by crbutler on Thu Jan 05, 2017 11:34 pm
My personal experience is a red dot is more accurate but is a bit slower on the first shot than good irons at conversational distances, but after 1-2 shots the dot is faster, to go along with more accurate.
I have ran the old beer can dots, a smaller tasco dot tube scope, a bunch of c-mores, a tasco optima, j point, doctor, trijicon RMR, and shot a friend's micro dot. Ran them on mostly 9x23 uspsa open pistols, but also an old bullseye .45, .22rfs, open division 3 gun rifles, 3 gun open shotguns, and on some big bore dangerous game rifles up to .470 NE. So I think I have some expeience.
The big sights damaged the dust covers on the .45. Never frame mounted any on a glock, and with the frame being as flexible as it is, would not expect either great accuracy or maintenance of zero. Slide mounting is not a problem with the RMR's, and they are made for that.
The C more has the brightest dot, but can be a bit touchy until you get used to it to find the dot. It's also a pain to zero, but holds zero best except for the trijicon.
The tube scopes are easiest to acquire the dot on a handgun.
In general, the tech moved on and I replaced the gun before any of the sights became useless...except for a 1st gen j point and some of the optimas.
The trijicon has handled about 50 rounds of full bore .470 NE plus a bunch of practice ammo. A promenent Pro hunter in Africa uses one on his .600 NE, and recommended it to me. It is still going strong, but one little item is that it does not do well going from dark (under a thorn tree) into full sunlight, in that your dot washes out. The opposite is not an issue. I have killed two Cape buffalo and a couple baboon withit, so I do trust it. The battery powered rmr's do better with light conditions than the fiber optic/tritium trijicon for that, and the latest generations of them don't wash out like the earlier ones do.
The trijicon has the most reproducible adjustments, but is also the heaviest of the RMR style sights.
As far as use, you will need to be more involved if you use one for carry. You will need to check zero periodically, although with competition use you will see some drifting of your shots and pick up on it, for me it's more time than rounds, and if you pull the sight to change batteries, you need to check zero and adjust 9 times out of 10. You will also need to clean the sight and change batteries periodically. I have yet to see one make manufacturers battery life claims, but most make it through a season on one set of batteries (read 1year or so, but the Trijicon has been good for 2 years so far, but it does not have batteries anyhow.)