TargetTalk

I've been having some fun shooting air pistol silhouette using a red dot. I've noticed the red dot makes my hold and follow through quality really apparent, more so than the open sights on my 10m AP. Almost like watching a SCATT trace in real time (I don't have a SCATT system but have watched numerous downloaded traces). I'm considering mounting a red dot on my 10m AP as part of dry fire training so that I would get the same hold & follow through feedback. Thoughts?

Cool idea; we do similar things with smallbore shooters and a high-magnification scope. Super handy if they don't have a Scatt MX-02 available for live fire training.

Do know that mounting a red dot is going to change the weight and balance of your pistol, so you may affect your results in your testing.

Perhaps it is just the "new" tech making you pay more attention. You should be able to see equivalent folow through with your iron sights, IF you have not gotten a little lazy and quit watching closely. Not an atypical action.

Are you looking "through" your red dot device? or is it a laser dot on the target. If the latter you may as well shoot from the hip as you are probably looking at the target and not your sights. Thruxton.

thruxtoncamshaft wrote:Are you looking "through" your red dot device? or is it a laser dot on the target. If the latter you may as well shoot from the hip as you are probably looking at the target and not your sights. Thruxton.

Shooting a red dot scope is different than iron sights, at least for bullseye shooters. According to Brain Zins (12 time National Champion) you actually should focus on the target (actually the X if you can see it) , not the dot. It's worked well for him.

- Dave

The red dot is a reflex Burris Fastfire 3 w/ 3 moa dot and it is focused at infinity. When I'm on aim the dot and the silhouette animal are both in focus.

The dot makes it so i can really see the size of my wobble zone. I try to trigger the shot when the wobble is mostly or completely inside the outline of the animal.

I think the afterimage effect is why the dot sight seems to make wobble and follow through more apparent than with my iron sights.

Problem with mounting it on my match pistol is adapting the picatinny mount to the barrel. I could use something like one of the dovetail intermounts and then put a low profile dovetail to picatinny converter (like the B-square) on top of that. Instead I'm designing a picatinny mount that will attach directly to the barrel and will get it 3D printed. Fun little project but it'll be a couple weeks till i can try it out.

I read a post about someone taping a laser pointer to the gun, as a poor-mans SCAT/RIKA.
This would be easier for you to do. Although likely distracting, unless you aligned the laser pointer with your iron sight.
Even so, I think it would cause you to focus on the target/laser dot vs. your iron sights.

I agree. It may detract from focusing on my front sight but I'm only going to use it for a subset of training: to see if I can tell if my hold is improving (less visible wobble) and the quality of my follow-through. I'll continue to do most of my dry-fire using the iron sights and focusing on the front sight.

One thought would be to attach the laser pointer, but have it point at a second target down low (so it's out of your field of view.) Point a video camera at the target and at you, then review the tape afterwards.

Instant feedback is the bestfeedback. Watch top end coaches in any sport. Feedback in realtime. Even a few seconds late decreases effectivness