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#21 ·
Mr Meeseeks said:
As always, I dig your insight. Is there a reason that an optic falls short of accomplishing the varying sight pictures you describe above? Wouldn’t you still retain the ability to be slow or precise with just as much flexibility as irons? Sure you’ll have 100% target focus, but the quality of your trigger manipulation combined with the precision of dot placement would render same result, no? Hoser stuff, see a flash of red somewhere inside scoring surface and let it rip. Precision, turn dot down low and focus on the center molecule of the aiming point/ target surface.

I guess I’m curious about all this because I just got a dot. Partly to play around in CO on Steel, but more importantly to use as a tool to improve my index and shooting with irons. Force myself to learn target focus a bit more.

OP, if this is getting too into the weeds, I will take it to Sciolist in the ol PM’s.
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My general answer is because it's easier for me to use skill to refine a gross tool than to ignore the massive overload of movement in an optic. And I can see the irons sooner. But I'm a production shooter, not open. Nothing is really happening that fast for me.

Here's another EP session. So 3.75 is totally manageable at 9 yards. I can't quite get to 3.50, but 3.50 is easy for Bill/reload/Bill at 7 yards. And 1.55 is probably about my mechanical max for a single Bill.

I can shoot 1 inch groups offhand at 20 yards with irons. I can't do that with a dot. The only thing I can do better with a dot is transition around on stuff like 12 inch plates at 20 yards.

So my question would be, how many plates to you go to sight focus on with irons in Steel Challenge? How do your overall times compare between irons and dot there?

View: https://youtu.be/lsxmX7-9KVo
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
sciolist said:
One thing to give some thought to is the way in which you are establishing the visual relationship between target and sights. And how would that potentially affect your preferred sight configuration?

I tend toward the gross side, so I'm looking to center the sight picture relative to the geometry of the scoring surface. So centroid of rectangle or disc, or maybe a third up from bottom for faster splits.

Some other people are aiming more at a specific point on the scoring surface. These are the aim small/miss small people. Or aim small/shoot slow, depending on who you ask...

But for maximum precision, I'm looking at the freakin' center molecule of the top edge of the post. No other visual effects matter.

That's why I generally like irons better than an optic. That, and familiarity.
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Astigmatism and glasses don’t let me see the center molecule at the top edge of the post. Some day in the near future, there’ll be bifocals and it’ll be even worse. :D
 
Discussion starter · #25 ·
sciolist said:
But for practical shooters, the molecule is just a party trick. The action is mostly toward the other end of the spectrum.
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Sure, but black rear and fiber optic front work great on light brown and white targets. You might find they don’t work as well for dark colored targets in low light.

You don’t see much benefit in red dots... but perhaps because you’re shooting in the most optimal iron sight conditions at targets most conducive to black sights.

Go low light and dark targets and things might be a little different.

In great lighting and contrast conditions, I shoot irons as well as I do red dots. But in compromised conditions they really separate for me.
 
#26 ·
This is my take....
Most of my pistols are defense guns, I train accordingly. Which means, I put the target at self defense range and shoot like I would if the target was a bad guy. Mostly doubles and quick shots from low ready. I rarely see much of the front sight. Longer distances mean slower, more controlled shots, sight pic more important, but I have time to make just about any sights work. Just like anyone else, I have my preferences that work best with my eyesight, some like mine, some don't. Some prefer blondes over redheads also. As far as night sights go, I've never had much use for them. If I can't see well enough to see where I'm pointing, I probably can't see well enough to ID my target. If that's the case I'm not going to fire anyway. My home defense guns have lights.
Just my dos pesos.
 
#27 ·
-JCN- said:
Sure, but black rear and fiber optic front work great on light brown and white targets. You might find they don’t work as well for dark colored targets in low light.

You don’t see much benefit in red dots... but perhaps because you’re shooting in the most optimal iron sight conditions at targets most conducive to black sights.

Go low light and dark targets and things might be a little different.

In great lighting and contrast conditions, I shoot irons as well as I do red dots. But in compromised conditions they really separate for me.
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Low light could mean anything from less than optimal to darkness. For diminished light, I like green FO better than red. In dark, I'm using a light unless it's not permitted for some reason.

I hate glare, and we have plenty of it in winter. The lower sun angle at a more northern latitude makes a big difference. In more glare or less light, I shoot more on index. With glare, I can still see the silhouette of the sight picture for tight targets.

You're right that most of my shooting experience is in conditions where light is not a major issue. But I've gone out a few times and cleared our shoot houses in the evening and also in complete darkness. It's not as though I have no idea how that works. I've done a few classes with clearing and FoF in darkness.

For sure, there's a range of illumination where an optic would be an advantage over irons. It's just that the vast majority of my shooting (actual or potential) is not in that range. And irons work fine for me over most of the illumination spectrum.

If I were going to be shooting mostly in the spectrum where irons work least well (very low light, but not dark). I might start using an optic.

I don't think changing up the color of the targets has that much to do with it. Obviously it's better not to use a white dot on white steel, red on red, plain black irons on black steel, etc. But the ability to know where the sights are in relation to the target is the main issue.

The optic has the advantage of being luminous. The FO has the advantage of contrasting with the metal sight surfaces. For me, latter is enough in most situations of illumination, speed, glare, etc. But yes, I do agree that an optic has the ability to differentiate itself more in some lighting conditions.

I'm certainly not trying to diss optics, just giving my perspective based on my experience. And also saying don't discount your ability to work with a tool just because it's not optimal for the immediate task at hand.

If you can split wood with a knife, you don't need to carry an axe. Doesn't mean you would take a knife to a wood splitting contest, but woods craft is not a wood splitting contest...
 
Discussion starter · #28 ·
sciolist said:
Low light could mean anything from less than optimal to darkness. For diminished light, I like green FO better than red. In dark, I'm using a light unless it's not permitted for some reason.

I hate glare, and we have plenty of it in winter. The lower sun angle at a more northern latitude makes a big difference. In more glare or less light, I shoot more on index. With glare, I can still see the silhouette of the sight picture for tight targets.

You're right that most of my shooting experience is in conditions where light is not a major issue. But I've gone out a few times and cleared our shoot houses in the evening and also in complete darkness. It's not as though I have no idea how that works. I've done a few classes with clearing and FoF in darkness.

For sure, there's a range of illumination where an optic would be an advantage over irons. It's just that the vast majority of my shooting (actual or potential) is not in that range. And irons work fine for me over most of the illumination spectrum.

If I were going to be shooting mostly in the spectrum where irons work least well (very low light, but not dark). I might start using an optic.

I don't think changing up the color of the targets has that much to do with it. Obviously it's better not to use a white dot on white steel, red on red, plain black irons on black steel, etc. But the ability to know where the sights are in relation to the target is the main issue.

The optic has the advantage of being luminous. The FO has the advantage of contrasting with the metal sight surfaces. For me, latter is enough in most situations of illumination, speed, glare, etc. But yes, I do agree that an optic has the ability to differentiate itself more in some lighting conditions.

I'm certainly not trying to diss optics, just giving my perspective based on my experience. And also saying don't discount your ability to work with a tool just because it's not optimal for the immediate task at hand.

If you can split wood with a knife, you don't need to carry an axe. Doesn't mean you would take a knife to a wood splitting contest, but woods craft is not a wood splitting contest...
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Well said and I agree with you.

I can definitely improve with more practice. But at the skill level I’m currently at, with the training time I have available to me... different sights provide different results.

Would be interested to see you run the April challenge. It’s almost all point shooting transitions. I did as well with my G19x (horizontal white three dots) as I did with the straight 8 EDC X9 with and without optic.

For most self defense uses, agree that sights may matter not at all. My carry revolver just has an orange plastic insert on black rear integrated sight and I’m fine with it.

But enough lighting and target differences happen indoors with me that sights matter in my shooting. Red dot being the best hands down for most “indoor lane range practice” type things and vertical being next best (for me).

If I’m noticing a difference in even those conditions, I don’t think they’re so uncommon that I should ignore it. It’s standard dim lit indoors without uniform lighting conditions.

There may be a real limitation of eyesight and lack of native lens accommodation that you also might not have perspective of.

Like if you were trying to teach a person with neuropathy to drive by the seat of their pants.... some redundant feedback data just may not be available to them.
 
#29 ·
I've never liked 2 dots on the rear sight makes my eyes want to focus on the 2 big dots instead of the small front dot.
I put hienies on my old gen 3s . I liked them they work fairly well . But the front sight was a tad wider than I would have liked.
Since then I've gone to T-caps on my gen4 and gen5.
Didnt like the trijicon hd neither front post to wide, and there rear dots :(
 
#31 ·
-JCN- said:
Well said and I agree with you.

I can definitely improve with more practice. But at the skill level I’m currently at, with the training time I have available to me... different sights provide different results.

Would be interested to see you run the April challenge. It’s almost all point shooting transitions. I did as well with my G19x (horizontal white three dots) as I did with the straight 8 EDC X9 with and without optic.

For most self defense uses, agree that sights may matter not at all. My carry revolver just has an orange plastic insert on black rear integrated sight and I’m fine with it.

But enough lighting and target differences happen indoors with me that sights matter in my shooting. Red dot being the best hands down for most “indoor lane range practice” type things and vertical being next best (for me).

If I’m noticing a difference in even those conditions, I don’t think they’re so uncommon that I should ignore it. It’s standard dim lit indoors without uniform lighting conditions.

There may be a real limitation of eyesight and lack of native lens accommodation that you also might not have perspective of.

Like if you were trying to teach a person with neuropathy to drive by the seat of their pants.... some redundant feedback data just may not be available to them.
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My main interest in optics on pistols is developmental, not performance - hardware, not software. I learned more from using a dot on my dry gun for about a month than I would learn from shooting it live the rest of my life.

At that point I could already run irons at 110%. Not consistently in matches, but I could do it. For me, the thing with the dot was certainty. For 100% of the stage, it shows you exactly where the hit will be if you press the trigger back appropriately at the current time.

It's easy to think you are doing that with irons, but the dot showed I wasn't. Irons allow a lot more flexibility in how you observe the sights and target, and things have a way of truncating under stress. But the dot helped me understand how I could better use my existing skill to look at the sights/targets more effectively, and how I could continue on that path.

So yes, it's easier to call hits on some targets with an optic, and that will always be so. But shooting is primarily a game of skill, not hardware. And even if that were not true, development is my main interest.

I do think I have a vision advantage, mainly in terms of a strong right dominance. But I also think my primary shooting skills are perceptual - how I look at the sights and targets.

The more you can rely on mechanics to know the gun is on target, the less you need to rely on vision. And the more you can understand where the targets are and group them together beforehand, then less you need to actively do that during the shooting process.

Consider a situation where there are 2 targets, maybe 1 paper/1 steel close together. So you look at the steel, sights to steel, see sights lift from steel, look at paper, sights to paper, see sights lift on split, see sights lift again... And maybe I just look at the whole array as 1 thing and press the trigger 3 times.

Like being 16 on your first solo drive. Icky song comes on the radio and you can't take your hands off the wheel to change the station without pulling over, vs. you've been driving 30 years. Doesn't really have anything to do with how good your vision is. Your vision was probably much better at 16. The lights were on, but no one was home.
 
#32 ·
-JCN- said:
Sure, but black rear and fiber optic front work great on light brown and white targets. You might find they don’t work as well for dark colored targets in low light.

You don’t see much benefit in red dots... but perhaps because you’re shooting in the most optimal iron sight conditions at targets most conducive to black sights.

Go low light and dark targets and things might be a little different.

In great lighting and contrast conditions, I shoot irons as well as I do red dots. But in compromised conditions they really separate for me.
Click to expand...
Tying these two together, take a look at the lighting in my 4/30/19 vid. I had to do the runs on your challenge drill from inside the shelter to keep out of the wind, but did the Bills out front.

The light is sufficiently dim in the shelter (facing north) that I'd need to shoot pretty slowly to fully track the dot. I had to move outside even to read the timer. Look at the difference in ambient light on the timer as I move forward.

Shooting your drill on a 1.75 pace is about my max tracking the dot in that light. Even that slow, there would not be time to relate the dot to rear sight graphics. But I know the gun is grossly on target if I can see the dot in front of the scoring surface.

Moving to a 1.35 pace, I can't see much detail in the sights with that lighting. And notice also that there's quite a bit of glare on the target for that run. So I can see the general cycling process, but at that pace I'm probably running 60% on index, which comes from lots of dry fire.

I did a couple runs at 1.25, but that's over-driving my headlights in those conditions. I can hit that time, but there would be more of an element of chance. With good lighting and four 8.5x11's, I'd be under 1.25.

On the Bill's, I can see the dot clearly the entire time, from the initial presentation. It's basically impossible to miss the target, so relaxation, index and time are all that matter.

I think for me, more than half the information is tactile in all cases. The more I push speed (which is relative to the size of scoring surface), the more important feel becomes. It's important for me to be visually aware that the sights are on target, but that awareness is passive. There's only time for it to guide me subconsciously at that rate of fire.

Big picture, I think vision is like training wheels for mechanics. 10,000 hours of watching the sights is what gets you to the point of being able to put them on target with your eyes closed. Or in the dark. If you put the time in to lay the visual foundation, it opens up the door to developing really robust mechanics. Like a chef using a knife quickly, or any other such operation.

The lynchpin of keeping the hits on target is in how you mount, present and trigger the gun. Your vision runs way ahead of that in speed, but I don't think you can look your way to high levels of speed or accuracy in terms of hit placement.

So I guess my thoughts on sight configuration mirror my thoughts on development. That might be because I've done almost all my development with the same kind of sights, though. No real way to be sure about that. You have to learn on something...
 
#33 · (Edited)
You should always be looking at the sights. Your vision will always be (able to be) way faster than your mechanics - like maybe twice as fast.

But when you come into a stressful situation where you need an anchoring element to keep yourself on track (speed, accuracy, or both), try bringing your conscious attention to trigger press and letting your vision go on autopilot, according to how you've practiced it in dry fire.

Consider a situation with 1 critical cone on a Tour course. I'm visualizing that cone in the abstract at the starting line. I'm looking directly at it maybe 50/75 yards out. But by the time the car is anywhere near the cone, my vision is up beyond it, and my perception of the cone is via feel.

After you've run enough courses, you learn how to see passively, and bring your active attention to how the car feels. It's important to learn to "look up", but the action is in feeling physical sensations in the present tense.

And that's where the time is.

The act of physically feeling the operation of the gun can be a very calming, centering thing. Focusing on vision potentially running at 2x your mechanical speed tends to induce over-trying and even mild panic. That is not what you want...
 
#34 ·
When a shooter who learned on irons goes to a dot, 2 things jump off the page. First, it's much easier to observe the dot at say 75% precision under stress with target focus. And the second is, how the hell to I calm this thing down? The irons have so much less movement. Of course they don't, you just can't see it as clearly - because you haven't learned to yet.

When a shooter who does everything from the draw goes to low ready, suddenly he has a world class draw index, because that happens off the clock. So it's easy to see the importance of being able to acquire that grip consistently, under stress, in a sufficiently small amount of time to fulfill the stage/CoF requirements. That could be 2.0, but could also be 0.75.

And when you run a Tour course, you see the cones going by. They are always within your gaze. Some come more into your attention than others, but probably only 5 or 10 out of a few hundred matter. The thing that produces winning results is not your visual perception of the cones. It's butt dyno, pedal feel and wheel feedback. And all of that is tactile mechanics, not vision.

Similarly, shooting practical pistol for high HF is primarily about mechanics learned through thousands of hours of dry fire. Mechanical development is guided by vision, but the shooting performance is fundamentally a mechanical exercise. Same as with the car, you look at the targets in the distance and use your mechanical skill to bring the instrument into an appropriate relationship with the various different target arrays.

There will be a few isolated situations where you need to change visual focus on tighter targets. But most of the work is most efficiently accomplished by turning up your awareness of the irons in the foreground, while your accommodation stays downrange - just like with the dot and cones.

And with practice, even a geezer can learn to look at irons more precisely than a 2.5 MOA dot.
 
Discussion starter · #35 ·
sciolist said:
When a shooter who learned on irons goes to a dot, 2 things jump off the page. First, it's much easier to observe the dot at say 75% precision under stress with target focus. And the second is, how the hell to I calm this thing down? The irons have so much less movement. Of course they don't, you just can't see it as clearly - because you haven't learned to yet.

When a shooter who does everything from the draw goes to low ready, suddenly he has a world class draw index, because that happens off the clock. So it's easy to see the importance of being able to acquire that grip consistently, under stress, in a sufficiently small amount of time to fulfill the stage/CoF requirements. That could be 2.0, but could also be 0.75.

And when you run a Tour course, you see the cones going by. They are always within your gaze. Some come more into your attention than others, but probably only 5 or 10 out of a few hundred matter. The thing that produces winning results is not your visual perception of the cones. It's butt dyno, pedal feel and wheel feedback. And all of that is tactile mechanics, not vision.

Similarly, shooting practical pistol for high HF is primarily about mechanics learned through thousands of hours of dry fire. Mechanical development is guided by vision, but the shooting performance is fundamentally a mechanical exercise. Same as with the car, you look at the targets in the distance and use your mechanical skill to bring the instrument into an appropriate relationship with the various different target arrays.

There will be a few isolated situations where you need to change visual focus on tighter targets. But most of the work is most efficiently accomplished by turning up your awareness of the irons in the foreground, while your accommodation stays downrange - just like with the dot and cones.

And with practice, even a geezer can learn to look at irons more precisely than a 2.5 MOA dot.
Click to expand...
I agree with all that you’re saying philosophically.

I’ll make two physiological comments, though.

Even mechanical fundamentals require sensory feedback. Proprioception and sensory fibers.

Not everyone is equally endowed with the neural capacity to achieve this to the same level. Even with practice, there is a significant difference in the level of athletic achievement that is possible.

You’re in a special situation where your former life, especially when young gave you a very robust proprioceptive network.

If you don’t learn it and develop the networks when young, there’s a limit to how far you can get later.

It’s like music. If you learn it when young like a language, you have brain maps you can never learn even with “training and practice” if you start later in life.

So even though you started later with shooting, you already had a very close association with your hand proprioception to bring back to your vision.

Also, going to disagree that people with difficulty accommodating near vision will ever see irons on their handgun as well as a distance focused dot on an optic.

Just like someone with severe neuropathy in their hands will have a hard time point shooting.
 
#36 ·
-JCN- said:
I agree with all that you’re saying philosophically.

I’ll make two physiological comments, though.

Even mechanical fundamentals require sensory feedback. Proprioception and sensory fibers.

Not everyone is equally endowed with the neural capacity to achieve this to the same level. Even with practice, there is a significant difference in the level of athletic achievement that is possible.

You’re in a special situation where your former life, especially when young gave you a very robust proprioceptive network.

If you don’t learn it and develop the networks when young, there’s a limit to how far you can get later.

It’s like music. If you learn it when young like a language, you have brain maps you can never learn even with “training and practice” if you start later in life.

So even though you started later with shooting, you already had a very close association with your hand proprioception to bring back to your vision.

Also, going to disagree that people with difficulty accommodating near vision will ever see irons on their handgun as well as a distance focused dot on an optic.

Just like someone with severe neuropathy in their hands will have a hard time point shooting.
Click to expand...
General vs. specific proprioception is an interesting issue. Maybe it's all general? Then I guess you would be right. And certainly you know way more about that than I do. I would say playing music is probably more important than athletics. That's incredibly valuable for a child.

What I'm saying on near accommodation is that it's almost unnecessary for performance in practical shooting. Yes, it's very helpful as a developmental tool for noobs, and it definitely has helped me. I also can't put the paste back in the tube, so not sure how I would have reacted as a noob with bad vision.

But I do know how it feels to have vision that's significantly deteriorating as my shooting continues to improve - specifically in the manner being discussed here. And my sense is that vision loss is actually helping my shooting, by making it harder for me to do things I shouldn't be trying to do in the first place.

So I would say, try setting up a single plate, maybe a 12 inch disc at 7 yards. Make ready, and study the disc very carefully with max visual focus and detail. Hold that focus and present the gun in the foreground. Allow yourself to become minimally aware of the sights, and see how much awareness you need to be sure they are on target. Then try breaking a few shots, a few splits, a few draws.

Still at 7 yards, see how high you can get your awareness of the sights without changing your focus on the plate. Then relax your acuity on the plate, but keep accommodation at that distance. How does that affect your awareness of the sights? Try equalizing your awareness of plate and sights. Is that more secure?

Then try reversing, so accommodation is on sights and awareness is on the plate. Is that better or worse? Does it allow you to call hits more confidently? What about time?

After getting a feel for that, move back to 10 yards and go through it again. Then 15, 20, 30... maybe 50 yards. See where you need to make changes to get the best efficiency, and where maybe you would be more efficient if you could do things a bit differently.

Steel Challenge is a great example. Shoot through the whole match dry and live. How many plates do you need to go to a sight focus on with irons? Is it the same in dry and live, or maybe you are more confident in dry?

And also, throughout the range on the single plate, how does modulating attention to trigger press compare with modulating attention to sight picture? That's one thing that changed a lot for me. In the first few years, it was all vision. I misunderstood Benos in that respect, and in retrospect I think that might have been his intent. Like the idea is to keep everyone hooked on vision until each individual gets to the point where they can drop the leash...

For me, shooting with target focus and max awareness of sights in foreground is enough to get most of it done. There's no mechanically possible rate of fire where I can't see the fiber cycling, and for some targets I need to pull back to sight focus, and even see a crisp lift. But even in those instances, attention to trigger press provides more security than attention to sight focus. Former is how I get it right. Latter is just how I see that I'm getting it wrong.
 
#37 ·
Another thing that's occurred to me increasingly over the past few years, having shot with a few genuinely world-class guys outside of the competitive context...

If you stand and just watch these people shoot live, you'll see that they are extremely astute, especially in their ability to organize mechanics and events in time. They are not necessarily terribly articulate, which can create kind of a savant appearance. But they all seem to be pretty smart.

I think there's a substantial intellectual/cognitive component to shooting. It's a deceptively simple process, so there's really nowhere for a less astute person to hide. The really good shooters have all put a lot of work into refining their understanding of specifically what's going on, and organizing it all very well.

So to a large extent, how well you shoot is a function of how well you understand your shooting. And the path to improvement is mostly the process of moving toward a better understanding of what you're doing.

It's kind of a crazy thing. The more I try to understand shooting, the more I realize how little there is to it beyond the understanding. Like I'm not really doing anything all that fantastic physically, I'm just understanding it better and organizing it more clearly in the present tense.

And I think that's very similar to racing. But shooting has less hardware to create the illusion of an arms race. So people naturally assume there must be super-human mechanics going on. But really, how hard is it to wiggle your finger back and forth in 0.15, transition between two points in 0.20, present a tool in 0.60, etc.? The hard part is organizing it all - driving the car, not riding the car.
 
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sciolist
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