Are Red Dot Sights Worth It?
Red dot sights are a prominent accessory for gun enthusiasts because of their well-known function in improving shoots. It’s an optic designed to enhance the shot in close to moderate ranges without too much hassle.
Photo by Thomas Tucker on Unsplash
As a result, many people have recommended investing in budget red dot sights for a remarkable experience. Most have attested to the quality of the offered shoot acquisition by incorporating advances in technology.
As much as there’s support for the product, a group of people suggests sticking with iron sights instead since they believe that it’s a good tool when in practice.
Benefits
Enhanced targeting
It can’t be helped that you’ll face unfavorable environments, like dim-lit areas or being stuck in a location with shallow light, which gives this accessory an advantage over its iron sight counterpart.
It’s no secret that the latter, although equipped with fiber optics or tritium, still couldn’t provide enough visible aim point. It’s only by utilizing LED-powered reflex sight through illuminating the dark spots could visibility be provided.
For inexperienced shooters, it’s a common struggle for iron sights users to maintain a sight picture, but by using a red dot sight, one could effortlessly capture their surroundings.
Quicker target acquisition
Yes, indeed, the expertise of a marksman in taking advantage of iron sights could still produce better results with minimal effort than its amateur peer who has red dot sight on their rifle.
However, this doesn’t eliminate the fact that you would have the upper hand if you consider other options. Remember that factors such as trigger control, stance, follow-through, breathing, grip, and a draw would impact your overall shooting capabilities.
With iron sights, you have to pay attention to three alignment points, mainly rear sight, front sight, and target, yet the other only requires you to focus on one. Simply position your reticle to the target, and you’ll have fewer things to watch out for.
Studies suggest that our human psychophysiology might have influenced this situation because we depend on concentrating on one point to get past life-threatening scenarios. If it appears that danger is imminent, it’s a natural reaction to maintain focus on the threat itself, whereas iron sights fail to compete.
Since shifting focus while using iron sights is typical, this could later hinder extremely adrenaline-pumping cases. Thus, significantly affect our shooting performance.
Better scope
Another downside of iron sights is that you’re left with keeping one eye open, which deters your vision. Unfortunately, we’re often left shooting with a non-dominant eye.
Few would argue that this is irrelevant, but experts know that the dominant eye can interpret the obtained visual data with minimal distractions. So practicing your skills accompanied by a non-dominant eye would reduce your brain’s digested information.
Not only that, but it also puts you under stress as the body activates a “fight or flight” response during hectic situations. Even though it’s possible to keep one eye closed, it goes against our human instincts; hence individuals become disoriented, endangering their well-being and those around them.
So if you’re worried for the safety of everyone involved, it might be wise to use a red dot sight as an alternative due to its minimized associated risks, given that you have an improved awareness in your environment.
Conclusion
Red dot sights might not be considered the ultimate solution to all issues faced by people handling firearms, but it does prevent you from being in worse conditions.
Of course, they don’t come as cheap, but affordable variations and brands are available on the shelves. Personally, we recommend the HOLOSUN HS403C Solar Power Micro Red Dot Sight as it comes with 12 brightness settings, impressive battery life, included two mounts, and a manual adjustment option.