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Production to Carry Optics - Advice from Those That Have Transitioned


anonymouscuban

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Hey all.

 

Hope everyone is healthy and well. So I'm making the switch to the dark side. Decided to jump to Carry Optics after 2 years of shooting Production. Switching mostly because Production is dead locally. Most of the guys I shoot with all the time have made the jump. There are a couple of good Production shooters left but most are all new shooters. By the way, I'm a B-class shooter in Production. 

 

I was hoping some of you that have made this transition would share any advice on things you wish you knew, that would have made the transition easier. Things like training, stage planning, gear, etc. Anything really. 

 

Thanks!

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It will take some dry firing to retrain your muscle memory to pick up the higher sitting dot.  Other than that, you stage plan like you were shooting Limited minor.  You are only going to need one mag change per stage.  As far as gear changes:  get some extended base pads.  23 in a mag is better than 17 or 18.

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1 minute ago, Silver_Surfer said:

Finding the dot weak hand only can be a real PIA at first.😄

 

Finding the dot weak hand is always a PITA.  The trick is to close the off eye.  Otherwise the gun won't come back down in the right spot after recoil.  If your left hand is weak side, shoot using only the left eye.  Then you won't have to play find the dot after each shot.

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Things to think about when going from Irons to a dot.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

Do not wait for a perfect round dot to sit still, most shots are just a stripe of red sliding onto and as the shot breaks off the target.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

On close targets where you would just hammer it and never see a "good sight picture" (you see what you need to see) do the same thing you may not see the dot and that's probably ok (see what you need to see) 

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

Dot offset is a thing on close targets know your offset and think about it on close targets.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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17 minutes ago, MikeBurgess said:

Things to think about when going from Irons to a dot.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

Do not wait for a perfect round dot to sit still, most shots are just a stripe of red sliding onto and as the shot breaks off the target.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

On close targets where you would just hammer it and never see a "good sight picture" (you see what you need to see) do the same thing you may not see the dot and that's probably ok (see what you need to see) 

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

Dot offset is a thing on close targets know your offset and think about it on close targets.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait. Do I look at the spot I want to hit on the targets or the dot? Your post is not clear. LOL

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  • shoot the same model as close as you can as you did in Prod with your gear in the same place
  • do the dry fire drill where you draw free style, then aim SHO and then WHO
  • keep both eyes open for sure
  • learn to keep your focal plane down at the target, make a conscious effort
  • remind yourself you chose to switch, that you wanted to
  • gain trust in the dot as fast as you can by shooting beyond what you feel comfortable in a majority of your live fire practice
  • it is not a laser gun sight. do not use a perfect dot as your impetus to pull the trigger. what passes as a refined and unrefined sight picture and sight alignment is markedly different with a dot. learn them for your vision.
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2 hours ago, anonymouscuban said:

Good stuff guys. Keep it coming. 

 

I made the transition at the end of last year, and I was in about the same position skills-wise and time in sport-wise as you.

 

What Mike and Rowdy gave you is the perfect advice.

 

I think the point about looking at the target has been made...LOL

 

The point about an acceptable sight picture is sometimes difficult for some to grasp but this is what helped me understand: the dot is showing you all the movement that is in your current hold/grip but hidden by the imprecision of iron sights.  If you can blast 2A with .2 splits at 10 yards with irons, you can do it with a dot no matter how much it *seems* to move if your grip is the same.

 

The dot will also show you every.....single......flaw in your trigger manipulation and natural point of aim.  Use that to train.

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I'll try a different approach.  When you start you WILL be looking at the dot.  What that means is you are consciously moving the dot to the area you want to hit.  That is SLOW.  What you want to do is train/program your subconscious targeting computer to center the dot on where you are looking.  When you get it right you are not consciously aiming.  You are looking at the spot you want to hit and your subconscious automatically superimposes the dot on that target.  It takes time to train your mind, and it takes a little longer for you to trust it.  Once you do you will be faster by 10 to 15 seconds in a 5-6 stage match, vs. dot watching.  That may not sound like much, but it is HUGE.

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3 hours ago, rowdyb said:
  • shoot the same model as close as you can as you did in Prod with your gear in the same place
  • do the dry fire drill where you draw free style, then aim SHO and then WHO
  • keep both eyes open for sure
  • learn to keep your focal plane down at the target, make a conscious effort
  • remind yourself you chose to switch, that you wanted to
  • gain trust in the dot as fast as you can by shooting beyond what you feel comfortable in a majority of your live fire practice
  • it is not a laser gun sight. do not use a perfect dot as your impetus to pull the trigger. what passes as a refined and unrefined sight picture and sight alignment is markedly different with a dot. learn them for your vision.
  • Already not following your advice after the 1st bullet. LOL I was shooting an SP-01 and will now be shooting an X5 Legion. I've been drying firing with it everyday for a week now and it seems like I'm indexing it well. The grip is a little different but the weight feel the same. Gonna have to get used the action though. 
  • Will definitely work on the SHO and WHO drill. The little I've dry fired in each, it's where I've struggled most to find the dot or should I say, it's where I lose it most. 
  • When you say " keep your focal plane down at the target", you mean the same as staying target focused? Reads that way to me but wanted to make sure. 
  • I like the reminder of why I switched. That will help for those times when things aren't going as planned. 
  • Learn to trust the dot. It seems like this is going to be the biggest hurdle. 
5 hours ago, MikeBurgess said:

Things to think about when going from Irons to a dot.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

Do not wait for a perfect round dot to sit still, most shots are just a stripe of red sliding onto and as the shot breaks off the target.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!. 

 

On close targets where you would just hammer it and never see a "good sight picture" (you see what you need to see) do the same thing you may not see the dot and that's probably ok (see what you need to see) 

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

Dot offset is a thing on close targets know your offset and think about it on close targets.

 

Look at the spot you want to hit on the targets NOT the dot!.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On your point of remaining target focused. It's actually something I struggled with shooting irons. I'm about to turn 50 so my close up vision is not great. However, thanks to LASIK surgery, I have 20/15 vision. This posed a huge problem for me shooting irons. My target vision is sharp. Sights, not so much. So eyes inherently snap to the target/distance. It was then a battle to shift my focus to my sights. The solution was to get corrective shooting glasses so my front sight was sharp but my distance vision was fuzzy. Made a huge difference. 

Since getting my CO gun setup, I've ditched the corrective glasses. I've been dry firing without them. It seems like I naturally am target focused. I recently read about, and have been dry firing, placing a piece of tape over the dot window. Basically, you can see the dot but you can't look through the window. So far, I have no trouble maintaining focus on the target. Again, have only tried this in dry fire. I'm hitting the range this Thursday for my first live fire session. I'm going to run some transition and other drills this way, with the tape, to see if what I'm seeing in dry fire translates over to live fire. I hope so. Sounds like this is one of the critical fundamentals to shooting a dot in our sport. 

 

2 hours ago, SGT_Schultz said:

 

I made the transition at the end of last year, and I was in about the same position skills-wise and time in sport-wise as you.

 

What Mike and Rowdy gave you is the perfect advice.

 

I think the point about looking at the target has been made...LOL

 

The point about an acceptable sight picture is sometimes difficult for some to grasp but this is what helped me understand: the dot is showing you all the movement that is in your current hold/grip but hidden by the imprecision of iron sights.  If you can blast 2A with .2 splits at 10 yards with irons, you can do it with a dot no matter how much it *seems* to move if your grip is the same.

 

The dot will also show you every.....single......flaw in your trigger manipulation and natural point of aim.  Use that to train.

 

1 hour ago, zzt said:

I'll try a different approach.  When you start you WILL be looking at the dot.  What that means is you are consciously moving the dot to the area you want to hit.  That is SLOW.  What you want to do is train/program your subconscious targeting computer to center the dot on where you are looking.  When you get it right you are not consciously aiming.  You are looking at the spot you want to hit and your subconscious automatically superimposes the dot on that target.  It takes time to train your mind, and it takes a little longer for you to trust it.  Once you do you will be faster by 10 to 15 seconds in a 5-6 stage match, vs. dot watching.  That may not sound like much, but it is HUGE.

 

I think I got it. It's what I read people referring to as "painting the target" vs seeing the dot stop on the target. I will have to train myself to understand what is acceptable for the target I'm trying to hit. Distance and size. Of course,  saying and understanding it, is much easier than actually doing it. I will make this a critical part of my training. 

By the way, I'm surprise no one mentioned dumping mags subconsciously before you remember you're not shooting Production. It's one of my biggest concerns. Maybe it won't be but was hoping someone had a golden nugget to share on how to overcome the "Move = Mag Eject" feature of a B-Class Production shooter. LOL. 

Edited by anonymouscuban
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2 hours ago, anonymouscuban said:

By the way, I'm surprise no one mentioned dumping mags subconsciously before you remember you're not shooting Production. It's one of my biggest concerns. Maybe it won't be but was hoping someone had a golden nugget to share on how to overcome the "Move = Mag Eject" feature of a B-Class Production shooter. LOL. 

 

To be honest I think I might have done an unneeded reload maybe twice since I started and they were all done right when I started.

 

If you groove your plan, including the place where you will reload (95% of the time all you need is one reload), the issue will take care of itself.

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9 hours ago, zzt said:

 

Finding the dot weak hand is always a PITA.  The trick is to close the off eye.  Otherwise the gun won't come back down in the right spot after recoil.  If your left hand is weak side, shoot using only the left eye.  Then you won't have to play find the dot after each shot.

 

@waktasz this sounds like good advice! 

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14 hours ago, zzt said:

 

Finding the dot weak hand is always a PITA.  The trick is to close the off eye.  Otherwise the gun won't come back down in the right spot after recoil.  If your left hand is weak side, shoot using only the left eye.  Then you won't have to play find the dot after each shot.

 

Are you actually saying close your strong eye and use your weak eye to shoot from your weak side?

 

That is very odd and slow.  A much faster way is to tilt the pistol slight towards your strong eye and/or turn your head slightly so that your strong eye is behind the pistol.

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12 hours ago, anonymouscuban said:

dumping mags subconsciously

that's because a reload is a planned event, not something done without thinking. you don't reload for the heck of it just all the time in prod. nor will you in co. before you said reload here here and here in a stage. and you did. now you will say simple here and you will do it that one time.

 

like is in vogue right now, learning the dot via tape over the lens with both eyes open will tell you if your focal plane is at the dot or down range. keep it down range. many people new treat the dot like a front sight and keep their awareness, attention and focal plane back at the gun/ sight. this is a gross under utilization of the benefits of a red dot sight.

 

i've heard it termed "learn to shoot the streak versus shooting a dot" on a majority of targets you will be shooting something less than a perfect, round dot. Tim Herron says it well with the idea of "doing the least effort to get the acceptable outcome". you're going to learn to see considerably less than you did with irons.

 

and as a 49 year old with tri focal glasses i feel your vision related pain.

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4 hours ago, SGT_Schultz said:

 

Are you actually saying close your strong eye and use your weak eye to shoot from your weak side?

 

That is very odd and slow.  A much faster way is to tilt the pistol slight towards your strong eye and/or turn your head slightly so that your strong eye is behind the pistol.

 

That is exactly what I am saying.  Close your strong eye.  It is much faster for me because the dot comes back down where it is supposed to be after recoil.  If you use your strong eye you have to bend or cant your wrist.  The dot doesn't come back and you have to look for it.  I see this all the time when running shooters.

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i recommend practice, especially dryfire. That will make it obvious what you need to do. Some good ideas above, but basically if you just practice, you'll figure it out.

 

I personally find no need to close any eyes when shooting dots, strong or weak or freestyle, but I practice those things, and I'm a grown man so gripping the  gun makes the dot come right back to where it was.

 

Picking up the dot is definitely different from picking up the irons on wide transitions, or coming into ports, or on leans, so practice those things in dryfire. 

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2 hours ago, zzt said:

 

That is exactly what I am saying.  Close your strong eye.  It is much faster for me because the dot comes back down where it is supposed to be after recoil.  If you use your strong eye you have to bend or cant your wrist.  The dot doesn't come back and you have to look for it.  I see this all the time when running shooters.

You know what's even faster and easier still?  Moving my extended left arm slightly right which puts the dot right in front of my right eye 

 

I do that as l transfer the gun from right to left hand and I dont end up with a weird squint on my face.

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30 minutes ago, SGT_Schultz said:

You know what's even faster and easier still?  Moving my extended left arm slightly right which puts the dot right in front of my right eye 

 

I do that as l transfer the gun from right to left hand and I dont end up with a weird squint on my face.

 

I do this by accident on occasions. It's like my gun is drawn to my strong eye instinctively.

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I also just made the jump. Like a couple people mentioned, I put painters tape across the front of the optic and it seemed to work well for me. I tried it for the first time in a local match a few weeks ago and was happy with how I performed.  

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Definitely it may be frustrating in the beginning as you "lose" the dot.  But it gets much better over time.

 

Definitely don't try to jump back and forth shooting both Production and Carry Optics. If you are going CO go all in. I tried doing both for awhile and it just makes it difficult finding the dot in CO because i index the gun differently in CO vs Production. 

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