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Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball
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Feb 2011
Location
Virginia
I use lasers on guns that have terrible sights. Examples would be a Ruger LCP or a S&W 638. The laser is a massive boon to being able to hit at speed with those guns.
The laser in general is seen as a positive because it puts the aiming reference on the target, which is extremely useful especially in low light.
The problem is that lasers are incredibly fragile and even the newer green lasers are difficult to see in daylight. Their adjustment mechanisms can be somewhat delicate and can shift zero without being obvious unless you regularly check the laser's position against your iron sights.
I don't have lasers on guns that have useful sights as I've not found them to really add any practical benefit to the use of those pistols.
As for novices, I don't find that lasers present significant benefit unless they have vision issues to the point where they can't see a useful sight picture. All most novices really need is a more effective model for the use of iron sights and the worries about that tend to disappear.
Lasers will give you a useful aiming reference for situations where you might be trying to fire a gun that isn't in your eyeline...but I'm having a hard time imagining what those situations would actually be. If I'm shooting with the gun out of my eyeline then I'm most likely shooting from a retention position because I'm a close quarters tangle where I'm relying on my #2 index to put lead into the other dude. In any other circumstance there shouldn't be a barrier to getting the gun into my eyeline.
The laser moves around a good deal on target and that causes hesitation and the dreaded NOW syndrome where somebody sees the dot where they want it and they grip the gun harder while stabbing the trigger violently moving the gun completely off target. So for your typical under-trained shooter it can actually be counterproductive for them.
Where I use the laser most is during instruction. It's fantastic for allowing me to illustrate things visually. I taught a Pistol 1 class on Saturday where I used the laser to illustrate how much movement there is in the gun. The clients can't see through my eyes, but they can see the dot moving around on the target and figure out that my gun isn't still either, and that I can get excellent accuracy despite the movement by keeping my grip consistent and working the trigger with some sympathy. I especially like using the laser to illustrate over-gripping the gun as hard as I can. The gun shakes violently and the laser's dot is essentially a blur on the target, and then I hammer through the trigger and usually put one in the X ring or at worst the 10 ring and they literally see how much the visual experience behind the gun exaggerates accuracy worries at typical defensive distances.
It's also brilliant for showing the effectiveness of various recoil control techniques, especially for one handed shooting. The laser gives them a visual reference downrange to see how much the gun is actually moving when I shoot it because most can't really tell that by looking at me from the side.
The problem with light/laser combo units is that the laser typically sits under the light giving you a real bitch of an offset problem, resulting in a lot of complicated decisions on how you go about zeroing the laser, at what distance, and then figuring out what offset is to deliver accurate shots. Remembering your offset with a laser way the hell away from your muzzle under life or death stress is not easy and I'm skeptical of anyone who hasn't actually performed extremely well under high level competitive pressure or in actual fights who tells me they can reliably get that right when the proverbial feces hit the fan.
Benefits of laser or brighter light? For HD and outdoor carry (TLR-8AG vs X300U)
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Originally Posted by CraigS
