Sorry to make the title sound like a college class, but I'd like to explore what people think about various handgun sighting systems.
As I understand things, there are five primary iron sighting systems used on handguns and no doubt variations beyond that. If I forget something, feel free to jump in.
1) Rear "notch"/front blade--the old school sights on fixed sight revolvers and early automatics.
2) Rear "bracket"/front dot or blade--As seen on the Glock series or Ruger DA revolvers
3) Rear vertical line/ front dot--The M9 sight picture and seen on some other duty pistols. Heinie, XS and other "dot the i" systems are variants of this concept.
4) Two rear dots/ front dot--One of the most common configurations. Steyr's trapezoid is but a variation on this theme.
5) Adjustable versions of all of the above seem to exist on one platform or other.
Now, also as I understand it, there are two primary sight "holds." The first is sometimes called "dead on," "drive the dots," or other things, like a Beretta 92, you line up the front and rear sights exactly on the part of the target you intend to hit. The main advantage of this hold, to my mind, is that it is intuitive--see it, shoot it.
The other is the so called "six-'o-clock" hold where the front sight is held just below where one intends to hit. My Ruger GP-100 is designed for that hold with the factory sights. The main advantage to this method, again to my mind, is that one is not obscuring the target.
Of course, over distance, both methods require some form of "hold over," or elevation of the front sight to compensate for bullet drop, but that is really not an aspect I want to discuss.
Here is what I'd like to discuss. Which combination of sighting system and sight hold do you find to be the most intuitive for so-called "combat shooting?" IOW, which do you find the easiest to acquire a sight picture on and make an accurate shot with when pressed for time?
Personally, I found that the "six-'o-clock" hold is great for slow fire target shooting, but my speed goes up remarkably driving the dots. Of course, I also find that at close ranges, my Ruger with a rear U shaped bracket and a hi-viz front fiber optic is the quickest to acquire, which has me thinking that maybe the XS "Big Dot" will work pretty well for me for those ranges so long as I don't have to hold it at six.
What are your opinions?
As I understand things, there are five primary iron sighting systems used on handguns and no doubt variations beyond that. If I forget something, feel free to jump in.
1) Rear "notch"/front blade--the old school sights on fixed sight revolvers and early automatics.
2) Rear "bracket"/front dot or blade--As seen on the Glock series or Ruger DA revolvers
3) Rear vertical line/ front dot--The M9 sight picture and seen on some other duty pistols. Heinie, XS and other "dot the i" systems are variants of this concept.
4) Two rear dots/ front dot--One of the most common configurations. Steyr's trapezoid is but a variation on this theme.
5) Adjustable versions of all of the above seem to exist on one platform or other.
Now, also as I understand it, there are two primary sight "holds." The first is sometimes called "dead on," "drive the dots," or other things, like a Beretta 92, you line up the front and rear sights exactly on the part of the target you intend to hit. The main advantage of this hold, to my mind, is that it is intuitive--see it, shoot it.
The other is the so called "six-'o-clock" hold where the front sight is held just below where one intends to hit. My Ruger GP-100 is designed for that hold with the factory sights. The main advantage to this method, again to my mind, is that one is not obscuring the target.
Of course, over distance, both methods require some form of "hold over," or elevation of the front sight to compensate for bullet drop, but that is really not an aspect I want to discuss.
Here is what I'd like to discuss. Which combination of sighting system and sight hold do you find to be the most intuitive for so-called "combat shooting?" IOW, which do you find the easiest to acquire a sight picture on and make an accurate shot with when pressed for time?
Personally, I found that the "six-'o-clock" hold is great for slow fire target shooting, but my speed goes up remarkably driving the dots. Of course, I also find that at close ranges, my Ruger with a rear U shaped bracket and a hi-viz front fiber optic is the quickest to acquire, which has me thinking that maybe the XS "Big Dot" will work pretty well for me for those ranges so long as I don't have to hold it at six.
What are your opinions?
