This is the accessories section so I hope this is kosher to post here, looking to see if or how many of you guys carry everyday with an RMR installed. Im looking to mount one on my range/course gun, but the gun also gets carried a good bit of the time as well. I understand some people aren't quite as fast on first target with the RMR, but for defensive purposes it would most likely be close range anyway.

I guess my main concern is, if carried IWB will the optic fog up from body heat? If so, its a no go for me personally but I was hoping to see if any of you guys had experience with this.

I have been carrying one on my G19 daily for about two weeks now. Carried all day saturday and it was about 95 degrees outside. I havnt had any trouble with my window fogging yet.

I don't have a red dot on any of my pistols, however on my AR I have intentionally covered the front lens (so you can't see beyond it) and with both eyes open it was as if I could see through it just fine. I would imagine that in the unlikely event that your RMR were to be fogged up on your pistol that your eyes will still clearly see the dot on the target.

I would imagine at very close SD distances you probably won't even use the RMR or the irons, you'll just point-and-click so-to-speak. Perhaps if you're involved in a mass shooting like the recent Charleston instance that RMR could come in handy since you'll more than likely be beyond 7 yards from your adversary.

Just my .02

Marines carry it on their service rifle everyday in theatre with no issues.

No, it's a non-issue.  The only time you might get true fogging is during winter going from a under jacket to a temp change of like 50 degrees or more instantly.  Like walk out the door or car and have to immediately draw.  Mine rides AIWB as my daily CCW for the last three years, and has seen 115 to nearly zero outside temps.  Gone to the range in freezing and 110 degree heat and never experienced fogging.  Only instances I've read has been very minor and usually during rain or snow when the lens may actually catch moisture when riding in an OWB situation.  In these cases it hasn't been so much fogging as water accumulation on the emitter and diffusing the dot as it projects on the glass.

This is the crux of the downside, which you may(?) be glossing over: close range is where you need to be fastest and you can't afford to distrust your aiming solution. The RMR also obscures some of the "subconscious" aiming mechanisms that you may rely on for more instinctive shooting like the outline or top of the slide, your ability to pick up iron sights in your peripheral vision on extension, and the tint of the glass and the RMR body itself make the iron sights (at least the front) harder to acquire. Not a total deal breaker but the oft-quoted defense of the RMR that "you always have your irons" is not the whole story: irons through an RMR are not 100% compared to irons without the RMR.

If I thought all my threats would be <25yd there's no way I would consider a RMR for EDC. Sure, they work fairly well on a flat range, sunny day, against multiple static targets in predictable locations, and they're fantastic for 50-100yd+ but is that 0.01% what you really want to optimize for, while compromising your ability to deal more effectively with the 99.9%?

After years of using different RMR solutions and putting thousands of rounds downrange with them, my advice: unless your vision won't let you shoot accurately beyond 15 yards... buy a SIRT gun and practice ammo instead of a RMR setup. You won't have to expend extra mental cycles worry about acquiring the dot, electronics failure, wandering zeros, parallax, fog, dust, or rain, you can just shoot what you need to shoot.

Thanks for the input guys, im still debating. I went to the range today and rented a ZEV with an RMR on it to get the feel for it. It is definitely not as fast on initial target, but with practice im sure I would get better with it. I think for now im just going to stick with irons, especially for a carry gun. I don't want to be spending a lot of time getting used to an RMR gun, and then having to go back to iron sights for a carry gun.