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Do Optics Slow you down?


Broncman

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For those that have shot both? A few times I have lost my dot during transition or awkward stances around corners etc.

 

Started out in Carry Optics and never shot USPSA any other way. Just curious as to others thoughts.

 

I know I need a lot more practice to develop muscle memory for point of aim.

 

Shot at ORSA yesterday and had a blast! Only 3 guys in CO out of 64 shooters.

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Learning to shoot a gun with a dot on it requires a commitment to do the dry fire and live fire practice sessions so that when the gun comes up and you get in position you are looking at your target and the dot is in view.  Until you acquire the muscle memory so that happens you'll probably find shooting a stage with a gun with a dot is slower. 

Edited by caspian guy
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Thanks guys. I have been practicing some and have the Ben Stoeger book set on the way to try and get some structure to my training.  I think "knowing how to train" will help tremendously.

I did pretty good for my second match, just watching my videos really highlights my deficiencies.

 

I felt like I was running warp speed while I was actually shooting....Then I watched the videos! 

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i shoot a falling steel match (PSA Shootout) back to back with a 9mm limited gun and an open minor gun (with c-more) and generally the limited gun wins.  part of it is more time to pick up the dot (not a lot but every bit counts) and the other part is i generally try to go faster in open knowing that going slower definitely won't win it.  of course, fast with misses translates to slow also.  i should practice more with the open gun, and going back and forth between two platforms doesn't help things, but it's all fun and that's why i do it.

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When it comes to shooting an entire stage, the dot is faster for me. There may be components I am faster at with irons, but overall I shoot stages faster with my CO gun vs Production. Yes, even when they were both 10 round divisions.

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You'll be slower, until you aren't. You'll know it when it happens. Try Bill Drills, 6 shots in the A zone, 10 yards, fast as you can. Watch the dot become a red line moving in the lens, it'll help get your timing down. 

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My eyesight required I transition from Limited to Open last year.  There is quite a learning curve between shooting iron sights and a dot located almost 2" above the bore.  I played find the dot the first match, because I had not practiced enough.  Now I have no problems with the draw or "regular" transitions, but I still lose the dot sometimes.  If I have to transfer the gun to my weak hand and it goes well, I'm fine.  If I didn't get a good grip, It's FTD again.  That is something I'll have to practice, because it can really slow me down on some Classifiers.

 

Another thing I will note is that you cannot change guns.  One of my Open pistols has a frame mounted SlideRide.  The other has a slide mounter reflex sight.  I simply cannot go from one to the other without a week of draw and dry fire practice before switching.  I'm planning on spending the rest of this season to determine which I like better, then stay with that one.

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Once your draw and index with the dot is second nature (it will get there), also remember to practice difficult positions like low ports, hard leans, and strong hand / weak hand. All of those fun ways to make a dot disappear if you haven't practiced it enough.

 

And I agree with zzt. I had my CO index dead-nuts on. But, I then switched from Deltapoint to Deltapoint Pro this season. Just that slight different in dot height is enough that I have to rebuild my index. I'm not starting from scratch shooting a dot. But everything above is not yet to my last season speed, I need to get the practice reps in with the new dot location.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been shooting USPSA for about 14 months and when I started shooting USPSA, I was shooting production. Carry optics was a brand new at the time so I figured I would give it a try. When I first put a dot on my G34MOS I was extremely slower than with irons. But with practice, I was able to pick up the speed and am now faster with the dot with better hits. I see a lot of people try a dot and give up to fast. It is not something that you will learn over night but, if you give it some time, you will pick up the speed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 8:47 AM, Broncman said:

For those that have shot both? A few times I have lost my dot during transition or awkward stances around corners etc.

 

Started out in Carry Optics and never shot USPSA any other way. Just curious as to others thoughts.

 

I know I need a lot more practice to develop muscle memory for point of aim.

 

Shot at ORSA yesterday and had a blast! Only 3 guys in CO out of 64 shooters.

at first they do....then with practice, they don't

 

the bench

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7 minutes ago, Rub'n said:

I guess it's different for everyone. 

For me I was 15% faster first time shooting a dot. 

With the same pistol. 

 

my first time with the dot I had trouble finding it. then with pretty minimal practice I was picking it up faster than my irons on the g19...never had a lot of trouble with trasition

 

the bench

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The dot is much faster  to align, easier to pick up and more accurate.   Why do you thing the top Open shooters are getting better times?  Yes you need to practice picking up the dot but with little practice your times will come down and accuracy will improve.  This was proven in the 80s I think by Jerry Barnhart.  After he started proving the power of the dot a lot of other shooters went to it.

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A dot will always be faster than iron sights for one simple reason: brain processing. In order to aim with iron sights, your brain has to process both the sight picture and what that is aiming at, while with the dot, the brain just processes the latter.

 

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I shot a classifier match last weekend with a borrowed Glock 17 mos and got a B classification.  I'm a high B in production and also a B in single stack. I hadn't shot the gun before that day and found it to be much faster for me. If you have a solid grip and good trigger control i'm pretty sure you can shoot anything well. 

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On 4/14/2017 at 8:46 PM, Delta66 said:

I shot a classifier match last weekend with a borrowed Glock 17 mos and got a B classification.  I'm a high B in production and also a B in single stack. I hadn't shot the gun before that day and found it to be much faster for me. If you have a solid grip and good trigger control i'm pretty sure you can shoot anything well. 

 

I am in the same boat as you. High B in production and shot a local classifier match with carry optics for first time and classified as mid B. However, I found I was really slow with the dot.

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