Glock + Light + Red Dot: the Cool-Guy, Go-Fast Gun of 2017
Jon Stokes 09.18.17
I can’t keep up, anymore. I was watching this TFB Video (you do subscribe to the TFB video channel, don’t you?) called “Top 5 Reasons To Consider A Red Dot On Your Pistol,” and of course Patrick R is running a modded Glock with a light and an RMR.
This Glock + Light + Red Dot Sight combo truly is the Operator Pistol of Right-Freaking-Now. Yeah, you could sub in an M&P Shield for the Glock and be 90% as operator, but if you want to go full cool-guy you have to have a Glock.
I have to admit, as a DA/SA + irons shooter, I feel left out. I was hanging out with a Leupold rep recently and he was extolling the virtues of the red dot on the pistol (as one would if one was a Leupold rep), and I was thinking, “is this really what all the cool guys are doing right now? Am I gonna have to either do this or resign myself to FUDDhood?”
I know I know, this shouldn’t bother me. But it does, and for the following reasons:
- If you’ve played role-playing games, you’ve met that guy who’s a “min-maxer” and a rules lawyer. Well, I’m that guy. I optimize. Everything.
- When it comes to technology, I have no particular affection for the Old Ways just because they’re old. If there is solid evidence that something works better, then I want to do the thing that works better.
- Not only do I run optics on all of my rifles, but I think it’s foolish not to. I generally view irons-only promoters with disdain whenever they jump into a thread talking up the virtues of irons over a modern optic.
In short, I’m the perfect candidate to jump on this particular bandwagon. In fact, some days I resign myself to the idea that it’s inevitable that I’ll go RDS-only on all my pistols at some point in the next two or three years.
But there’s one other thing I didn’t mention in the above, and it may well be the main thing holding me back from jumping on the RDS bandwagon. The qualifier “when it comes to technology” in #2 above was deliberately inserted. The whole reason I carry, or am into guns at all, is because of heritage and tradition. In other words, the old ways.
I like having the option to carry and shoot old guns, as in revolvers and things that won’t ever be milled for an RDS. I don’t want to train myself out of a sight format that has worked for over 100 years and that lets me pick up just about any handgun and shoot it using the same instincts and fundamentals. In other words, when it comes to handguns, I like options, and not retraining myself to instinctively rely on an RDS maximizes my options.
All of that said, I have heard some guys claim that shooting a pistol with an RDS actually improves their shooting with irons, because the RDS lets them factor out sight alignment and front-sight-focus issues, and focus on improving other fundamentals like trigger pull.
So I dunno, I think there’s an RDS-equipped pistol in my future, at least as a range toy. But dagnabbit it’s not gonna be a Glock with a light on it.
