Red Dot Sights on 1911 Pistols
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| The mounting position of a RMR red dot sight on a custom DLS slide. Note the LOW iron sights and the steel recoil shoulders protecting the red dot sight. | This is NOT a DLS red dot mount. Notice how high the optic sits, and failure of iron sight to come close to a co-witnessed position. A very poor choice for shooters seeking top performance. |
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Electronic red dot sights on handguns have become very popular over recent years. They solve a host of issues for people who have eyesight problems, and give a speed edge to shooters looking to use a "target focus" style of shooting. The red dot sights eliminate the need to have to shift eye focus from the iron sights to the target and back numerous times during shooting events, thus saving time. Once shooters become skilled with red dot sighting the time advantage red dots offer becomes notable in timed shooting events.
High quality red dot sight development has advanced to the point where they have become rugged enough to mount on pistol slides and durable enough to withstand the slam cycling and recoil of autopistols over 1000s of rounds of fire. That is provided the sights are mounted properly. The quick and cheap way to mount red dot sights to pistol slides has been to screw them onto a mounting plate or adapter device, then screw the device and sight to the pistol slide. If you are looking for long term durability and performance this is not the correct way to mount a red dot.
Some mounting ideas are simply absurd. From a durability standpoint they often fail because they rely on small screws to withstand all the slam cycling impact forces generated by firing the pistol. Theses designs commonly fail when the screws shear off and the red dot sight falls to the ground. They are no better from a shooting performance standpoint. By the time the red dot sight is screwed to an adapter mount, then screwed or dovetailed to the pistol's slide it is frequently so high that it requires the shooter to use a lower than normal arm hold to see through the optic window. You will commonly see shooters with this system wasting time searching for the red dot in the sight's windshield because of the odd positioning of the hold. Some shooters will try to minimize this problem by mounting extra tall iron sights on the slide in an effort to co-witness them though the red dot sight's windshield in order to help them find the red dot aiming point. All this adds up to an oversized and cluttered pistol which ends up being slower than conventional iron sights.
The DLS red dot sight mounting solution takes more time, effort and expense, but it delivers the performance serious shooters are demanding. DLS completed a special run of 1911 slides specifically for red dot sight mounting project pistols. The final result is an ultra-low mounted, and protected red dot sight that has large steel recoil shoulders in front and behind the sight. These shoulders protect the sight and withstand the slam cycling of the slide. All the sight's mounting screws have to do is hold the sight down in the slide.
Properly low mounting the red dot sight in the slide not only allows a proper sightline presentation by the shooter, it also allows LOW ccw style iron sights to perfectly co-witness through the windshield of the red dot sight. The iron sights allow you to quickly find the red dot aiming point during the draw and presentation, and the iron sights can be used in place of the red dot if your battery is dead.
When it comes to mounting red dot sights on serious pistols, do it right or don't do it at all.
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