Rob has excellent points (which is why he's handling the firearms end of THE BEST DEFENSE)...in this case, I disagree with those points based on personal experience, personal philosophy and, sadly, on my aging eyes.
1) Virtually every decision involving a carry gun is a compromise. The reason we had/have big fat flat-blade Bo-Mar rear sights and narrow post fronts on competition pistols is that we have to make precision shots at long distances, and that combination has proven itself for making precison shots relatively quickly. Doe this mean you can't make long-range precision shots without a set of "target" sights? Not at all...but the compromise equation will change, usually in the direction of more time.
2) Guns are in many ways mission-specific...carry guns are smaller because they're easier to carry. But in accordance with Point 1, we make a series of compromises for that smaller/lighter pistol — shorter sight radius, greater perceived recoil and, as a result of those 2 factors, slower shot-to-shot "splits."
3) When a civilian, e.g. non-LEO, carries a gun for self-defense, that person "defines" his or her area of response by the choice of weapon. To use a hunting analogy, if you are hunting whitetail deer with a .357 revolver with iron sights, the gun defines the distance at which you can "guarantee" the shot. You may be able to clearly see the deer at, say, 125 yards, but the gun and cartridge combination tells you that you cannot guarantee a humane shot. Can some people make that shot dead bang? Sure. Some people also juggling running chainsaws for a living, but I'm betting that person isn't you or I.
4) I have taught people for a couple of decades to "hard focus on the front sight;" 5 million years of evolution as a hunting primate tells you to "hard focus on the threat." Which voice wins? There is a great line from my first cave diving instructor — "Never train against the operating system."
5) Outside of a square range environment, your physical limitations may addiitonally limit your area of response. Note the caveat...one of the winners of the .50 BMG 1000-yard championships a couple of years ago is legally blind. He has, however, a profound understanding of the trigger and the gun. I can make center mass 50 yard shots on the range all day long; what I can no longer do is clearly identify the target at that distance.
6) Your area of response is limited by you "lowest common denominator," which may be the gun, your physical limitations, the area in which you are forced to respond, etc.
My personal experience is that in an altercation in the "hot zone" — say a 6-foot radius circle around you — you will initially hard focus on the threat, oftentime on the gun if one has been presented. I swear I saw the grooves and lands inside the barrel of a Glock 17 that was once pointed in anger at my head. Your training will help you break that hard focus to see the target, addition threats, etc.
On a draw, I need to be able to hit that target at any point from the time the gun breaks the holster up to and including the moment I have a "sight picture." That's one of the reasons I like lasers. If I am going to look at the threat, I would prefer the target have a convenient red dot on him/her showing me where the bullet will go. Ideally, I want to go to full extension/hard sight picture...few things in the Real World are ideal.
As the gun extends toward the target, I "pick up" the front sight of the gun as it comes into my visual frame. By the time my arms are fully extended, I have a hard sight picture. With my eyesight I pick up the XS front sight very quickly.
By full extension I have already made the "shoot" decision and am in fact prepping the trigger, which will break on full extension. I fire until the threat is emded.
At the point the threat ends, I slightly lower my hands to scan for additional threats. I need to get my big fat hands and the big black gun out of my line of sight, not the big front sight.
I have run the standard fixed-time drills at GUNSITE — 3, 5, 7, 15, 20, 25 yards — with XS Sights, and my scores were the same as with a Novak-sighted 1911. That tells me the balance of speed and precision remains the same with the larger XS front. As the old African hunters proved, an express-type sight is faster for the eye to pick up under the stress of, say, a charging buffalo 5 yards away, and the deep-V seems to me to work. In fact, I have a deep-V and gold bead front on my favorite woods revolvers for that reason.
Here's the important part, and I think Rob will agree with me on this — YOUR MILEAGE WILL VARY! You have to know what works for YOU, and all either Rob or I (or anyone else) can do is provide you with an outline to learn your own limitations and what works best.
Michael B
MBTV
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