Red Dot on Pistol - Keep Factory Irons or Change to "Co-Witness"

[Blitzen]

Being I have no experience with shooting red dots on pistols, I thought I would ask some questions on the forum concerning BUIS setup in conjunction with red dots mounted on a pistol intended for personal protection use. I see three basic options. (1) Keep the factory iron sights which become mostly unusable. (2) Switch BUIS to approximate lower 1/3rd co-witness black iron sights. (3) Switch to co-witness sights with tritium front / black rear or tritium both front and rear. I'm leaning towards the black co-witness if I can find a set that will be close to a lower 1/3 witness height. Tritium front only may be a better option? May be over thinking this. Any input would be appreciated. 

[Patton]

Get the optic and see for yourself.  A few of the people I have consulted with years of use with red dots on pistols now say they wouldn’t have an issue running a reputable red dot without iron sights. I’m not seeing a ton of night sights with optics.  I see some blacked out sight and some fiber optic fronts.

[Grunt67]

I have a Walther PPS M2 with the RSMc red dot installed by Walther. It co-witnesses with the iron sights. Iron sights are Mepro nite sights, BTW,

From what I have seen & read lately, most now co- witness. Just make sure what you buy will do that.

Like anything else, research first.

[mamcdonald]

In my experience it mostly comes down to personal opinion, whatever works best for you.  I have both cowitnessing and non-cowitnessing dots, I prefer the non since the window is already so small it feels cluttered to have the sights in there too.  It might be useful if I forget to change a battery in three years, time will tell I guess.  I took some pictures for examples but they don't do a good job of showing how it looks IRL.

FN 509c, Holosun 507c, supressor height black sights:

cowitness:

center of window:

Glock 48, Holosun 507k, standard height Ameriglo Agents:

sights "aligned":

center of window:

Edited March 29, 2021 by mamcdonald
image fixes

[Blitzen]

Thanks for the comments guys. Thanks mamcdonald for taking the time to load up the pics. They give a good representative sight picture with co-witness sights. The black co/witness looks pretty good especially when the sights would be for emergency back-up  use.  I’ll be mounting a Holosun 507c using a CH Precision V4 adapter plate. Will give it some more thought. Thinking it will be easier to change sights before mounting the red dot. 

[DJTC45]

Here's a pic of my Staccato P DPO with co witnesse sights that came with the Dawson Precision plate.

[Defender]

2 hours ago, Blitzen said:

Thanks for the comments guys. Thanks mamcdonald for taking the time to load up the pics. They give a good representative sight picture with co-witness sights. The black co/witness looks pretty good especially when the sights would be for emergency back-up  use.  I’ll be mounting a Holosun 507c using a CH Precision V4 adapter plate. Will give it some more thought. Thinking it will be easier to change sights before mounting the red dot. 

I just installed a Holosun 507k-x2 on my Sig P-365XL.  I left the front sight as is, and the rear sight came oof when I removed the plate.  The Holosun as a notch in the back that is the proper height to line up with the  front sight through the optic to co-witness.  I read that it is pretty accurate too, though I've not been to the range yet with that setup.  I like the idea of some sort of redundant sights, just in case.  I've had lasers and flashlights on handguns before, still do actually on some. but for a EDC I think I like this set up best.  

[DBTN]

Really depends on what you are doing with the gun and if you have other guns you want it to be consistent with and have set up the same way.  If it is a recreation or gun games pistol then don't worry about it.  When the dot fails, and it will eventually, due to breakage, battery, or user error, then no big issue.  If it is a defensive gun then things start to get more complicated.  If all you plan to do is protect you and yours, then generally speaking distances will be very close and the use of the dot or irons may not even occur.  For most it will be straight up index shooting.  I don't advocate that but it is just a reality.  In that case it really does not matter.  But for someone who may take the fight to an evil doer, courageous citizen or police, then engagement distances may be longer.  The dot is very beneficial as distance increases but when the dot fails, and once again at some point it will, due to breakage, battery, or user error, no type of alternative sighting method is going to be as good as properly co-witnessed irons in the optics window.  So for the courageous citizen or police, co-witnessed irons are not an option, they are necessity.  

As to what type of irons, that is very much personal preference.   In my early dot days I did not want anything that distracted me form the dot.  I was afraid I would mistake a bright front sight with the dot.  That was ignorance and inexperience on my part.  I actual prefer irons that are clearly visible in the event of dot failure, which will occur eventually.  The only concern is the use of tritium sights if you are using night vision with the dot.  In that case tritium can be an issue.  Not as much so with dual tube night vision but this does not apply to most.  

As far as irons filling the window too much, this again is a personal preference thing.  I like my irons lower to give a more open window.  Same reason I prefer lower 1/3 on rifle optics.  That being said, if you are keeping both eyes open and are truly target focused, as you should be to fully exploit the benefits of the dot, then absolute or lower 1/3 is not that much of an issue.

This is how I define dot failure, which will happen:

Dot breakage (external or internal), Battery failure (bad battery or was not change at appropriate intervals), user error (dot not set to the appropriate intensity for the environment so not visible, through poor manipulation dot has been turned down and is not visible, dot was not on)

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by DBTN

[Choatecav]

10 hours ago, DBTN said:

Really depends on what you are doing with the gun and if you have other guns you want it to be consistent with and have set up the same way.  If it is a recreation or gun games pistol then don't worry about it.  When the dot fails, and it will eventually, due to breakage, battery, or user error, then no big issue.  If it is a defensive gun then things start to get more complicated.  If all you plan to do is protect you and yours, then generally speaking distances will be very close and the use of the dot or irons may not even occur.  For most it will be straight up index shooting.  I don't advocate that but it is just a reality.  In that case it really does not matter.  But for someone who may take the fight to an evil doer, courageous citizen or police, then engagement distances may be longer.  The dot is very beneficial as distance increases but when the dot fails, and once again at some point it will, due to breakage, battery, or user error, no type of alternative sighting method is going to be as good as properly co-witnessed irons in the optics window.  So for the courageous citizen or police, co-witnessed irons are not an option, they are necessity.  

As to what type of irons, that is very much personal preference.   In my early dot days I did not want anything that distracted me form the dot.  I was afraid I would mistake a bright front sight with the dot.  That was ignorance and inexperience on my part.  I actual prefer irons that are clearly visible in the event of dot failure, which will occur eventually.  The only concern is the use of tritium sights if you are using night vision with the dot.  In that case tritium can be an issue.  Not as much so with dual tube night vision but this does not apply to most.  

As far as irons filling the window too much, this again is a personal preference thing.  I like my irons lower to give a more open window.  Same reason I prefer lower 1/3 on rifle optics.  That being said, if you are keeping both eyes open and are truly target focused, as you should be to fully exploit the benefits of the dot, then absolute or lower 1/3 is not that much of an issue.

This is how I define dot failure, which will happen:

Dot breakage (external or internal), Battery failure (bad battery or was not change at appropriate intervals), user error (dot not set to the appropriate intensity for the environment so not visible, through poor manipulation dot has been turned down and is not visible, dot was not on)

 

 

 

For what it is worth, when I had my RMR mounted on my G 20 a shooting instructor told me to get rid of the iron sites.  Said that co-witnessing would actually slow you down as the brain is having to register both sets of input and determine.  Again, take it for what it is worth.

[ken_mays]

Keep in mind that one useful role for the iron sights is to help orient the slide so that you can help find the dot.    You hear a lot of people saying that a proper presentation will fix all problems with finding the dot, but that's not taking into account off hand or nonstandard positions.  In other words, a repeatable, consistent presentation isn't something that can always be relied upon.

[Blitzen]

In the personal protection world of what equipment to arm yourself with, one of the hardest feats to accomplish is to "buy once cry once". That seldom happens. Personal preference changes as experience is acquired. Excellent comments from personal experience have been uploaded to this thread and I agree red dots can fail at anytime and the "KISS" principle is a good thing in high stress situations. Seems like a 1/3 co-witness with black rear / tritium front would be a good option. Fairly simple and would not clutter the field of view very much but still provide some reasonable low light aiming. However I've used Heinie straight eight tritium sites for years on my carry gun so might go single tritium dot front and rear. With the straight eight setup wouldn't the rear sight dot be below the window anyway so only the front site dot would be visible in the window view? I'm thinking that once I practice using the pistol red dot system I probably would not notice the tritium dots as mentioned previously but will be there if needed. Think I'll throw out options one and two. Go 1/3 co-witness with either two dots or one up front. I'm almost there and yes I over think everything! Thanks.