Integrating Irons with Red Dot Sights

We're gonna talk about sight alignment and sight picture when we're using both irons and a red dot on a defensive pistol. Now you're not going to be using all of those things at the same time. In some cases you're gonna be doing sight alignment and sight picture with the irons. In some cases you're gonna be doing sight picture alone with the red dot, but all of it's going to be in our field of vision. So we're going to revisit some fundamentals about sight alignment and sight picture and work our way through what I think is a potential.

Complex visual field, but understand which parts are important under which circumstances. And throughout this we're going to be using the whiteboard. I'll be explaining some things and we'll be doing some cutaways so you can look through a red dot site with some high vis sites that have fiber optic as well as the structure of the irons themselves, and we're going to look at all the important reference points. So let's start first of all with the basic idea of the iron sites. We've got the rear notch.

And we've got the front blade. What's important here to me is that we have a fair amount of light on either side of the front blade. Inside of the rear notch of the rear sight and what that's going to allow us to do is superimpose that front blade over our target. If this notch is completely filled by the front sight, then it makes it harder to make sure that we're superimposed over the thing we want to hit. If you're doing high-end extreme precision shooting, then you want a very narrow notch and a very thin blade.

For defensive shooting, I recommend a relatively wide notch and a relatively large blade. The one that we're looking at here from high vis is what I consider standard. It's a standard width notch and a standard blade. And again, right now we're ignoring the fiber optics. Where I think it's most important to focus is on the corners at the top.

Of the front and rear sight. So those four corners are what we're going to focus on 1st. 1st and foremost, baseline sight alignment is making sure that those corners are equidistant. There's equal amounts of light on either side, and that it's even across the top. And then we're going to superimpose that over our target.

I'll use this pink here to represent the target. So let's say we had a circle. We're superimposing that over the target, and at this point, if we had nothing else to worry about, our hard focus would be on the front sight. We'd be closing an eye, and I know this can be controversial for some people for some reason, but when we need higher levels of precision, we want to be sure that we are getting sight alignment and sight picture. We're going to close an eye so that we only have one path.

Of light and of course that's not exactly straight, that's my failure as an artist, that's not light not traveling in a straight line again out to the target. So with the target out there, could we under certain circumstances focus on the front sight and have double vision and know which of the targets we're not shooting at? Sure. Could we maybe get away with a squint? Sure, but baseline, what we're going to do is close an eye when we're using our sights to get the maximum.

Clarity on our alignment and our picture. So again, sight alignment is the relationship between the front and rear sight. Site picture is when we get a hard focus on that front sight and superimpose it with sight alignment over the target, that's site picture. Now let's think about red dots. So we'll get rid of those for a second and we're gonna look at the window.

Of our red dot site and we've got a dot that can be, it could be a green dot, gold dot, whatever, it could be over there, could be in the middle, right, could be down here in the corner, that the dot can be anywhere in that field of view. So we're not terribly worried about alignment now. And other distortion issues, there's reasons we want that dot to be as centered as possible inside the window in the optic, but it's not 100% necessary. So we really don't have to worry about sight alignment when it comes to the red dot. We jump right to sight picture.

So again, let me put that. Pink circle back out there, that's our target. We're going to focus on the red dot and we're going to superimpose that over the target that we want to hit. And again, some people aren't going to like this. I recommend baseline we close an eye.

Is it possible to have the gun out at full extension if the gun is positioned appropriately, only one eye is actually going to see the reflection in that screen. Only one eye is actually going to see the dot. The other eye isn't, so you're gonna have one dot. You're not going to get double dot situation, and you can focus out at the distance of the target. If you're focused at the distance of the target, then there would only be one image of the dot that could superimpose over it, and that happens all the time.

It's how our eyes work, binocular vision, but for maximum. Clarity and for maximum precision, you're much better off closing the offside eye, whichever eye isn't directly behind the gun that allows you to shift your focus back to the dot just like we would shift our focus to the front sight, and that gives us maximum clarity, gives us the highest potential for precision, and then it makes it more likely that we're going to be accurate. That's my recommendation. Not everybody is going to agree, especially in a target shooting situation, uh, you know, in like a rapid fire shooting steel on the range, transitioning from target to target. A lot of different reasons to keep both eyes open in that situation.

Defensive shooting, high stakes, high-level precision, close an eye, get that site picture. Now let's talk about what you're going to see here in this video. We've got a screen. And inside of that screen. We've got The iron sights.

And in this case, With our high vis Set up, we've got. Our high-vis fiber optics set up like this. With a green. Dot in the center, blade or post, and we've got red fiber optics in the back. A lot of people want to use the circles or the dots or a dash or something else to get their alignment.

Now, as I explained, we're using iron sights purely, I think you get the best alignment, the best sight alignment by looking at the corners of the front and rear sight. Is it possible to make sure that that green site is perfectly situated between the two red ones? Absolutely. I see that as a lower level of precision option that might be faster and especially with the fiber optics might work better for you in a lower light situation, particularly a lower contrast situation. So if you have black sites and you're shooting against a dark target in a dark environment, you may not have enough contrast to see those corners clearly.

And that's where having these 3 fiber optic circles that you can look at or focus on, particularly focusing on the green one inside of the two red ones, is going to give you the best opportunity to get good sight alignment. You're still going to need a certain amount of contrast with the target to get sight pictures. Let's say urinate in a dark closet or a. Dark house. Someone is outside of your house, maybe the the floodlights on them or they're outside in the sun, they're posing a threat to you.

This would be a situation if they're wearing dark clothes where you might not have enough contrast on the irons and you're going to use those fiber optics which are really going to pop for you, obviously high quality stuff from high vis. And now let's add in our red dot in terms of setup. Now here's one of the things that's really important. The front post has a green fiber optic in this setup, and that keeps us from, hopefully keeps us from confusing the red dot in the optic with any part of the iron sights or the fiber optics because we have the two at the rear notch and we have the one which I like to set up so it's just right at the top of the front sight post. What that means is I can hold the gun basically in the same place.

It's going to be just fractionally lower, a tiny little bit of angle difference, and it gives me a clear dot up above the front. Site, but my alignment when I drive the gun out is practically the same from an intuitive defensive shooting standpoint. When I drive that gun out, and it's in exactly the same position it's going to be if I'm looking for a traditional sight alignment site picture with the irons or if I'm in a situation where I need to use the fiber optics, and all of it's there, but the only red that I've got in the center with this particular set up here is the red dot from the site. So that's what I'm looking for. If I don't see red in the center and I'm looking for the dot, I've got an alignment problem.

I can look at the iron sights to help guide myself in if for some reason I'm in an unorthodox shooting position. I drove the gun out. I'm trying to bring my head to the gun. I'm laying under a car, I'm injured, something's wrong. I'm weak-handed.

I drive the gun out. I can't find the dot. Having these big bright fiber optic irons helps me get onto an alignment plane where that red dot's gonna show up and allow me to use it to maintain sight picture or achieve sight picture in that case. So a lot of people. Think about this, and again, when we look at this as a as a visual image with a target and a red dot and a green fiber optic and two red fiber optics and the front sight and the iron sight, it's busy.

There's a lot going on there. But if you've set your firearm up properly, if you've practiced properly with all of these things independently, you'll understand when to use which aiming option. And remember that kinesthetic alignment is always going to be the basis for defensive shooting. Practicing getting the gun into the right place sets you up for success. Having good gear that's set up properly, well, that's the icing on the cake, and this setup is one I think anyone could use under a wide variety of circumstances to defend themselves or others when they need to.