FUNDAMENTALS FIRST
Understanding the fundamentals is the first step in becoming fast and proficient with your red dot. If you’re coming from iron sights to a red dot or even starting your firearm journey with a red dot-equipped handgun, take the time to understand what you’re “supposed” to do to be proficient.
Joe Farewell via Tactical Hyve does a great job explaining three tips on becoming proficient with a red dot. Regardless of if you think you have the fundamentals down, it can’t hurt to hear them from another’s point of view.
First, he stresses the importance of being target-focused instead of front sight focused when shooting with a red dot. It’s a strange concept for those who learned to shoot with traditional iron sights. However, it’s not crazy talk and actually allows you to keep both eyes open and transition between targets much more quickly.
He then talks about being okay with an “acceptable sight picture.” Again, it’s a strange concept. Since red dots jump around with such ease, if you wait for that dot to be virtually still, you’ll be one of the slowest shooters in the West. Instead, use the dot as a focal point for an acceptable sight picture. Even if the dot is still moving (a small amount) and you’re on target, you can work with what you see.
Lastly, it’s all about finding the dot in the first place. You need to establish your natural point of aim that allows you to go from eyes closed and gun holstered, to eyes opened, gun drawn, and dot in the picture.
FIND THAT DOT QUICKER
Once you’ve become acquainted with your red dot and have been putting in the reps, whether through dry or live-firing, the next step is to speed it up. The quicker you find your dot, the quicker you get on target, and the quicker you get your hit or eliminate the threat.
While I have plenty of room to improve my own speed at finding my red dot (or green dot in my case), John Lovell with the Warrior Poet Society helped me improve it immensely, with two simple things to focus on: the angle/motion of your draw and focusing on the front sight (stay with me, I’ll explain in a second).
When you’re drawing your pistol from your holster, you want your pistol coming straight to the center of your body, muzzle relatively level to the ground, and not having to use your support hand to course correct or straighten the gun. I have definitely been guilty of drawing at an angle, only to have my support hand push the gun into position.
Aside from focusing on your draw, John suggests focusing on the front sight. By focusing on the front sight and not the dot, you’ll naturally have the dot come into your sight picture and have minimal adjustments needed. You don’t need to focus on it the whole time while aiming and shooting, but just long enough to have the dot naturally fall into view.
He explains it much more eloquently than I can, so make sure to take the eight minutes and watch his video.
READY FOR THE NEXT STEP?
I almost titled this section the “fun part,” but who knows where some of your minds would go with that! So, you’ve got your dot, practiced finding it quickly from a draw, and now it’s time to speed up your shooting with said dot. I’m guessing you’ve heard of Colion Noir. If you haven’t, you probably live under a rock. Well, a few years back, I saw a video of his that stuck with me during my red dot journey.
Colion put together a multi-part series centered around red dots on handguns, with help from folks over at the SIG Sauer Training Academy. The third part, specifically, goes over various drills that will help improve your speed and transitions between targets.
One aspect of the video that I appreciate is Colion doesn’t edit out any of his mistakes or failures. Too many times, we see these types of videos with people shooting the drills perfectly every time. That’s simply not realistic for most of us.
There are a couple of key takeaways in addition to learning the drills themselves. They touch on the importance of moving your head/eyes ahead of the dot, not with it. If you try to move in conjunction with your dot in your sight picture, you risk passing up the next target or falling short and having to look for it again.
Another great point that is brought up is the 3/4 rule, and how it comes into play. The rule states that you should move quickly 3/4 of the time and slow down during that last 1/4 to finish your movement. This could be anything from locking on to your next target or simply reloading. You don’t want to go at 100 percent speed all the time and risk fumbling your main objective.
Especially if you have access to an outdoor range where you can set up several sporadically placed targets, this is a great training video to emulate.
NOTEWORTHY GENERAL DRILLS
