While I agree that Red-Dots are great (I LOVE the T-1 and the XPS red dots)––especially for sub-100Y (for me)––the only two times I've been in a "shoot house" (not sure if that's the right word, since we were just using the blue guns––simmunitions––in a makeshift plywood house), I found myself shooting without using my XPS––the gun was shouldered, I was just looking over it or through it, but focusing on the room not the reticle which I only occasionally peripherally noticed. I would see a bad guy-mannequin (and later a human) and put two or three rounds into it/him, but often was looking around before I even pulled the trigger the last time to find a new target and shoot it. This was in the 5-20ft range––fairly small rooms. Avg distance was probably 8-9ft.
IS this just a terribly bad habit? Do most door-kickers use their red-dots instead of point-shooting? I think I just prioritized speed and situational awareness over super-tight groups, but it didn't seem to hurt me. I've even shot at pie plates at 10 yards like this with my irons folded down and did fine (though it was with a .22 conversion, so that may have helped a bit with speed). NOTE: MY groups were way better with the AR than with the Glock 17 blue gun (my personal gun is a 19 with a slimmed down grip, but that shouldn't have made a big difference). While I do "plan" on using my light and laser and a rigged up BAC in the event of a real HD scenario, it seems I'll probably resort back to just basically point shooting from intuitive muscle-memory.
Is that so wrong?! ;o)
––note––
I had no trouble point shooting with the simmunition: 6" COM groups of 3 or 4 on most of the dummies (occasionally I'd have to shoot just an exposed head, and still get 1 or 2 shots in the center-of-face and have the other shot clip the chin/ear/top of forehead area. One important factor is that, of the 15+ runs I did, there was only an innocent "hostage" in the last runs of each day––but I still didn't have a problem (though I'm sure my dad, playing the hostage once, would have preferred I went slower and used my XPS2, since he'd been hit in the wrist in the prior round by a fellow agent...I avoided getting hit in any exposed areas, but I did get the wind knocked out of me during a two-on-one "pistol retention drill").