 Did you like the title? I hope it wasn't too click-baity. I mean, I wanted it to be just enough that it kinda gets your blood pressure up a little bit and you get a little mad and you click in here to see what's going on. So, let me know how I did. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're gonna talk about red dots on pistols and how they improve or don't improve your shooting ability. Just to clear this up, to save from the outset, no, I don't think buying a red dot and slapping on your handgun by itself just makes you suddenly a better shooter. There is no way you can ever substitute gear for skill. It just doesn't happen, right? If you wanna be a better shooter, you gotta earn it, and you gotta earn it by practicing. So, what do I mean that putting a red dot handgun on a pistol makes you a better shooter? Well, here is what I do mean. It will assist you in your training. It'll assist as a training tool, I guess might be the best way to say that. And here are the two things that I think it helps you with the most. The first is presentation of your pistol, right? If you've ever picked up a red dot or you've ever handed it to your buddy to pick up, this is the first thing I've seen everybody do with a red dot. They pick it up, they put it out here, and then they start to fish, right? They start to do this with the pistol. They're like, where's the dot? They're trying to find it in that window. And what that shows me is that you, me, and everybody else included, is not having a correct presentation of the pistol begin with. If the pistol was level and was presented correctly, then you wouldn't have to fish for it. But what most of us do unbeknowingly, right, I'm exaggerating, but most of us present a pistol like this, right? We're arcing it up. So what we're doing then is then we have to find that dot by dropping the front of the gun down to find the dot. Well, when you get a red dot and you start dry firing with it, you start practicing with it, you should dry fire every day for like five, 10 minutes a day, thank me, later, is you start to learn to present the pistol and drive the gun out so that the gun is perfectly aligned. And so you're not needing to fish for that dot. It corrects your presentation of the pistol. And it allows you to do that because you gotta remember with a front sight, you think it's something like 11 MOA depending on your arm length and the size of the front sight that you choose in particular and blah, blah, blah, blah, but somewhere around there, okay? Around 11 MOA. A dot is like two, three, something like that. So it's a much finer point of aim and it's gonna really allow you to refine your sight picture and therefore your presentation. So it's gonna correct your draw stroke. It's gonna really fix that. And when you then go back to irons on another gun or a buddy's gun or whatever, it's gonna make your irons shooting, iron shooting, if we can say that, better because you're gonna present that gun correctly smoother every time. So that's the first area where I think a red dot really does make you a better shooter. The second area where I think a red dot makes you a better shooter is it allows you to track any movement of the gun while you pull the trigger. So again, for most of us remember, if that front sight is 11 MOA, then when you come out and I pull the trigger, you can maybe see the front sight move, maybe not. But the dot never lies. And if you come out to present that pistol and you're doing your dry fire, you can see exactly where that red dot was when this trigger was broke, when you pulled the trigger. And so it's gonna detect every minor tremor in your hand and the dot does not lie. So you're able to really track how well you're holding the gun still or if you're jerking the trigger and dropping the gun down because you're anticipating recoil or whatever, the dot does not lie. So those are the two main areas where I think a red dot really does make you a better shooter. Because as you train with it, because it's a refined sight picture and a refined aiming point, it really doesn't allow you to cheat anymore or just not be as competent and not notice. It's really gonna expose the flaws and errors in your skill set and in your game and it's gonna allow you the opportunity to improve those skills. So if you're on the fence and all about a red dot in your handgun, I'd just tell you to go ahead and get one. I know they're expensive. However, they're really fun to shoot and the benefits just in dry fire alone, I think it's probably worth it if you consider yourself a serious pistol aficionado. I'm sure there are other benefits and helps from a red dot that I've missed that make you a better shooter due to the training aspect and I'd be curious to know more about those if you've got them. I've probably been running my red dot for about a year now. So if you know more than me or you got some other helpful things that a red dot really does make you a better shooter at because of, again, that training aspect you can't buy skill, I'd be curious to know. Do brave deeds and endure.