Mastering Accuracy: Training with a Red Dot

Hello, All! It's been a minute since my last post but I have lots of exciting news to share, so let me get right down to it. First, Let me welcome Lon Banks to our instructor cadre. Lon is a good friend, a former Army MP and a career San Francisco Sherriff, recently retired. I'll give him a blog post all his own because he deserves it, so look out for that in my next post.

Today, I'd like to talk a bit about red dot sights. Red dot sights really came onto the shooting scene in the late 90's, mostly on military rifles. In the last couple decades, they've taken over the pistol scene to the point that they are almost ubiquitous in competition and it's likely that as soon as there are enough trainers on police forces to offer the instruction, and the old dogs that don't want to learn new tricks retire, we won't see police guns without them. But how are red dots different than iron sights? Why should you have them on your pistol? And why should you invest a lot of practice, money and training to use them correctly? I'm so glad you asked, hehe...

So red dots are a small L.E.D. light projected onto a piece of coated glass allowing the shooter to line up a single point in their field of vision with the intended target for the purpose of aiming. On the surface, it seems like this couldn't be simpler: Find the red (or some other color) ball, line it up with the target, and shoot. The light's illumination makes it great in low light conditions and the lack of a front/rear slight picture makes alignment easier, especially while on a moving vehicle or during movement on foot. However, beneath the surface is a whole world of retraining that is required to unleash this seemingly simple tool to it's full potential.

Here is the alarming truth: In a recent study of officer involved shootings, police with basic training on iron sights had a 31% hit rate. Officers with a 16 hour course on red dot shooting and the mounted optics had a 73% hit rate. As self defense shooters, we need to assume that we're not presenting our firearm unless an immeninent threat to life is present, often a knife or a gun. Fast accurate shots stop gun fights and prevent us from getting stabbed. Slow sloppy shots means both combants or uninvolved bystanders are likely to get hit and possibly die from their wounds. Personally, I want to walk away from any gunfights without extra holes. So accuracy and speed are everything in my training philosophy. A good enough mentality is just illogical. Commit to the training and being the best you can. The alternatives are really, really not something you want to entertain. If you're putting any priority in front of accuracy and speed in your training and gear selection, I think that's a mistake. Comfort is important because it means you'll actually carry but it's secondary to speed and accuracy.

So how are dot aiming systems and iron sights different? An iron sight, as you may already know, requires front sight focus. Your focal plane locks onto the front sight making it clear. The rear sight is a little fuzzy, the target is a little fuzzy. Line all that business up, squeeze the trigger without changing your point of aim and what you see is what you get. That's iron sights. Dot optics can be used the same way and it's a far easier mental lift for most shooters to process. So whether they are new or old shooters, they tend to do just that. They will stare at the dot, line it up with the target, and squeeze. It's so easy to use a red dot this way with equivalent results to iron sights that most shooters will default to this method without extensive training and be happy with the results, even when they've been told the correct way. Often times you'll even hear people say, "I'm just as good with the irons!" and of course that's true because they're using the same technique.

Here is the issue, though: our reliance on maintaining the same level of accuracy we're used to prevents us from improving. Dots have a "J" shaped learning curve. You'll struggle before you improve, and you need to be ready for that. This is why most shooters end up using dots improperly, whether they realize it or not. They settle for what's adequate or a minor improvement and don't strive for excellence.

The proper method for using a dot involves keeping both eyes open and employing a technique known as the "quiet eye," as identified by sports trainers. Researchers have discovered that top baseball pitchers, golfers, shooters, and skilled individuals who throw objects possess a distinct ability to fixate their eyes on a target without altering their focus as they release the object. In simpler terms, they are not watching their hands.

This reminds me of my time living in Germany when I trained for a motorcycle license. To Germany's credit, anyone going for a license is required to take 16 hours of training to complete it, most of it in a car or on a motorcycle. I wasn't new to riding so I figured I should make the most of it and find an instructor that was a former racer and could improve my skills rather than just facilitating the license acquistion.

(Sidebar: More about my opinions on the difference between instructors and facilitators another time. I've got some mad feels about that and I'm not alone in the world of concealed carry trainers. There are a lot of facilitators out there that don't train people. They give you your 16 hours, group you with a bunch of other people you may not have similar skill sets to, talk at you, run you through some drills, pass you through the very basic shoot qual that is required for most issuing authorities, shake your hand, and send you out into the world without making sure you even know what you don't know. It's ridiculously dangerous and that's the difference between a facilitator and a trainer. The faciltator gets you the qual because you spent the time and gave them some money, the trainer makes sure you improve, know your weaknesses and know how to get better.)

Sorry about that sidebar but it needed to be said. Anyway, one of the many things I learned from my driving instructor was the importance of looking out in front of you when you drive, not just past the windscreen and tire but 100 feet down the road or more. As you pick up speed, the distance of your focal plane needs to increases to facilitate a smooth reaction to changes in the road. Where you look will dictate your direction, if you're looking down the road, then at your speedometer, and back to the road; your driving will be jerky and less smooth. This slight jerkiness will constantly change your tires contact with the road and provide less stability at speed. As I'm sure you've all heard, the Germans like to drive fast so enhancing your tire's contact patch with a smooth driving technique is pretty important at 180 mph.

The same holds true in weaponless martial arts. If I want to hit hard, I need to lock on a point of contact and mentally direct my strike through the intended target without locking down at my foot or fist. Changing my focal plane or having a "distracted" eye that is bouncing around will measurably decrease my striking strength. This is often why we try to control our opponents head while grappling. If my opponent can't see where his hands are, it greatly reduces his strength. If I can get ahold of my opponents head and control it by turning it in a vertical and horizontal direction at the same time while guiding him to the ground, there is almost nothing he can do but fall in a very uncontrolled and painful manner because the eyes lead the body and I just took cotrol of his eyes.

So how does this relate to shooting? If you learn to "quiet eye" lock onto your target and guide the gun to the target without looking at your sights, it will radically reduce your time to impact. Easy to say, hard to do. You'll have to master presenting the pistol to your view which means a lot of practice at home using some dry fire techinques I teach in class. The good news is that this is cheap, it just takes time repetition and a few tricks. No range fees, no ammo, you can do it in your bathrobe. Hey, train like you fight, right? Dry fire doesn't have the fun factor of recoil and explosions but it sure will improve your shooting skills if you commit to it.

Once you have your presentation sufficiently mastered, the next thing to learn is to avoid seeing the world through the glass. The gun is not a video camera, we don't view the world through it like we do when we're taking a video on our phone. Instead we look out into the real world and see it as a series of lockable aiming points that we move through with a steady stare and allow the gun to follow behind to our point of desired aim. Done correctly the dot will streak into our visual field as lock our eyes from one target to the next and move the gun behind it.

When you're still new to shooting and haven't mastered a consistent grip, this will frustrate the heck out of you. Your grip needs to be durable and repeatable every time you apply it, so that your grip is the same as the last time and the next time. It cannot change as you squeeze the trigger and move the pistol, or your dot sight will move with it, which makes it difficult to acquire the dot after a target change. This difficulty in acquiring the dot makes many new students addicted to treating it like a cellphone video and causes them to regress to using the glass like a view finder because of their frustrations with not seeing the dot after a target change. They're so afraid of losing the dot so they lock on the dot instead and are slow as all heck because of it. Totally understandable and totally wrong. Master your grip so that your arms function like a tank's turret, staying in position as you move through you hips while the upper body maintains it's tension, especially the core muscles of your stomach, helping you glide to the new target your eyes have already locked onto, allow the dot to appear in your vision without being the focus of your vision and squeeze. This is the way, as the Mandalorian likes to say.

If you've followed along this far, you might have already noticed that this skill set is virtually impossible to acquire on the sort of static ranges that are normally available to the public. You've got to get out on an open field or action range where target transitions, rapid fire, and movement are allowed. You also have to practice at home and find a place to reinforce the skills through repetition. For the basic training, please consider the Red Dot course in our services section. To continue training outside of the home, consider the Dojo courses or the USPSA practice sessions at Livermore/Pleasanton Rod and Gun club. Probably both. The USPSA practice sessions have the advantage of being very, very reasonable at $30 a session but you'll be expected to set up and break down the course, and stand around as others go through the course. Also, the Dojo sessions have an instructor on hand to correct technique and provide the constructive assistance to help you routinize the techniques. Once you've got them, the USPSA practice sessions are a great way to keep and build the skillsets. Feel free to contact me for more info.

Be safe, stay aware, and keep practicing!

-Edward