Micro Red Dots

Instructor Karl Rehn demonstrates with an RMR on a GLOCK 48, a good
choice for a plainclothes or small-handed officer.

Trending among gun enthusiasts who carry concealed, compact red dot sights have found their way into law enforcement, too. MRDS, micro red dot sights, are very much the rage now among high-tech concealed carriers. They are also finding their way into police duty holsters.

Mas demonstrates the cheek weld technique for fast acquisition of a Trijicon SRO dot on a Langdon Tactical Beretta 92.

For Example

It has been reported that SOG, the elite Special Operations Group of the U.S. Marshal’s service, has adopted the Staccato P, a 9mm double-stack 1911 style pistol. And what else might that high-performance pistol have? The NRA reports, “Topping the slide is Leupold’s DeltaPoint Pro red-dot sight, backed up by the Universal Optic System from Dawson Precision — co-witnessing iron sights pairing a black notch rear with a fiber-optic front.”

A number of other law enforcement agencies have put red dot sights on the duty sidearms of their SWAT teams as standard equipment. Many departments have authorized them for plainclothes duty and uniform patrol, too, usually on privately owned or department approved handguns.

Conspicuous among these is the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, which has long had a very broad policy of optional handguns, and indeed requires all their officers to buy their own. LVMPD covers a tough city where the cops get into a lot of gunfights, and dashcam and bodycam videos of some of their shootings show an increasing number of optical sights on their duty pistols.

The Houston Police Department patrols the fourth largest city in the nation, with a population of over 2 million. They have been experimenting with RDS on duty pistols for a while, and by the time you read this will have graduated their first entire recruit class trained and qualified with Red Dot Sights on their service pistols.

The shape of things to come: The Stacatto P with a DeltaPoint MRDS
is now issue for Marshal’s Service SOG personnel.

Field Feedback

What really counts is how they perform in the field. The first actual shooting with an RDS-equipped service pistol is believed to have happened in 2017. Police1.com published an article by Jason Wuestenberg on a survey of actual police shootings with RDS pistols done by the National Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors’ Association. He reported, “To date, there have been 75 rounds fired with only 39 hits, which is a 52% hit ratio. This is higher than the national average (typically well below 40% depending on the source). However, one incident had a high miss count — 23 rounds fired and only three hits from 11–15 yards away. Without this incident, the hit ratio jumps to 69%.”

What’s The Training Cost?

Jeremy Tye writes in the Firearms Training Association publication Protect, “I’ll give a brief background on my shooting experience in order to put my observations and opinions in perspective. I’ve been a sworn LEO for just over nine years now and am currently assigned to a regional task force that does pretty exciting stuff on a regular basis. I’ve got all the standard LE instructor certs for firearms and high-liability stuff (DTs / less-lethal / MACTAC) and I do a small bit of firearms instruction in the private sector. I also shoot quite a bit in the competitive arena. I hold a 92% Master classification in USPSA Single Stack and have significant experience in IDPA, Steel Challenge, Multigun/3GN/Outlaw 3-gun and NRL precision rifle. I don’t mention this to boast, but rather just to establish that my shooting experience and perspective is pretty diverse. I carry just about 24/7/365, regardless of whether I am on the clock or not.”

Tye seems to have his trigger time in. He comments, “Last week while at a Frank Proctor pistol class in central CA, I broke the 15,000-round mark on my personally owned duty pistol, an FN509 Tactical that has a Trijicon RMR Type 2 RM06 mounted on it. Every round fired through the gun since I first picked it up in August 2018 has been documented in a spreadsheet, along with any maintenance performed and malfunctions observed. I have shot this pistol almost exclusively for the last year, the only exceptions being when I need to shoot my agency quals with the few other handguns I keep current in my file.” So far, he seems satisfied with the durability and reliability.

Acquisition expense and training expense may slow the adoption of optic-sighted police service pistols, but it seems clear they are here to stay.

For more info: DawsonPrecision.com

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