A History of Pistol-Mounted Red Dots

By Patrick Sweeney

Our editor, Eric Poole, made the mistake of asking me an open-ended question: “What do you remember about the early use of red dot sights in IPSC?” I had to manfully resist the temptation to launch into full lecture mode.

You see, I was there. Red dot sights were not new in the late 1980s; they had been around. The first-generation Aimpoint Electronic was a red dot originally meant for rifles in the late 1970s. However, in IPSC, Jerry Barnhart was the first to figure out how to use a subsequent model on a handgun.

He showed up at the 1990 USPSA Nationals with a red dot sight and beat us so badly it was embarrassing. Two months later, Doug Koenig mounted a scope on his gun, practiced with it and won the World Shoot with it that same year.

Looking back, those first sights that followed Aimpoint were almost ludicrous. Field of view of the original Aimpoint we used, the third-gen Electronic, was narrow. It made current red dot tubes look like the Holland Tunnel …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo