Has anyone used iron sights at a carbine class?

I would be interested to hear your opinions on attending a carbine class with only iron sights. Were you noticeably slower? Does it slow down the class? Is the training largely wasted if you add a reflex sight some time after attending? Thanks.

While I have not attended a formal carbine course, I have qualified several times with my patrol rifles. Most of my fellow cops use irons, and their performance depends largely on their skill level and demonstration of shooting fundamentals. IOW, the seasoned shooters score better and shoot faster with irons than the novices do with irons or optics.

IMHO, learning to engage targets quickly at close range with irons (as well as mastering longer-range shooting with irons) is a valuable skill to have. Once you've learned to use irons, you can more fully appreciate the difference when using optics. You'll also have confidence in shooting with irons should your optics fail or you don't have optics available.

I certainly don't think your training time would be "wasted" if you took the course using irons and then added an optic afterward. Tactical carbine training involves more than just precision shooting––you will spend as much, if not more, time on stance, shooting on the move, finding and using cover, reloading, and malfunction clearance. Those things will be the same regardless of which sighting system you use.

I ran a Magpul 1&2 class this spring w/irons only. I didn't have any problems keeping up with the class & ran the 2nd fastest time on the 1-5 drill at the end of day 3. I think I was only down .1-ish sec compared to the #1 guy.

It was harder shooting from some of the improvised positions, but not bad.

I am faster with an Aimpoint or EOTech, but time spent training on irons is not wasted. Training with the irons doesn't have a negative impact on my shooting with an optic.

As long as the gun is safe & works, get some training.

Irons are primary. Everything else is gravy.

Well said, I run my guys in basic with irons up to the last 2 days (9 day course) and they must qual ont he NRA 100 yard course back to back with the state course (FBI Course, same thing) otherwise they clean their rifle and turn it in.
After quals are taken care of, we attach optics (usually ACOG 1.5 or 2.0) and zero, spend a day doing some CQB and manipulation work then re-qual with the optics.

Romper

In a different vein; the Marine Corps has found that it has had to force trainers (through multiple orders) to conduct weapons all weapons training after entry level with optics. What we attempted to do iron sighted KD qual in the fleet than after that shoot RCOs for all other training, but in the end very few troops understood their RCOs or were that good with them in combat. The switch has caused some improvement in field performance. I know everyone on AR15.com is the ultimate shooter, but we found average Marine it is better to train them on one system, and retrain them on that system and than train them again.


Years ago I trained a Battalion prior to our deployment. We did the entire shooting package twice, once with irons an once with optics, those Marines would have been better served by doing the course of fire twice with optics

We run carbine courses a few times a year and we have people come through with irons all the time and succeed with them. Kalashnikovs too.

Mostly shooter dependent based on my experience. If people know how to operate it (e.g. zero it properly, compensate for height over bore close up, etc) then an optic is great. Know your irons the same way though too. They don't come with a free lunch.

I agree with the USMC poster above and it makes sense. It's hard for many people to master two systems.

––Fargo007

I completed the NRA Tactical Shooting Instructor class using irons only. I have taken other classes with dots sights. Where the dots really stand out is shooting from unconventional positions. Remember, training is not a competition. That is a hard concept for some people to get. Take the class with the gear that you have, and learn to run it well.

Just to clarify, I think a good red dot sight is an absolute asset for a shooter. Just a hair behind sling & light in importance as far as gear is concerned. That said, training will do more good in the long run for most people. If the choice is one or the other I'd rather see someone take a class this year & buy an optic next year as opposed to the other way around.

I think starting with an optic, vice irons, can be beneficial in that it's one less thing for a newer shooter to have to deal with & think about. Once they're doing well with the optic thhen transition to the irons & let them start working through that process.

Would I have been better & faster with an optic? Absolutely. But it was a choce between training & gear at that point so I went with what I had & picked up an H-1 for that rifle a few months later.

So for the OP, yes, it is worth going, yes, you will be slower, no, you don't throw out everything you learned because you go to a different sighting system.

Get a flourcent green marker and mark the front sight. Its a quick and cheap way to pick up your front sight quicker.

Every single one of the rifle courses I've attended, whether it was LEO or .mil, was run with training on irons as their focus.
Some of them covered various optics that were available, but the courses were designed to be used while using iron sights.

I don't consider iron sight training to be wasted. It is the basics.

irons are primary, optics fail more often...

I did a two day course with irons. I would do it again. I did not notice any effect on the tempo of the class, almost all of which was using optics. IMO if you can't do it with irons you can't do it. YMMV.

We have a 200,000 + man, five plus year on going experiment that says otherwise.

But they all start out on Irons at 500 yards .


I think success lies more learning solid fundamentals, Irons make you use them. Optics let you apply them faster.

The gunners actually tried to do away with that, there was too much political pressure not to shoot with Irons at the depots. It actually funny; the commandant (Conway) actual said it was one of the two things he learned as commandant. That pressure from the "we have always done it that way lobby" was too high for even the commandant to go to optics in recruit training.

There quite a feed back (most on the highside) about how poorly Soldiers and Marines do with the current training packages; the most shocking is the feed back on Snipers.

Optics are a tool to improve on your basic skillset with the irons.

I've been reading about the push to get away from irons in the various branches. I believe its a mistake. Basic marksmanship is basic marksmanship, and the military, moreso the Army than the USMC, has been downplaying the importance of basic marksmanship skills for years, always looking for a technological fix to what was a training deficiency.

I sincerely hope that the USMC hasn't caught the same mindset.

It is great that we all have these wonderful optics now. Yes, they are great when properly applied Lets not use them as an excuse to forget to teach the basics.

Well most cases of shooting people goes beyond the basics. How do you get your natural point of aim on a moving target or while your moving? How do you fire during your natural respiratory pause while almost hyperventilating from a flat out sprint to get to cover? How do establish bone support in a firing position when you shooting with one arm while holding an ammo can in the other? How you do apply slow, steady trigger pressure when your adrenaline is flowing and you cannot feel your fingers or focus on the front sight tip when the effect of adrenaline is to focus on the threat?


Lets face other than the bolt from the blue, shooting at someone who doesn't know you are there from a hide, it is generally very hard to hit someone who is moving, hiding and only giving a second to line up the shot. Some of the cited factor on the studies that are going right now are there is huge problem hitting a moving target. And there are various factors to that 1) range finding is critical, for 25 meter change in range the amount of lead required to hit a moving target increases to the point that the previously used value was not applicable (part of the reason you tell shooters to increase lead on every subsequent shot) . On a training note, it was determined that the size of the target used for training was way too wide, and the average speed of the target was significantly slower than real world moving targets (survey was done last year of the all the training facilities in the US and no military or civilian facility actually has the ability to replicate a true life moving targets with live fire, this is one of the impetus beyond the Marines getting together with Segway to develop a Segway based target and look at some type of simulation that could be run on ISMT-E). There is still an open question at what the break even point will be for training to shoot moving targets, on a few of the position papers I read, they even said it may not be possible to train the average Solider or Marine to repeatably hit a moving target at beyond 150 meters

I used iron for two courses. That's what you'll have when all else Fails.
What slowed the class was guys who weren't familiar with their rig.

I can't disagree with what they are teaching or not teaching now, but if you've shot long distance with a dot, RCO or other ACOG, you quickly realize that it is not a replacement for any of the fundamentals.

These devices are about hit probability. Increasing it, and reducing delivery time. Take the same soldier or marine at any skill level and give them a quality dot, RCO or ACOG, and in virtually all cases they will get more (and better) hits in less time.

Every class I ever attended where someone started out with irons, ended with them using a loaner red dot... and doing much better and getting more value out of the training...

Some of you act like using irons is like mastering a light saber vs using a blaster..... My wife can use irons and put rds on paper..... it's running the gun under stress that folks need to work on, and optics help lesson the laundry list of thinks you need to be doing in a specific time frame to gain acceptable accuracy at certain distances.

I think some just do it so they can say "Hey look at me... I don't need no fancy battery powered optic" and there usually the ones who drop a loaded magazine on the deck and then forget to go to there pistol .......

I use what makes me fast and accurate under the most varied conditions day or night... and irons ain't it....

Good thing about irons is that they are more demanding on the fundamentals to get right. Say with a red dot you can still aim if the cheek weld is not good, and with irons you can not. In that way it is possible to learn to be inconsistent. Despite manufacturer claims even the red dots aren't parallax free and small errors in cheek weld will cause less than optimal results.

IMHO it is better to train with more dermanding system and then switch to easier one. That way it is easier than the other way round.

Irons will make sure you do it right every time. Optics will help increase your speed. Most of my rifles are irons only. If you own an AK and intend to use it for self-defense, it's a great reason to train with it at your class!

The problem is what I mentioned previously, its just not that easy to go back and forth between systems.

If you choose to train with irons, which I think is a bad choice, stick with them. The Marine Corps has done the experimentation, going back and forth doesn't work too well for a combat system.

It isn't a matter of going back and forth, its a matter of being able to fall back on irons and use them effectively, if you've chosen to use optics. Optics fail. Your training should recognize that. Too many people who go with optics seem to over-rely on them and never practice on the irons.

When you optics go down, you weapon is in the degraded mode of operations.

There is a reason historically once troops went to open order battle tactics that it took thousands of rounds to hit a single person.

I don't see a downside to being proficient with irons and training to fight that way. By all means, train w/ an optic too, but why wouldn't you want to evaluate yourself with irons too? I learned to shoot on irons and it was about 3 years before I bought my first scope. I know the military doesn't have the luxury of spending that much time getting troops combat ready but this discussion is broader than that subsegment isn't it?

I don't think that way. Maybe because optics as a routine piece of equipment came along well into my career.
Shooting thousands of rounds per enemy KIA has little to do with optics on individual small arms.

I didn't get my first issue ACOG until I had been in16 years. I shot both iron and optics overseas, and irons are just so much less effective that the weapon is in the degraded mode without them.

When we added ECOs to our M240s, they become almost death rays. Put the dot on the target pull the trigger and the guy just crumpled, it wasn't anywhere near that easy before we mounted the sights, hell with the Boise head set on you could hardly even get behind the sights.

I can understand that. I personally use aimpoint & acog, but compete with irons. Why? I get more out of by using irons. IMO if one can use irons properly, going to aimpoint is dead easy. Magnification isn't much more difficult but the scope has to be set up right.

In the GI world things may be bit different due to lack of training, I don't know.

I am just saying we have the huge experiment of several hundred thousand subjects that has pointed to pick one and stick to it.

The Marine Corps Ground Board 1-10 recommended to train with RCO at entry level training (ELT) (Recruit Training and the Basic School). However, because the “way we always do it mafia” said no, it was disapproved. What we have seen even is that the shooting package done pre-deployment for infantry Marines (The Marine Corps package is about like going to a civilian training school) is not doing an adequate job and part of the reason is the transition to using optics.

Thanks for the insight.

I play airsoft quite often. It is pretty hard to hit a moving target with iron sight consistently. Red dot pops into your brain and tracks the moving target faster.

Whats your guy going to do when his optic goes down? He better know how to use those irons.

Have the same rate of hits as some one with irons, other than beyond close contact range iron sighted fire is not all that effective.

He's not advocating NO IRONs.. simply stating that research has shown that troops are more effective with the combat multiplier that an Optic provides.. Marines don't function solo, they fight in teams... ACOGs are pretty tough... If one goes down, the Marine deploys his BUIS and continues the fight... Marksmanship is not the end goal.. having the Shooter hit and kill the bad guy is. Marksmanship is just an ends to a mean. Optics make getting to the mean faster and easier...

Sometimes I think folks forget why we train our forces with small arms.... It's not to make them High masters... its to put bullets in smelly bearded boy loving fuck nuggets...If they can do it faster and easier with a red dot.. then lets do it... save the shooting trophy's for Camp Perry.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/marksmanship


Thesaurus
Noun 1. marksmanship - skill in shooting
acquirement, skill, accomplishment, attainment, acquisition - an ability that has been acquired by training

Are we still speaking the same language? I am confused...

Marksmanship is a very small part of fighting with a rifle, since the question was about attend a course (my assumption is a course on how to fight with a rifle); than the marksmanship is only a small part of the course.

Yes. Thank you!

Good to see the Marines are looking into fixing that issue. No surprise the Old Guard is fighting it though. When my unit was issued Aimpoints my soldiers could not wrap their brains around how it worked. The simple concept of "You see the dot? That's where the bullet's going to hit, no matter where it is" was so different from what they were used to.

Maybe because they don't know how to use irons.

People fought wars for centuries with irons.



Thats not how I took his comment. When he said that training shouldn't do between the irons and optics, I took it to mean that we should dump trianing on irons in favor of optics.


Marksmanship is being able to put a bullet on a target. You can have all sorts of tactics and everything else that goes into armed conflict, but if you can't put rounds on target, you're losing.

if you use those that argument than it points to that they were not all that effective. Once troops moved from closed order battle tactics to open order battle tactics, it took thousand of rounds fired per round that hit. Not exactly the empirical evidence showing how effective they were.

The round count went up because technology allowed it to do so through the invention of automatic weapons. The figure also includes rounds fired by aircraft, and THAT is always a high round count proposition for each identified kill.

Well that is part of the problem, no one truly knows. For most part, the numbers are SWAGs.

Your confusing marksmanship with fighting... two totally different skills... Standing on a manicured grass field on a sunny day in a heavy shooting jacket while standing erect and shooting at a 36" wide black circle 200 yards away to score points is marksmanship.

Fighting with a gun is done in all weather, Hot, cold, day or night, tired, scared, angry, hungry , etc You may not get the perfect sight pic, you may be running, your target may be moving, You hands may be covered in blood from just applying a tourniquet on your buddy,your ears ringing because a M240 has been blasting next to you, rds snapping all around you and your not sure where everyone in your squad/fireteam is... and a bad guy pops his head up from behind a rock for 2 seconds, just enough time to get your red dot on his ugly mug and press the trigger....then trying to get out a fresh mag and reload quickly while wearing 35+ pounds of body armor and an assault pack on a 8ooo ft mountain, while lying prone behind a rock that is not much bigger then you, with gloves on .......

Big difference

Whoa... 70 yr old Generals sitting in a nice warm Chateau drinking Cognac use to order tens of thousands of there troops to climb out of there trenches and take on em placed crew served weapons with a frontal assault, resulting in horrific casualties...

That kind of thought process is what causes a lot of our current problems today...

Word.

I wouldn't be totally against shifting training toward optics entirely with irons just getting a 'familiarization' course.
"Train as you fight"

Thanks for your insgiht Harv, good input!

How do YOU go from my comment that wars have been fought with optics to old guys ordering their men out of trenches. They don't equate. The old guys hadn't kept up with modernization of equipment, but requiring guys know how to use irons hardly equates to ordering men out of trenches.

Well.. for starters.. Your statement was not about Wars being fought with Optics, but with Irons.. and that thought process screams of "Irons have been good enough for years, so we don't need Optics" And that same linear thinking is what brought on trench warfare.. so it's easy to make the connection.

In other words your statement says, that if something has worked for a long time (irons in this case" then there is no need to change.) so one can extrapolate the same theory that men have been using mass assaults across open terrain against entrenched defenders with mass casualty producing weapons for centuries also, and that has also worked...

The point is, and I believe you get it.. that just because something worked for centuries, does not make it the best... Brass resisted a lot of what was considered Newfangled at the time technology. Everyone thinks the M-1 Garand was the "greatest Battle implement ever" because Patton said so... in reality, it was great only when you compare it to the fact that the Japanese and Germans were running WW1 era bolt guns.

Would everyone think it was so great if the Germans issued the STG 44 as there issued Infantry weapon???

Hell, I remember Crusty old die hard Tank Commanders who resisted the Laser rangefinder on the M60A3 tank because it was more complicated then the coincidence optical rangefinder on the M60A1.....

People hate change... but change is how we evolve and how new equipment and new tactics are created. Iron sights are evolving into a secondary back up sighting system and the optic sight is becoming the Primary fire control system on Modern rifles.... There faster, more accurate and are easier to teach and learn. There becoming more reliable and yield improved results that are measurable. There is nothing nostalgic about them. We use to spit shine our boots and starch our uniforms also... because someone thought it was a good idea and did not want to change, because that's the way "They" did it.

The .Mil is in the business of Killing.... we need to do it the most efficient and effective way.... And Irons are not it... Shoot a M240 with irons at a target at 700 meters and then do it with a 4x M145 MGO and tell me which one is ore effective??
Shoot an M4 at night at 300 meters without a PVS14 or a Peq 15?. We don't have the luxury of numbers anymore... So we need to rely more on technology if were going to win future wars. There not always going to be fought against Smelly, boy loving Goat
herders

We need to get out of the trenches and starting Maneuvering and Kill in a loud and grotesque military manner....

You need to re-read the post I was replying to when I made that comment, specifically the comment that except at close combat ranges irons are ineffective.

I wasn't advocating sending people over trenches, just responding to the comment that I cited above.

I've done class with pure irons before. Then again, I'm a weird guy, as Harv may attest to if he remembers who I am, and have weird philosophys. I pretty much figure, if I can keep up/exceed with iron sights, I can rock with optics.

Your not a "weird" guy at all Will... I consider you a very skilled and competent shooter....

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