I'm looking at possibly setting my 1911 up with one of the micro-dot sights.
This will end up milled-in and set as low as possible, running 460 Rowland hunting loads, as a field hunting pistol.


I've heard good reports on Docter sights run on rifles and shotguns - I haven't heard any (valuable) reports of field hunting use of any of these on the slide of a hunting handgun.

I'm OK with the greater weight of the Docter if that ends up being the best choice, it wouldn't hurt to slow the slide down on this thing.
I like the 'rear sight' notch on the JPoint and it appears that the newer JPoint sights are a different (and much better..?) animal than the early JPoint (and earlier predecessor) sights were.

I haven't heard much about the Burris.



What's the dirt on these neat little sights Gentlemen?



Cheers
Tinker

I have a couple of Docters and a Burris.

I prefer the Docter.

Even on a handgun I think I would prefer a 4 minute dot.

I figured you'd pipe up on this at some time.


I think I'd prefer the 4moa dot too.
Slide speed with the Rowland is bound to be pretty swift.
I'm concerned for the glass in the Docter/Burris sights as they bang from stop to battery on the pistol.
Also the on/off switch on the Burris looks like it's asking for trouble.
The Docter has no on/off switch right?
You have these on double rifles and a shotgun don't you?
Do you know of anyone else who's been running the Docter through relatively extensive use?
Do you know anyone who's used the JPoint?

I don't know of anyone around here who's running one of these on a 1911 slide.
I haven't even handled one.
Doesn't Safarikid run these on his (totally irresponsible and amazingly underweight) super-horsepower bigbore revolvers?
That would be a fairly rigorous test for any electronic/optical component.



Cheers
Tinker

The Doctor has no on off switch.

It automatically adjusts for different light conditions, from bright sunlight to entering a dark room in a dope house...

They claim recoil is no problem and I have seen them mounted on semiauto slides.

It would be my pick for a handgun.

Also you might want to take a look at Crimson Trace Laser grips.

They work "pretty good".

I've handled the crimson trace pointer-grips.
Not really what I'm going for here, and for the conversation's sake I'm running ivories that my late dad's late friend (an old stock maker/rendezvous shootist geek) gave me years ago - lots of stories there from soup to nuts, but let's say the ivories are in for the long haul.

Also I prefer the holo-dot to a pointer.


The Docter sights you know of that are living/working on auto pistol slides -- these are guys you've worked with, on working pistols?



Cheers
Tinker

The 460 might be hard on Ivories.

No, my info on the Doctor on a handgun do not come from first hand experience.

I have shot one on a light 375 H&H with a 50cm barrel a fair amount.

I am a "belt and suspenders" kind of guy..

The only problem I have with a red dot on any gun is that I do not want to be only battery dependant.

If I put a red dot on a handgun I would want to have iron sights on the gun as well.

I would have to have my Pistolsmith fit the Doctor in front of the Melted Bomar, on a base, when if the Doctor was removed I could still use the Bomar.

Or put the Doctor on a mount that fits under the left grip.

OR I would have two Uppers for my 460, one with the Doctor, one with the Bomar sights.

I NEVER depend only on batteries/electronics/optics...

NEVER.

I have a Freedom Arms 83 454 Casull with a Trijicon 4 MOA Red Dot sight-almost identical to the Docter. So far, it has held up fine.

I'd thought of issues with the ivories on this pistol, and somehow there's a gut feeling that they're going to be OK where they are.

The issue of back-up iron sights with an electronic sight is a concern - and the JPoint is set up with that issue in mind. It's got a sight groove right where it should be.
With a machined slide, the JPoint sits low enough to work as a solid rear sight.




That's the thing that keeps the JPoint in the conversation for me. I wish the others would include this in the design, also I wish I could have one to handle - just don't know if there's meat enough there to make it work with a Docter.


As far as going back and forth from a machined slide (specially for the micro dot sight) it's easy for me to set back up with BoMar or Novak or whatever rear sight simply by having a properly mated mount for whatever that sight would be.
Remove Dot Sight, Bolt On Iron Sight.
I'm not so necessarily bound to standard dovetail patterns as I'm a machinist and can make whatever solid contour we can imagine.

I got these two images off this site


That's a JPoint on a sporting Glock
Seems that guy has had fairly good luck with both JPoint and Docter sights.

I would like to get one of each in the hand to compare deck height and deck depth, to see if it would be possible to get a back-up iron in there behind the Docter (deck height and depth being the issue...)
Still, that makes the Docter that much more work (and money) than the JPoint

This is to be a hunting gun.
It currently has the factory Kimber adjustable sight - and I've seen Millett and BoMar sights fail (open up just like a trunk-lid) in the past.
One of these dot sights with a solid rear sight might just be more reliable than what I have in the long run!



Cheers
Tinker

In truth, for a hunting gun, a red dot only, would be OK, as I think I know, you would have a back up handgun for social "things".

I have never had a Bomar sight fail...

And I have a 1911, with over onehundred thousand rounds fired through it.

Barrels and interior parts have been replaced, but the frame and slide/sights show almost no wear.

I have even hit a few people in the head with it as well.

Thanks for the comment about the sight notch as I have wondered about that. Don't have a Dr in the house aside from the beverage. However there is a Burris FastFire on my Kimber and a JP4 on a FA 83 475L and UltraDots on all the rest. Instead of a notch, the FastFire has a round indent right in the middle and in alignment w/the front sight if left installed. Perhaps a dab of white paint would make it even better. I like it ~ however its an discontinued open design and the new FastFire II claims to be waterproof but no indent. I have one of those coming. Its a bit heavier than the JP as it uses real glass/metal rather than advanced composites of the JP. While I have the UltraDots for hunting, I wanted something a lil' smaller.

Unfortunately, the footprints of these are different from each other but one manufacturer may produce a adapter to take/moount the other. I know that JP has a 'Docter to JPoint Mount Adapter' on their website for about $7. Something else w/all the red dots is for those of us that have poorly corrected astigmatism may perceive the dot to look like something other than what it is i.e flare, clump of grapes etc.

ON EDIT: Correct statement re JPoint to read FastFire

Tembo-

How much ammunition through that 454 with the dot sight on there?
Full house loads?


ODOH-

I hear you on astigmatism-enhanced light blobs.
The good news is that with a little 3.5 dot, it's just going to be telling us where there'll be a similarly sized (shaped too, likely) red spot on the animal!


No2-

Co-Workers?

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
I have even hit a few people in the head with it as well.

Cheers
Tinker

Tinker

No "citizens"...

I have a little "stigistizitizismmm". Not much just a little.

In low light, the Doctor Optic red dot still looks round. The Burris, a little fuzzy...

In bright light both look round but the DO is the cleanest round red dot of all.

"I have even hit a few people in the head with it as well."

Tony, You crack me up!

I liked the Jamaican doper with his shoes and and socks blown off by the flash bang story.

Lettin' the cat out, Jack?

After the '89 police sniper competition (I just realized that was TWENTY years ago), I still say your name 3 times while while swabbing the bores on my PSS and LTR with Sweet's 7.62 solvent. BTW you kicked my *** at Camp Gruber on the M-60 pop-up range. Helluva shooter you are... "I'm not worthy..." (bowing, groveling, etc...)

Tinker I have approximately 200 rounds trough the Freedom with the Trijicon. 75% were full house loads. The Quinn boys over at Gunblast.com have one on a 500 WE and have had good luck.
LINK

No2-


Do you have a caliper - and can you measure the thickness of the 'rear deck' of your (4th gen if you have one) Docter sight please?
That's without mount adapter, from the top edge to the bottom of the base.
Same for the front of the Docter sight, base to bottom of window.
Width of unit overall and length too...

You have me thinking Docter, and I'm looking to see if I can get the dot sight *and* an iron sight on the slide without crashing any important features of the slide *and* get co-witness of the irons and the dot in the same sight picture.



Cheers
Tinker

Looking for prices/distributors for the Docter sight, I found this video of Dean Makkos running a Docter sight on his race gun.

Notice the sight cut on the slide, part way through the video.



Cheers
Tinker

quote:

Originally posted by john113wyo:
"I have even hit a few people in the head with it as well."

Tony, You crack me up!

I liked the Jamaican doper with his shoes and and socks blown off by the flash bang story.

Lettin' the cat out, Jack?

After the '89 police sniper competition (I just realized that was TWENTY years ago), I still say your name 3 times while while swabbing the bores on my PSS and LTR with Sweet's 7.62 solvent. BTW you kicked my *** at Camp Gruber on the M-60 pop-up range. Helluva shooter you are... "I'm not worthy..." (bowing, groveling, etc...)

Those were fun times.

Tinker

I will see if I can find my caliper, most of my loading stuff is still packed away.

In the video what they have done is machine the mounting base directly into the slide of the gun.

That would be retty pricey and I am not sure you could do that on a 1911.

I thought I saw a DO base that fits into a Bomar dovetail.

I will see if I can find it.

Tinker
Go to www.docterusa.com

The Bomar mount is $59.00

That is the way I would go.

It is a little higher than the mount method in the video, but you could go back to a Bomar sight in the future if you needed to.

Well it looks like a 1911 can be cut for the low mount.

It definitely appears to be enough meat in the 1911 slide to get the bottom of the window down to the top of the slide.
Down low like that it looks to be the most durable way to go, and it gives the best chance of also having a set of iron sights (front AND rear) mounted on the same slide at the same time.
That would be be ideal.

I have the machinery and the skills/experience to perform that kind of 'sight cut' - also to get a rear sight blade in there as well.
I need to look closer at the 1911 slide to make sure there's enough meat everywhere to get the Docter forward enough to also allow for a dovetailed rear sight - I'm thinking a GI sight would be enough, and take the least amount of space.



Cheers
Tinker

I have an older Doctor that I put on my Ruger 44mag. Could not sight it in at 25 yards. Then I clamped it in a cleaning rest and lined the dot up with a target. By moving my head position around I could get the dot to move all over the target at 25 and 50 yards. And I mean feet not inches! Do I have a defective unit or is this a common problem? I would expect the parallax-free sighting distance to be 50 yards. I took it off and will put a Gilmore or Holo Sight on the Ruger.

What about the FastFire II, Burris claims it to be parallax-free to 50 yards, is it?

Richard

Richard-


Feet of POA difference on a 25yd target?
That's nuts.
Older Docter sight?
How old?
Is it a metal bodied sight?


Cheers
Tinker

If someone has one of these, could you go into a dark room sometime and look into a bright room, and let me know if you can still see the dot.

a.tinkerer-

Yes, feet, as in more the 12 inches each. Using a Caldwell Insta-View 8" bull target with the gun clamped down, the 4" dot would move completely outside the 8 ½" x11" paper target at 50 yards. I could see the cardboard between the dot and the target. The target is 14" on the diagonal. To see cardboard between the dot and target with MY unaided eyes, there had to be at least 4" of cardboard showing. At 50 yards the dot covers 2". 1" of the dot position at the top left + 4" of cardboard + 14" of target + 4" of cardboard + 1" of the dot position at the bottom right gives 24". Which is, I think, the same as 2 feet. Which means that the POA moved 2 feet when I moved my head position to the maximum of the viewing window with the gun clamped at arms length.

Well OK, I did not take any kind of a measurement but it moved outside of the target. Might not have been “feet”. But it was over a foot. Anyway I have wasted a box of ammo trying to sight it in and was very upset when I found the dot would move off the target when I moved my head. Of course it happened when my buddy was there to see it. The same buddy that thinks pistols are for night stands only.

With the inconsistent nut on the grip, an inconsistent sight is not needed! I am still trying to learn to shoot heavy recoiling handguns.

The sight is made of “...Tough, impact resistant polymer optic and polymer alloy body...”. I have had it for over 10 years. Purchased it used but in like new condition. It was made by Docter and marketed in the US by Tasco as the Optima 2000.

The reason I had not tried it before is that my wife and I have this game we play. NOT THAT ONE! This game is not fun. I buy something, leave it laying somewhere in the “girl’s” part of the house, she picks it up and puts it in a “safe place”. Then I have to search for it. Sometimes it takes years. This red dot was found in a box of pictures when my wife was looking for pictures of her mother this fall. By the way, the “girl’s” part of the house is any part other than my clothes closet.

Richard

Richard-


I definitely hear you on the subversive territory war issues.

The current Docter sight appears to be a completely different animal than the early polymer/plastic dot sights -- the companies that are selling plastic dot sights (of this format) are offering a modernized 'new generation' of what you have. From what I can see it looks like there have been at least a couple generations between the current sight and the one you have.

How much side to side head movement, and how much distance between your eyes and the sight was there in the instance you just spoke of?

The current dot sight offered via Docter (by way of the US importer) has a metal housing and optically corrected, multi-coated, two-element optical pair that (so they say...) is in a completely different class of optical clarity and precision.

I'd very much like to hear from someone here who has one of the current (4th generation) Docter sights on how it performs in a similar test - distance of eyes from the glass and amount of head movement included.

I'd also like to hear a response to Aglifter's request to have one of the current-issue Docter sights run from a dark room, viewing a target in a bright room.
Although I don't hunt from blinds (where that'd pretty much define the lighting condition) hunting in the woods can get you into similar lighting contrast.
Interesting to see on that one...

Cheers
Tinker