But you’ll give away your position
Red dots vs. lasers for self defense pistols.
I have both. And like both. I have two carry guns with lasers, one red and one green. The green is better in the day time because it’s easier to see than a red laser. The red dot, to me, is also easier to see in the daylight. I do favor the red laser at night, though.
One more advantage of the laser is as a training aid. Find a shooter who has never shot with a laser before and let them try out your laser equipped gun. They’ll realize exactly how much that red dot on the wall sways and moves up and down.
October 28th, 2015 at 9:11 pm
Hmmm …. respectfully, I disagree.
I’ve shot competitively with red-dot sights and I agree that it takes a bit of getting use to. But you can see where the gun is pointed, and adjust your aim quickly.
Using the laser sight I’ve found (and seen others with similar experience) can be much more frustrating. I’ve found myself pointing at the target and having NO idea where the point-of-aim is; so I have to wiggle the gun around through all four axes to figure where it’s actually pointing … and perhaps then overcompensating until I refine the laser dot placement.
In short, it’s not intuitive because (unlike red dot sights) often you can’t see where the gun is actually POINTING until you wave it around.
Admittedly, my experience with lasers is less extensive than with red-dot sights; but the conclusion remains:
It can easily take a LOT more time to get a laser sight on target than it does a red-dot sight. And for serious uses (competition or defense), time is your greatest enemy.
October 28th, 2015 at 11:52 pm
Really, I’ve found finding a pistol mounted RDS dot harder than a laser any day. You have to train to get your sights slightly aligned in order to find the dot without the reference points that a long gun provides. I can see shooting smaller steel targets being tough with a laser but with a larger target (body mass) which lasers are primary for, it seems intuitive. I do have both and love having them, but would take the laser over the RDS any day, but wouldn’t take either over a mounted/handheld flashlight. Luckily, I don’t have to and have all three.
October 29th, 2015 at 3:04 am
I’ve got lasers on several student guns I use with raw beginners (thank you, Crimson Trace). They’re adjusted 5″ low and 5″ right; if I see the dot at 4:30 an inch or so outside the target (9″ paper plate for newbies) on the cardboard backer they’ve got good center-target sight alignment and I don’t have to work with them on it. Anyplace else and it’s time for review of that portion of the class, and if the dot is bouncing all over the place it’s time for stance/grip review. If the holes start appearing an inch or so outside the plate at 10:30 they’ve discovered the dot and it’s time to turn it off.
Never tried a green laser because of the price.
October 29th, 2015 at 6:14 am
Green’s better for day because that’s about where your eyebones peak. With the green laser pointer at night, I have cats that paw at the beam itself rather than going for the dot. I have a blue one as well, 550nm real blue, not just those purple ones, and it’s just as bright as the green one. Way down my list I’m thinking about making a blue sight, especially if I can just swap out a green laser diode.
October 30th, 2015 at 5:32 pm
Us and IR laser with the proper eyeware and you don’t give away your position.
OT: Inviting everybody who likes talk radio to use the now derelict Wireclub chatroom to talk about our favorite shows wireclub.com/chat-rooms/KnoxTalkRadio/