Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. WINNINGEDGE Dave Anderson SOLID ADVICE TO KEEP YOU AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION The TruGlo Open red-dot sight has an integral mount to fit standard Weaver-style bases. Red doT delighT T he most important element of accurate shooting is trigger control, period. I know of no way to learn trigger control other than by repetition. Dry firing is just as good as live fire for teaching trigger control — perhaps even better — since in dry fire there is no recoil to mask shooterinduced movement. It’s in “gun indexing” that modern technology can really make a difference. I’m referring to optical sights, specifically red-dot sights. This is one area where technology can help average handgunner’s shoot like, well, maybe not quite like champions, but pretty darn good. Iron sights on handguns are a proven indexing tool and have many advantages. They’re compact, strong, simple, relatively inexpensive and don’t need batteries. But they do require training and experience. With front and rear sight close together, sight alignment is critical. A small error in sight alignment has a relatively big effect on bullet impact. The human eye cannot attain a sharp focus at different distances at the same time. The key is to focus sharply on the front sight. For most of us the rear sight will be slightly out of focus while the target will be blurred. Focusing on the front sight is not as easy as it sounds. A common tendency, even when shooting on the range, is to look “through” the sights, with the point of sharpest focus somewhere out in no-man’s-land between the front sight and the target. Of course in practical terms, if the target is a deadly threat the urge to focus on the target is even more compelling. everal years ago I was shooting on the range with a couple of friends. One of them was an occasional handgun shooter. He owned quite a few handguns, had a CCW permit and his gunhandling was certainly competent and capable. He was a very good rifle shot, the point being he had a good degree of trigger control. He just didn’t shoot handguns very often. On this occasion he was shooting a new carry gun, a subcompact Glock 26. It’s an excellent carry gun, light, compact and reliable. Due to the compact slide, sight radius is short even by handgun standards. He shot the little gun quite well — certainly well enough for most realistic personal defense situations. But when we moved out to 25 yards he wasn’t very pleased with group size. As it happened the other friend had an identical Glock 26 in his range bag, fitted with a slide-mounted Tasco red-dot optical sight, and he gave it to Shooter #1 to try. The difference in hitting ability was dramatic. With iron sights he could barely keep shots on a full IPSC silhouette target at 25 yards. With the dot sight, he was hitting 8" diameter Bianchi plates at 40 yards most of the time. And when we moved back in to five yards he was just as fast, maybe even faster, with the dot sight than with iron sights. It’s important to remember, this guy did know how to release a trigger. If you flinch, shut your eyes, yank the trigger, you’re The new Aimpoint Micro R1 weighs just going to miss with over three ounces without the base any sight. That and can be dot isn’t magic. adapted to What it does is fit standard eliminate the conWeaver bases. cern about where to focus. The red dot and the target appear in the same focal plane. It Works JoJo Vidanes at the 2008 USPSA Nationals with a C-More sight competing in Open division. The aluminum base incorporates a blast shield to protect the sight from powder gases from the compensator. S What Works C ompetition shooters have been demonstrating the advantages of dot sights for going on 20 years. The superiority of dot sights became so evident, iron sights simply could not compete. USPSA and IPSC created divisions (i.e., Limited/Standard, Production) in which optics are not allowed. Currently C-More sights seem most popular with competitive shooters, followed by Aimpoint. An outstanding feature they share is reliability. Competition shooters shoot a lot, and weaknesses in design or construction quickly become evident. C-More and Aimpoint sights are tougher than a hunk of pig-iron. Shown here are a couple of red-dot sights I’ve shot recently — a TruGlo Open sight and the new Aimpoint Micro R-1. Both are light and compact and use Weaver-style mounting bases so they are easy to move from one handgun to another, or to a shotgun or rifle. They have 4-MOA dots, a size I like on plinking, target or hunting pistols and on long guns. On a defensive or practical shooting competition pistol I like a 7- or 8-MOA dot. I have one lens of my eyeglasses set so I can focus sharply on the front sight. I can still shoot iron sights as well as ever, but more and more I find myself putting red-dot sights on my target and small-game .22 pistols. They really do work, but you still have to control the trigger! For more info: www.aimpoint.com; www.cmore.com; www.truglosights.com. WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • JULY/AUGUST 2009 * 28