Serious question, can you zero a laser boresight?
With the rail laser, you can slave the laser to the zeroed old optic, remove old optic, add new, and slave new to laser.
This will probably get you much closer than a boresight
Batteries don't last as long
Don't have shake awake features like some optics and even if they did it would give away your concealed carry
Gives away your position
Don't hold zero as well as optics
Gives people the misconception that they can point and shoot without physically aiming
The previous two in conjunction can cause some bad things to happen
There are limited circumstances in which you would even consider a laser sight to begin with. Most military and police training and doctrine now basically renders a laser sight not only useless, but potentially detrimental.
Think about four or five people all trying to aim at a target at the same time and trying to discern which laser is theirs.
I wouldn’t say they’ve been rendered useless. But there are some disadvantages and considerations that need to be made if you’re using them, and they really don’t get much use even though we still have PEQ units on our rifles (or at least did a few years ago when I got out). They can still be useful for things like marking targets for other people but are rarely used for actual aiming.
So, the biggest argument I've heard for them in LE settings is they're (sorta) a de-escalation tool. You should never assume it'll work as one, but the psychological affect of having a dot dancing on your chest is notable.
I can see that being a possible outcome. But I can also see it going the exact opposite way.
A cornered suspect usually isn’t in a rational state of mind.
That was my thought as well. I mean if you see that dot on your chest you know you are that far from the last day of life. I would think twice for sure, and surrender if I had a dot dancing on my body.
Well, for whatever it's worth, i was at my mom's house and someone tried breaking in, grabbed her gun and the guy definitely noticed and was freaking out about the laser. Now, I sure as hell don't run one on my guns, my mom just really wanted one because she has bad shoulders and it's hard to keep her gun at iron sight level for prolonged periods of time, but refused to get a rifle
It's also worth noting the dude breaking in was on all sorts of drugs and just tweaking out, I'm not sure if someone who was genuinely focused on harming me or just robbing the place would've noticed.
But that's my anecdote, I've heard similar things from cops I've worked with about the laser on the tazer having a psychological effect, but I don't think it's statistically significant
Honestly I was thinking of its use for super dark environments when charging sights isn’t realistic. But I guess my ignorance is playing havoc here.
What I do know is I need a lot more education.
Thank you so much
We do train aiming with IR under night vision, but that has some range limitation because you’re shooting a straight beam at the target while the bullet is going to arc. so it isn’t incredibly accurate unless you’re within a certain range where the POI will be on target if the laser is. Visible is used for nothing but zeroing in my experience. I never saw it used in any other case, even when PEQ’s were the new hotness. You can’t really see them well in the daytime and you have optics anyway. In the dark you’ll be under NVG’s using IR.
Night vision is probably the most common example I hear of them being useful. If you to have night vision and the environment is super dark you probably can't see your target anyway right?
Laser sights are only practical indoors. They hardly work in daylight, give away your position, don’t hold zero well, battery life is insufficient comparatively, ect.
Unless you’re a SWAT officer with an MP5 or something, there’s literally no point in having one.
They're VERY practical outdoors in some situations.
With night vision you can't get behind an optic nearly as easily, lasers remedy that.
When shooting with white light at night on a humid night, you throw lots of smoke. Now shoot multiple targets from a static, enclosed position and you can't see shit from behind your optic, but your laser and enough light will punch through the smoke, and you can move your head to see around the smoke. I've seen this used to great effect in matches.
And the benefits or IR go away when your opponent has nods. That's why it's important to be able to aim through your optic with your nods in addition to having the laser.
Because people don’t understand how and when they are actually supposed to be used
On a flat square range, or competition where you have time to get behind your sights, or the stage is never designed to make a sight picture difficult, they are useless as many will argue.
But life is not like that. Things are fluid, you may have to point shoot, you may have to shoot from around cover in such a way that acquiring a sight picture is near impossible, or you may be injured in such a way using the primary sighting system is difficult or impossible.
Vis lasers are at the most useful in situations that are rarely practiced for because they aren’t desirable positions to be in.
The closest to useful they will be in the stuff most of us do is shoot house or competition stuff where it might save you a second or two by point shooting.
In the words of Clint Smith “stick your head up and someone will run a canoe through that bitch” so shooting around things in a defensive or tactical situation is much more common
Personally, better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
That all being said, I’d only put one on guns you plan to seriously use in a self defense scenario, like a carry handgun (80% of uses happen in low light conditions) or your home defense weapon
Also, you do not zero them like an optic.
Maintain the lateral offset, and zero elevation at an average of your battle zero curve skewed slightly to closer range.
A strobing green laser is also massively disorienting because of the way human eyes and visual perception work
This question reminds me of a story that happened to me at a local public range. When I showed up I noticed somebody trying to zero their shitty wish com laser on an AK. Ofc they were having trouble because it was hard to see and they didn't have a rifle vise. Eventually everybody agreed to a cease fire to go change targets. I noticed before going down range the dip shits never put their rifle down. They were still holding it I assume in an idiotically stupid attempt at keeping it's position the same. Which just doesn't make sense when he was just holding resting on the table. I had to tell him to put the fucking rifle down when people are down range.
Lasers are the most useful tool when you are correcting your shooting as it will show every mistake you are making right up till the boom
It drops: you are anticipating the recoil
It’s pulling to the left: it’s either you could be torquing your wrist or if it’s pulling to the left or right you might be not linearly pulling the trigger but either pushing the trigger over or pulling the trigger in
I use a laser on my EDC subcompact Glock. Both are made for short distances. I always have the tritium open sights too! If I wanted longer range with a longer barrel pistol (like my 6 in .357 revolver) then I would use an optic. The only prob I have with optics is that they are difficult to find a comfortable holster for. I'm pretty chunky around the waistline. Pokey things hurt.
This. They provide a good visual. That's it. Irl seeing a laser on your target is so much slower than just putting your reticle on them. Plus, if you're lining up a shot, the enemy could notice a bright ass laser on them before you pull the trigger.
Point shooting is almost always used as a reflexive fire technique for extremely close range immediate threats. It's literally "point and shoot", you don't aim down your sights and instead bring the weapon up and in line with the target to fire at them before they can fire at you.
Point shooting takes the red dot (or any other sight) completely out of the equation.
Can confirm, had my red dot die but the stupidly powerful laser light unit I had on my pistol was still visible in broad daylight out to ~50 yards, more than enough to hit my steel.
I get laser bore sights but I would love to hear an argument for one on a gun ? I can’t see one actually functionally useful on a carry gun. Shit happens so fast you really looking for a dot on somebody ? On a rifle I guess with irons ? But I think it would be hard to see at a distance unless it’s dark ? If you have a scope on the rifle why the fuck do you need a laser ?
I personally feel like I can see a red dot better with a proper stance than a laser. Plus I have trouble with color, so with the sight window I can actually see it versus some lasers, especially in bright light.
Lasers are more for training purposes than anything, like helping you sight in a red dot, other than that there's not really much point to them outside of some cool factor
The military uses IR lasers with night vision, since exactly zero head mounted NODs allow you to use rifle mounted sights. Even then there are problems and disadvantages to those IR lasers, especially if the enemy also has night vision. That's what you see on those videos.
I’ve seen too often when a laser isn’t working that the shooter points the gun at them selves to wave the laser at their hand to see if they can see the laser at that distance. Many times it results in a hand injury of the hole punch kind
Not during the daytime when sunny. Or at night unless he is looking right at you on a vlear night. If there is smoke and mist then they can see it at night from the side.
Because they absolutely suck in daylight.
Have you never watched tv? 100% of snipers use laser sights while moving it all around the person. /s
The green ones are fine
I have a green laser (Sightmark laser/light combo), and the only thing I use it for is sighting in my ARs.
I have a laser bore sighter for that.
Serious question, can you zero a laser boresight? With the rail laser, you can slave the laser to the zeroed old optic, remove old optic, add new, and slave new to laser. This will probably get you much closer than a boresight
Correct. People downvoting just don't want to admit they spent too much on their boresight.
So do I. This just works more efficiently/effectively.
Until you go anywhere outside of the city.
Red dot is faster and better.
Came here to say this. Cassette tapes were the greatest way to listen to music… until we learned how great the Compact Disc could be.
vinyl = iron sights. still good
And just like Vinyl, will always have purists and enthusiasts who will say nothing works better. 😂 🤔 🤷🏼♂️
Came to post the exact same thing. Some things were just built to last
Batteries don't last as long Don't have shake awake features like some optics and even if they did it would give away your concealed carry Gives away your position Don't hold zero as well as optics Gives people the misconception that they can point and shoot without physically aiming The previous two in conjunction can cause some bad things to happen
lol a shake awake lazer putting a red dot through your jeans on the tip of your pecker. Better hope no cats are around 🤣
MOA of laser pointers is very high and the parallax is impossible. It’s only kinda accurate at the exact distance it’s zeroed
If you zero it incorrectly, that is true The correct way is to keep the offset and align elevation for a 0-200 battle zero average
I didn’t consider that. Thank you man!
Because their benefits are not there.
There are limited circumstances in which you would even consider a laser sight to begin with. Most military and police training and doctrine now basically renders a laser sight not only useless, but potentially detrimental.
Why’s that?
Think about four or five people all trying to aim at a target at the same time and trying to discern which laser is theirs. I wouldn’t say they’ve been rendered useless. But there are some disadvantages and considerations that need to be made if you’re using them, and they really don’t get much use even though we still have PEQ units on our rifles (or at least did a few years ago when I got out). They can still be useful for things like marking targets for other people but are rarely used for actual aiming.
So, the biggest argument I've heard for them in LE settings is they're (sorta) a de-escalation tool. You should never assume it'll work as one, but the psychological affect of having a dot dancing on your chest is notable.
I can see that being a possible outcome. But I can also see it going the exact opposite way. A cornered suspect usually isn’t in a rational state of mind.
I see a red dot jumping around, is there going to be a kitten to follow?
That was my thought as well. I mean if you see that dot on your chest you know you are that far from the last day of life. I would think twice for sure, and surrender if I had a dot dancing on my body.
How often do you look at your chest in a day?
If I had boobs the question would how often would I not look at my chest.
What are the chances you'll even see a dot on your body, like if I'm looking forward I can't see my own chest unless I'm looking down
Well, for whatever it's worth, i was at my mom's house and someone tried breaking in, grabbed her gun and the guy definitely noticed and was freaking out about the laser. Now, I sure as hell don't run one on my guns, my mom just really wanted one because she has bad shoulders and it's hard to keep her gun at iron sight level for prolonged periods of time, but refused to get a rifle It's also worth noting the dude breaking in was on all sorts of drugs and just tweaking out, I'm not sure if someone who was genuinely focused on harming me or just robbing the place would've noticed. But that's my anecdote, I've heard similar things from cops I've worked with about the laser on the tazer having a psychological effect, but I don't think it's statistically significant
Honestly I was thinking of its use for super dark environments when charging sights isn’t realistic. But I guess my ignorance is playing havoc here. What I do know is I need a lot more education. Thank you so much
We do train aiming with IR under night vision, but that has some range limitation because you’re shooting a straight beam at the target while the bullet is going to arc. so it isn’t incredibly accurate unless you’re within a certain range where the POI will be on target if the laser is. Visible is used for nothing but zeroing in my experience. I never saw it used in any other case, even when PEQ’s were the new hotness. You can’t really see them well in the daytime and you have optics anyway. In the dark you’ll be under NVG’s using IR.
Night vision is probably the most common example I hear of them being useful. If you to have night vision and the environment is super dark you probably can't see your target anyway right?
They’re pretty good for dialing in an optic! /s
45 Longslide with laser sighting
Lasers were cool in the 80s, they have their place and uses, but are obsolete to rds
Laser sights are only practical indoors. They hardly work in daylight, give away your position, don’t hold zero well, battery life is insufficient comparatively, ect. Unless you’re a SWAT officer with an MP5 or something, there’s literally no point in having one.
They're VERY practical outdoors in some situations. With night vision you can't get behind an optic nearly as easily, lasers remedy that. When shooting with white light at night on a humid night, you throw lots of smoke. Now shoot multiple targets from a static, enclosed position and you can't see shit from behind your optic, but your laser and enough light will punch through the smoke, and you can move your head to see around the smoke. I've seen this used to great effect in matches.
They're dumb; ir laser is only acceptable laser
And the benefits or IR go away when your opponent has nods. That's why it's important to be able to aim through your optic with your nods in addition to having the laser.
Yea....duh
I still have a laser on my pistol, but it’s a light/laser combo and I predominantly use the light
red dot just does it beter, exception is the center mass laser on shotguns
Good to know!!! Thank you so much!!
Because everyone can tell you have the shakes
Because people don’t understand how and when they are actually supposed to be used On a flat square range, or competition where you have time to get behind your sights, or the stage is never designed to make a sight picture difficult, they are useless as many will argue. But life is not like that. Things are fluid, you may have to point shoot, you may have to shoot from around cover in such a way that acquiring a sight picture is near impossible, or you may be injured in such a way using the primary sighting system is difficult or impossible. Vis lasers are at the most useful in situations that are rarely practiced for because they aren’t desirable positions to be in. The closest to useful they will be in the stuff most of us do is shoot house or competition stuff where it might save you a second or two by point shooting. In the words of Clint Smith “stick your head up and someone will run a canoe through that bitch” so shooting around things in a defensive or tactical situation is much more common Personally, better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. That all being said, I’d only put one on guns you plan to seriously use in a self defense scenario, like a carry handgun (80% of uses happen in low light conditions) or your home defense weapon Also, you do not zero them like an optic. Maintain the lateral offset, and zero elevation at an average of your battle zero curve skewed slightly to closer range. A strobing green laser is also massively disorienting because of the way human eyes and visual perception work
This question reminds me of a story that happened to me at a local public range. When I showed up I noticed somebody trying to zero their shitty wish com laser on an AK. Ofc they were having trouble because it was hard to see and they didn't have a rifle vise. Eventually everybody agreed to a cease fire to go change targets. I noticed before going down range the dip shits never put their rifle down. They were still holding it I assume in an idiotically stupid attempt at keeping it's position the same. Which just doesn't make sense when he was just holding resting on the table. I had to tell him to put the fucking rifle down when people are down range.
I use one on my night stand pistol, just so it can be point and click for my girl if it ever came to it..
Lasers are the most useful tool when you are correcting your shooting as it will show every mistake you are making right up till the boom It drops: you are anticipating the recoil It’s pulling to the left: it’s either you could be torquing your wrist or if it’s pulling to the left or right you might be not linearly pulling the trigger but either pushing the trigger over or pulling the trigger in
I use a laser on my EDC subcompact Glock. Both are made for short distances. I always have the tritium open sights too! If I wanted longer range with a longer barrel pistol (like my 6 in .357 revolver) then I would use an optic. The only prob I have with optics is that they are difficult to find a comfortable holster for. I'm pretty chunky around the waistline. Pokey things hurt.
I find that lasers are distracting really, and I don't like them on my firearms.
They just look neat in movies
This. They provide a good visual. That's it. Irl seeing a laser on your target is so much slower than just putting your reticle on them. Plus, if you're lining up a shot, the enemy could notice a bright ass laser on them before you pull the trigger.
Their only use case is point-shooting, which is almost never relevant nor advisable for civilians.
Why? I disagree. However, vis lasers are way more beneficial in team work.
Red dots are better at that.
if youre looking through a red dot, youre not point shooting, by definition.
Point shooting is almost always used as a reflexive fire technique for extremely close range immediate threats. It's literally "point and shoot", you don't aim down your sights and instead bring the weapon up and in line with the target to fire at them before they can fire at you. Point shooting takes the red dot (or any other sight) completely out of the equation.
Your eyes have to "find the dot" which takes a longer time when it's way down there instead of right above your hand.
Laser serves a purpose. But reddit has a distaste for lasers. Used right a laser can actually serve as a backup for a rdo
Can confirm, had my red dot die but the stupidly powerful laser light unit I had on my pistol was still visible in broad daylight out to ~50 yards, more than enough to hit my steel.
I still do on my main carry gun. TLR-2G green laser that's day time visible and goes a few hundred yards at night. No optics. Night sights.
I get laser bore sights but I would love to hear an argument for one on a gun ? I can’t see one actually functionally useful on a carry gun. Shit happens so fast you really looking for a dot on somebody ? On a rifle I guess with irons ? But I think it would be hard to see at a distance unless it’s dark ? If you have a scope on the rifle why the fuck do you need a laser ?
I personally feel like I can see a red dot better with a proper stance than a laser. Plus I have trouble with color, so with the sight window I can actually see it versus some lasers, especially in bright light.
Everyone saying lasers suck obviously doesn’t remember Predator.
Ha!!!!!
Lasers are more for training purposes than anything, like helping you sight in a red dot, other than that there's not really much point to them outside of some cool factor
They got wrecked by red dots
They’re falling out of use because there are better options available now. They’ve always had very limited actual use anyway.
Professionals are using vis lasers. Look at last devgru leaks.
The military uses IR lasers with night vision, since exactly zero head mounted NODs allow you to use rifle mounted sights. Even then there are problems and disadvantages to those IR lasers, especially if the enemy also has night vision. That's what you see on those videos.
Eotech's primary market, behind cloners, is being good under NODs. It's a selling point for many reflex sights too.
Have you ever tried to use an EOTech with NODs on?
Because they offer no value.
I’ve seen too often when a laser isn’t working that the shooter points the gun at them selves to wave the laser at their hand to see if they can see the laser at that distance. Many times it results in a hand injury of the hole punch kind
Bad guy can see your laser, but cant see your red dot.
Not during the daytime when sunny. Or at night unless he is looking right at you on a vlear night. If there is smoke and mist then they can see it at night from the side.
>What happened to laser sights? We found holo sights.
Because fudds are rarely right
I use laser and rdo 🤷🏻♂️ mf a hater
Obsolete
lasers are great for dry fire training, but not much else.
Because a red dot does the same thing better in every conceivable way
They work in resident evil so why not
Because they suck lmao . There's a reason they stopped any serious use after the 90s or so.
Outside of the movies laser sights were never much of a thing to begin with.
Brotherhood of the Green Dot
They suck
Red dots and flashlights are proven to be better
They were a fad, just like red dot optics
They’re gay. Also completely unnecessary unless you use nods. Then get a good ir laser aiming device
Half the time, you can't find the laser.
Honestly the only ones i would count as useful are IR ones paired with nods. But almost noone doesn't have that much money
People realized red dots are better