18+ Content Warning

By clicking Enter, you confirm you are 18 years of age or older and agree to comply with all applicable local, state, and federal laws.

Notice: Any content or member activity - including anything you may buy, sell, transfer, or discuss - must comply with current and upcoming laws.

Members are encouraged to stay informed: California Firearm Laws: 2026 Outlook & 2025 Recap . Responsibility for compliance rests solely with the individual member.

caguns.net

Welcome to CAguns.net!
Join our growing community where you can ask questions, share knowledge, or browse our classifieds section.

Sign up for a free account today and unlock full access! Once registered, you can search, post, and take advantage of exclusive features unavailable to guests.

A note on why more of the site now requires an account: automated scrapers and AI systems have been crawling our forums and classifieds at a scale. Requiring sign-in for those sections is the most effective tool we have. It takes a minute to register, it's free, and it keeps what happens here between actual members.

New to California gun ownership or trying to keep up with the changing laws? Check out our sister site CA2A.com — free courses, plain-English legal updates, and step-by-step guides built for California owners.

Advanced features are available only to registered members. Register today!

Poll Red Dot or Not on your CCW weapon?

Take a survey

Do you have (want to have) a red dot on your CCW pistol?


  • Total voters
    221
Yes both eyes open.

The tape trick is a good one because it forces you to be target focused. If you focus on the dot all you’ll see is tape.

It’s just one of those things you have to put in the reps. There is one presentation that will put the dot on the target and you have to build the muscle memory to get your draw to that point every time. Don’t go searching for the dot. Draw, present gun to target staying target focused.
Thank you. Now I need to buy a dot lol
 
I am lucky it kinda came naturally for me but one benefit of the PDP is the grip really points you towards the dot naturally

Get to where it's correctly lined up for you then keep repeating that draw and build the muscle memory. After doing it like 500 times correctly I don't even think about it. Just like racing I guess haha
Pdp is the only one that is optic cut. I dont care enough to cut the pd380 or csx
 
Do/Will you have a Red Dot on your CCW handgun?
When I got into CCW, I thought I would put a red dot on all my pistols. But that quickly changed.

Red dots made it hard for me to conceal my gun. The sight housing made printing worse for me. I could never hide both the grip and the sight. It was one or the other. An outsider probably wouldn't notice but I like having my gun be completely invisible.

On my Sig p365, I had a Holosun 407k. Every time I took it to the range, I had a hard time zeroing it at 25 yards. Turns out the emitter was loose and moving around every shot. After I removed it to have it warrantied, I found I could shoot better at 25 yards with iron sights. So irons were plenty accurate for me and more reliable.

I still have a red dot on my Glock 19 (Holosun 407c) which has had no issues. But I don't feel like it makes me fast enough to justify having a dot on all my guns.

In the end, concealibilty and reliability is what makes me choose irons over a red dot for most of my guns.
 
Last edited:
In the end, concealibilty and reliability is what makes me choose irons over a red dot for most of my guns.

Yes, like anything in life, one size does not fit all.

I’ve been through quite a few FoF exercises and simulators around real-world scenarios. For me, I value capability and reliability over maximum concealability.

So I adjust around the gun that gives me the optimum fit of those constraints... Glock 26 + HS508T for business casual, and a Glock 19 + HS407CO-X2 for everything else.

2026-08-30 08.28.29.webp
 
The only Red Dot I want for my CCW would be inside the cases behind a bullet and in front of a primer.
Boomer reloaders joke if you didn’t get that.
 
Last edited:
The gun that I carry practically every time is a lightweight, scandium-frame snubnose revolver. The whole jam is being ultra light and ultra concealable and adding an RDS defeats the point. I voted "no." At a close distance that RDS is of debatable value and I'm probably both eyes open too, for whatever that's worth.

I think the dot really comes into its own on a gun of some size (G26+?) and at some distance (15yds+?). Wherever you think that happy point is, that's up for debate. What I think is less debatable is that there is a point where a competent shooter with a dot wins on practical accuracy and repeatability every time.
 
I used to run an RMR on my CCW and then one time at a qualifier in IDPA I drew my gun and the combination of the sun being directly in front of me and lint being on the optic made it so I couldn't see the dot at all (or through the optic really). It took me what felt like a long time to mentally switch to my backup irons due to the stress of competition and wanting to do well in the qualifier. That taught me two things: always check my dot before competition and that if my dot was somehow compromised in a defensive shooting it could cost me time.

Sure, I could train to use my backup irons and probably overcome that, but I am proficient enough with irons at defensive distances that it just doesn't seem worth the point of failure.
The fix for that is to either get the enclosed red dot or turn your brightness up to max.
 
2 of 3 on my card have dots. My hunting sidearm is a 10mm with ACSS Vulcan.

I don’t think dots really matter all that much it’s just a preferential thing. I voted yes but would be easy to argue irons are a better use of your practice time for a newer shooter.
 
First time you draw one and you can’t see through it because sweat or belly lint or your own blood or whatever will be the last time you use a dot.
 
First time you draw one and you can’t see through it because sweat or belly lint or your own blood or whatever will be the last time you use a dot.
This is just stuff that people who don't carry with a Dot say, they arent nearly as temperamental as all that and if you really are concerned about it there are a ton of enclosed options. Worst case scenario it's quite easy to index off of the housing of the dot to shoot accurately even without irons
 
When I played with a slingshot all the time as a kid, there wasn't anything I couldn't hit on the first try. A gun has so many reference points outside of iron sights let alone a red dot, I could remove the optic and iron sights and still hit my shots. Really comes down to consistent practice and red dots make it so much easier.
 
Back
Top Bottom