking for ways to bring better info and classes to our people.
Very useful info. Training dollars are a finite asset. How will you spend it? I can see more value in other firearm training than from any benefit a RD could provide. I'm an old retired ghetto cop. Started with a revolver transitioned to 92F. Don't see much value in the RD given the distances I encountered suspects (10ft or so). Could have been useful on felony car stops but otherwise, meh. I might be grabbing my AR anyway. We did a three gun qual quarterly which seems to be more than many agencies. The RD creates needs while providing little in benefit in my old environment. Your mileage may vary. I'm a big believer in Murphy's law.
What I learned, if you’re forcing RDS on officers, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire. Give the basic instruction, then get officers doing dry fire reps. The draw is the hardest part for most with the transition.
Iron sights are *easier* to use because you’re looking at them when they come up in front of your face. RDSs allow a greater degree of precision because the dot is a finer aiming device than almost any front sight. Which is *faster*? Neither. People say a RDS is faster, but the truth is that in order to be *fast* with a RDS, you must practice enough so that the dot is in the window when it comes up in front of your face, and you don’t have to search for it. The gun has to be level and aligned with your line of sight when it arrives between your eye and the target. That’s a lot of practice, but the vast majority of that practice can be dry fire. If you did that amuunt of dry fire with your iron sights, you’d be just as fast, but you probably wouldn’t be as precise.
@@maxemerick8107 there’s a lot more explanation I can go into. I teach RDS classes. I own and operate my own training company. A red dot is more intuitive and actually easier to use than irons. Most people who struggle to transition to a red dot struggle because there are poor habits with the fundamentals with irons. Generally speaking with irons, when you point the gun at the target, your eye naturally focuses on either the target, or the front sight. While common knowledge today indicates that you really should be looking at the target and super imposing your irons over the targt(see Ben Stoegers video on this also) if you are a front sight focuser your eye will find the irons somewhat naturally because you can’t really miss it. You’re basically putting the gun directly in front of your face. The most common issue with people searching for the dot is because they are looking for the dot. Think of your dot like the windshield of your car, if you stare at your windshield (think looking at big guts or something) it make other things blurry. We look through or windshield and toward the road. When shooting an RDS handgun , given all the other fundamentals such as grip and standard presentation are reliable and consistent, the dot will naturally show up in your field of view as you present while staying target… you should also have both eyes open, with irons or with RDS. As you stay target focused, maintain the focus on the target, an super impose the dot over it. A really good way to help you with this is to put some tape over your optic (the front) and keep both eyes open. Present to target and don’t look for the dot. Again, given the rest of your fundamentals are correct. The dot will arrive right where it should be. They don’t require alot of work to get used to if you have squared away the basics of handgun shooting in general. And they aren’t very much different from irons.
RDS or iron sight, it comes down to each individual practicing on a regular basis. It would help if a Department provides support in providing access to a range and either provide ammo or sell at a discounted rate for the officer. I know all Departments have different budgets and facilities.
I’m a few years deep on an RMR type 2 carrying 40+ hours a week in an LE capacity. My work handgun has 5k rounds in that time (not insane but I often train with other stuff). Battery change once a year. Literally never had a single issue with it maintenance wise including rain exposures. In transitioning a little over 100 shooters I can confidently say that all but a few of our oldest officers (attitude issues and not wanting to accept the change) qualified better than they did on irons. The only issue we saw regularly was over confirmation of the sights and therefore cutting it close on time standards.
Yeah the police quals are all slow fire bs. I personally know of at least three different police quals from different states and cities and they're all slow fire. Even the portion of the test which has "fast fire" (if the test even has one of those to begin with) is still slow fire compared to any actual high level shooting. I have zero doubt police officers are qualifying better with their dots when there is almost zero incentive to draw and fire a first shot in less than a second.
@@maxemerick8107 muscle memory argument is not super valid. People who have practiced and put in the work for years on irons have a natural presentation which makes the transition easy. We also had some skeptical people in that camp that ended up liking them and doing well. The ones I’m referencing don’t really care to shoot regardless of their sighting system and it was definitely attitude rather than a training issue.
I’m not the biggest fan of pistol red dots, but I will admit in the right hands they can make a good shooter better. However, the only units I’ve seen that are trustworthy are the top dollar models.
Thanks for the video and info. It sounds like that class was a crap show. Mixed groups, equipment problems, not enough time or ammo, I’m not surprised there were problems. I put on transition courses at our dept and there were problems in the beginning. All I can offer is, there is a lot of prep work involved to have any chance of success. I say this to caution other instructors, get the equipment issues handled in the days before class. No matter how good your content is, or how good of an instructor you are, it’s nearly impossible to overcome BS like fitting holsters or installing the optics on the first day of a 2 day class.
Yep. Interesting to see. My personal experience with them over this last couple years has been the same. difficult lighting situations, maintainence issues, sights losing. breaking. I've tried them on my carry guns and ended up removing them. At distance they are great. they make you a sniper with a handgun. but up close, 30' and in... really not much of any advantage and attempting to get a sight picture inside those distance compared to these iron sights, dots are slower up close. just my take. with a ton of trianing, yeah, you could get good. but I don't think its worth the time.
I'd say, individual dry fire goes a lot further than managed range time. It took me a lot less than 3000 rounds and 6 months to get accustomed to the red dot. I did a session to zero it with about 100 rounds. About 2 weeks of daily dry fire. And by my next training session, I was pretty close to where I was with irons. 9 months later now and I'm better than I ever was with just irons. That only works with dedication. CSAT standards are rough but good.
I actually enjoy dry fire. It's like meditation or something. Red dot is so easy to use once you get beyond the early stages and learn to focus on the target. Most important thing early on is developing a consistent index.
Red dots are more finicky than iron sights, regardless of brand and model. There's just way more to go wrong with them that I could write pages about. That being said, if someone knows how to give maintenance to the red dot they can avoid many of the problems that come with dots. Dots are an investment in performance. You trade simplicity for added performance. Unfortunately not even 1% of shooters who have red dots on their pistols train to the point their red dot will be surperior to irons (unless they have vision issues to where they can no longer see the sights then a dot is a good alternative for them). What's interesting is how many professional high level shooters also mention that many of the students that come to their classes are better served with iron sights. I've seen this myself. Many LEOs and low skilled shooters who think that by virtue of taking the class they'll be better shooters and you just know these guys will never dry fire and they're not interested in performance.
Something that I see a lot from former mil guys is that they want to make dry fire problems into live fire problems. 3,000 rounds and 6 months, should actually be 1,000 rounds and 6 weeks of half an hour a day focused dry fire. Your later point of needing to check the dot every day could easily tied into that "heres your pre shift 15 minute dot check and dry fire session". The window being dirty or rained on is inconsequential to being able to aim the gun. Similarly brightness is not nearly as consequential as people feel. Why were tactics being covered in a red dot transition class full of people who cant shoot? Irons masking not being able to shoot does not point to irons being preferable or superior, just that they are forgiving for people who are bad. "If we asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford
Yes, I am one of those mil guys. When I was selected to special ops, we dry fired over 8 hours a day for two weeks before we went to the range. We showed them dry fire in the classroom prior to the range and gave them dry fire targets for their personal future use. As for why tactics? They leave the range and go to patrol and employ tactics. We started a training system which I hope they will continue and as we recommend, increase their training time. In a word, they need to know tactics. I remember the LE response to Uvalde. I will not even answer the point about not seeing your sights. Reference pre-shift, how many really do that? A few, maybe 10% or less. I know LE and have worked with them for a long time. Some push and train, most do not. All had an understanding of the new sighting system when they left and know what they needed to maximize it. It is now up to the individual and agency to make improvement happen.
Dots are cool for game guns but you have to wonder why an agency is considering dots when their instructors can't even pass the CSAT standards. Would be interested to know what they are trying to achieve and why they thought dots were the answer.
@1982rrose I couldn't see in the video which model they used but I know a few GM USPSA guys that swear by the 509 Comp. It seems like the red dot market has largely leveled out.
Hi Paul, I'm curious if you documented or observed issues between RDS and irons for individuals who need reading glasses. I'm currently considering a RDS due to loss of focus on the front sight without reading glasses. I can still make reasonable hits out to about 15 yds but accuracy is suffering without the glasses. But who wears readers during a confrontation. I've tried and sometimes used upper lens reader type glasses and they help but I feel it's not a street/daily wear solution.
Currently I wear readers, 2.0, and still just use my regular glasses with irons. With that, try the dot and see. Run two sets of bulls and see what kind of results you get on walk backs.
36 attempts over 7 days and they know the standards before hand. What is the set up to fail? They aren’t instructors yet, they are instructor students.
@@TGS-rb8us Missed the part where he said instructor students . I heard 1 out of 5 instructors passed. If these so called instructors are supposed to be teaching / instructing that's a system setup to fail . You have instructors who cant pass quals and the are supposed to be teaching . That's what I think when I hear 1 of 5 instructors passed the qual .
@@TGS-rb8usDo you know what the Quals are what's needed to pass . I'm just curious . I personally like doing diffrent quals . Air Matshall Quals so far is the one that's really kicked my butt.
