Why Slaving the Dot to the Irons is Wrong

everybody Erin Callan sage dynamics and this video were to talk about why you should never ever ever ever ever ever coitus a pistol red dot sight to the iron sights pistol optic backup sights that happen to be suppressor height so I can use them through the optic window in the event that my optic goes down or I'm practicing it or for whatever reason if I just want to shoot iron sights that I can turn my optic offer whatever their suppressor height because they have to clear the body of the optic anybody who shot suppressor my sights will tell you that the point of aim point of impact changes from standard height when you put suppressor height on but that's kind of an aside to the main problem that we have with some people buying these things and then not really understanding the red dot well enough to to use it as effectively as they probably could if they took five minutes to get correct information there the problem is there's so much bad information out there that I have to make videos like this which isn't a big deal because that's the whole reason I do this for a living this is someone passionate about something I want to do so if you did adjust the red dot in your optic to sit on the top of your front sight or be bisected by your front sight the lollipop or just sit on top keep in mind that you've now zeroed your optic in correctly so first a really basic understanding what we're talking about if I'm shooting with iron sights proper technique for iron sights is to align them on the horizontal plane of the gun and to have equal light and equal height across the top flush tucked in not too low not too high not too left not too right right in there in that rear notch and then I place that over my desired point of impact I may have to account for a point of any pony impact differences inside or outside of the zero-distance of those sights or the point-blank distance of those sights to talk about it and then I shoot and that's how I use iron sights when I use a red dot I focus on the target I look through the red dot and focus on the target now there is an alternate method for extreme distances on red dots where you could focus on the red dot it's something that some people advocate not something that I advocate but it is a technique that's out there and it has some viability to it but for general purpose handgun distance shooting I'm gonna look through that red dot the red dot is zeroed in to pain of the iron sights because if it wasn't then it would kind of be a little visual clutter visual confusing when actually with the shoot because I would be inside my iron sight sight picture while using my dot which is something I don't necessarily want to deal with the whole reason the red dot is advantageous is it allows me to stay target focused and it lets me see all the way around my support unquote front sight post whereas iron sights it's not something that I can do so the optic needs to be zeroed independently the irons and of course the question may come up and somebody may be asking it right now why does it matter why would I need to zero or why should I zero the optic independently iron sights well the iron sights exist on the same horizontal plate of the firearm and they're using a definitively different way the red dot should be zeroed from the eye colons to the eye to the target to a set distance the distance can be arbitrary you paint on what you're trying to use your handgun for I generally use a 25-yard slash 25 meter I do it in meters 25 meter zero distance and that allows me to have less point of any important impact variance inside of reasonable handgun distances if your zeroing adjusting slaving if you will the red dot to your iron sights you're literally zero in your optic for the distance of the of the front sight which can be problematic as distance increases a demonstration so this particular gun blocks seventeen eyes erode the dot to the front sight now keep in mind zero ring to the front sight means I'm in this case i bisected the dot literally split it in half and I Center it as much as I could on post and then I shot at three seven fifteen and twenty five yards I didn't use holdovers at all so at three we're good it's point of aim point of impact moving back to five we're also staying pretty reasonable as far as placement is but it is starting to climb a little bit once we get back to fifteen you start to see more of a dramatic climb in the shot placement now I fired all these standing I did have a ransom rest or anything like that to use and I didn't have the ability to support the gun and bench rested so everything was shot standing so there is some subjectivity to it because it's based on my skill level at these distances on that day with that gun so on and so forth once we get out 25 we see kind of a considerable thing happen one the Shocker raises dramatically and another thing we see is the shot group spreads out horizontally now you might think that this is shooter error and it could potentially be that but it's also the fact that the red dot is zeroed both elevation and windage to the front sight while I have it in the rear sight and that's kind of a complicated task to complete and why this occurs is because even though the dot projects larger than the front sight it's actually smaller than the front sight so when I'm actually using it in the proper technique I'm supposed to use which means I'm named out and I'm just focusing on the dot I've got more horizontal deviation in there that I would have otherwise if I actually zeroed at the target distance versus at the front sight distance now it's quick and easy to slave your red dot to your iron it's no big deal but the only time it's going to be accurate to that zero is if you're using it in conjunction with your iron sights and a quote-unquote Co witness the biggest problem here of course is the disambiguation of terminology does Co witness mean I can just see my sights through my optic window or does it mean my dot itself is slaved to my iron sights if you're just talking about Co witness in regards to I can see my irons through my optic then Co Etna scene is fine and it's been done since red dots have been a thing if you're talking about slaving your red dot to your iron it's just stop it just don't don't do that at all zero it independently and here's what this gun is zeroed at 25 meters even though I'ma be shooting it in yards for demonstration because everybody in the America on the internet loves yards for some reason I'm gonna shoot at the same distance as 3 7 15 and 25 at 3 and again I'm not holding over I'm going for that black point aim on my my my target they're inside my a zone that's my point aim for every distance shooting a little little low because I didn't holdover and there is that mechanical offset even though it is 0.7 to 0.9 looking at the dot and in conjunction with the the bore axis but it still exists it's still something we have taken to account but for the purposes this I didn't holdover and again if my goal was to hit that black dot mission accomplished at 5 or I'm sorry at 7 we're still holding really good we just stacked them right on top of each other we get out to 15 there's a little bit more deviation and we're leaning all to the left again shooting this standing unsupported I'm still getting really really good consistent hits you can't see a dramatic difference between three to fifteen once we get it back twenty five this is where it really starts to shine that's kind of like the bright line distance for a lot of shooters when it comes to handgun distances but even at 25 yards I'm doing remarkably better than I would have if I'd slave the red dot to my iron sights and then used it in that way so here's our two targets compared this is our slave two irons and this is our independent zero at 25 meters shot at three seven 15 25 yards respectively there's some naysayers and then this this is somewhat of a valid argument there isn't a significant difference in the two groups until we get out of 25 and of course that can be blamed subjectivity subjectively on the shooter but that really comes down to are you willing to accept proper technique are you gonna make excuses for not knowing something and doubling down on someone giving you the correct information if you want to double down on doing things kind of a lazy way really I mean slaving the red dot to your irons just kind of the laziest way you can accomplish things then that's fine we'll just keep in mind that your performance is going to suffer because of it because that's not the way the red dot is supposed to be used and that's not the most advantageous way to use it yes you can use it incorrectly and shoot accurately I can take this whole group right here move it down a little bit I've got really good a his own hits all day long until I get back to point 5 meanwhile over here I've got a zone hits all day long and I really have to account for the fact that I zeroed my optic well incorrectly you may be happy with the accuracy you could get if you slaved your red dot to your eyes and you may not see a significant difference in my two groups we keep in mind I shoot for a living and I shoot red dots almost exclusively now I only shoot iron sights if I'm going to teach an iron sight class I kind of brush up on them because the red dot actually does make you a more proficient iron sight shooter but that's kind of a separate topic I'm used to shooting pistols with red dots so even when I zeroed it in correctly I'm still able to maintain a degree of proficiency the size of the dot the size the iron sights the size of the gun your actual sight radius on the gun and what I mean by that is the actual distance of the front sight from the optic itself because that matters into that zero technique because you're literally zeroing to the front sight which is you know inches those things matter my advice to you if you do have your gun zeroed in that way because you just didn't know any better and that's fine ignorance is okay we don't want to be stupid if someone gives you the correct information and you choose to ignore it that makes you well consciously incompetent and nobody wants to be that you want to be the knowledgeable shooter because we're all supposed to be on the same team so it seems like anytime I've had this conversation with someone who actually had their red dots slaved to their irons they got super super defensive about it and some of the viewers might be like that right now keep in mind that I'm trying to help you and even though there's some sarcasm the sneaks in bed time and time again that's based out of frustration and that's something I'm working on as a personal level sometimes sarcasm from frustration just comes out and it's it's an unfortunate but if we were in a one-on-one basis I wouldn't get that - it's just kind of a video format thing if someone's given you the correct information it's verifiably correct information because by all means no just listen to me go out there and seek other people's opinions who know who are knowledgeable about red dots on handguns and listen to them then just make the change and then share the knowledge with other shooters who are making the same mistake at a personal level we can always help each other it's very difficult for me more or less you may know who I am but I may be a perfect stranger to you other than fact you know who I am and I have a YouTube channel and I teach and blah blah blah and may be problematic for you to ingest information contradictory to what you previously believed that's what we call cognitive dissonance you've got to accept the fact that the new information needs to overwrite the old information then you have to go back and change the way you've been doing things which is unfortunate but in shooting we've all been there we've all been doing something wrong and someone came along and helped us and that's what I'm trying to do here because slaving your red dot to your ironsights is it's incorrect and if you notice incorrect and you keep doing it then well that's just stupid I'm Eric Allen sage dynamics trained accordingly

Channel: SageDynamics

Views: 93,785

Rating: 4.9337635 out of 5

Keywords: RMR zero, Trijicon

Id: tpkb0Lyr9RM

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2019