How Red Dot Sights Can Save Your Life

Every gun owner knows the saying. Say it with me. “When seconds matter, the police are minutes away.”

It’s not an insult to the police. They work hard and can only be so many places at once. It’s just a sober fact. In a life-or-death situation, it will take police time to get to your location. If you have time to take cover, barricade, evade, do it. If you don’t, it’s time to use your concealed carry handgun to defend your life.

No concealed carrier wants to get stuck in that situation. Not a single one. But it’s also why we carry concealed. We know, if that day should ever arrive, we need to be ready to fight for our own existence and the existence of our family.

With the advent of red dot sights and their availability on the commercial market, there’s been quite a few attempts to integrate them into concealed carry pistols. The slowest part of a person’s shooting is drawing, target acquisition, sight picture and sight alignment.

Bad guys don’t have to worry about that as much. After all, if a bullet goes wide of target, it’s not their problem. As good guys, it’s very much our problem.

Whereas just a decade ago, having a laser on your pistol was considered forward thinking, now we have the option of attaching red dot electro-optics.

Red dot electro-optics have quite a few advantages over traditional pistol sights. Some work will be required of both you and the red dot optic before you become a true team.

Personally, I like my red dot optic co-witnessed with the sights of my pistol. Co-witness means that the red dot from the optic lines up with the sights. That’s a hard thing to pull off in a concealed carry pistol. That means getting higher sights. For those with pistols that don’t have removable sights, this is an issue. For those with, it can either be done in the garage with a little lubricating oil or at your local gunsmith’s. While you’re at the gunsmith, if your gun isn’t already milled for a red dot optic, you’ll probably want to stick him with that job. You can do it if you are willing to gamble with your slide but, personally, I’d like the guy with the right tools to do the job.

Once that red dot optic is up on the slide, I take the gun to the range. Practicing from a distance of 10 feet, I look to see how different the red dot is from the bullet’s impact. There will be some difference and some of it will undoubtedly be do to me and whether I had that second cup of coffee. I figure out which is which and adjust the red dot so it is basically lined up with the bullseye.

The single advantage to a properly tuned red dot is I don’t have to think about it. If it’s on, the battery is working, it’s a dead shot when it crosses the bullseye. A crisp trigger pull and I can tell within a moment whether my planning paid off.

This is when a red dot can save my life. Because it’s ready to go, I did the work ahead of time, and I know that red dot is lined up properly, I don’t have to fiddle with my regular pistol sights to get my gun on target. It’s a minor investment for some piece of mind and it makes a great addition to my concealed carry plan.