Lasers and the Right Sights Make a Difference

A few years ago while conducting research for my book, Handgun Training for Personal Protection, I helped put together a shooting match at my local gun club. One of the drills in the match was the Forty-Five Drill, which is a drill I use constantly when testing firearms, holsters and ammo. It was also a drill I used as a test when I was a police firearms instructor.

The Forty-Five Drill is made up of four elements of five, which is how it got its name. The goal is to draw from concealment and put five shots, into a five-inch circle, at five yards, in less than five seconds.

For the match, each competitor was required to perform the drill, from concealment, with their gun and then they had to switch to a S&W M&P in .40 S&W. The M&P was fitted with a Crimson Trace Laser and a XS Big Dot Sights. Each shooter had to perform the drill again, from concealment, using the M&P; first with the laser and then with the XS Sights.

The results were telling and interesting. Out of 26 shooters the best score was 2.99 seconds and it was fired with the M&P using the Crimson Trace Laser. The next best score was 3.17 seconds and it was fired with the M&P using the XS Sights. The third best score was fired with a competitor’s own handgun and it was 4.3 seconds. (Scores were calculated by adding penalties to the actual time to complete the drill. A five second penalty was assessed for each hit outside the five inch circle and a 10 second penalty for every shot that missed the IPSC target. (Yes, one shooter missed the target every time!)

The most interesting statistic was the averages for the different handgun / sight systems. The average score for shooters using their own guns was 14.82. The average score with the M&P with the XS Sights was 18.34. This is not all that surprising, hand a shooter a gun they have never fired and you would expect their score to drop, regardless of the sights used.

The surprise was the average score with the M&P and the Crimson Trace laser at 14.51. Granted, this was only about 2% better than the average for shooters using their own gun but given that these shooters did this with an unfamiliar gun and sight is remarkable. Another interesting aspect was that of the 26 shooters only nine obtained their best score with their own handgun. 11 scored best with the M&P and laser and six scored best with the M&P and XS Sights.

For me the important takeaway is the speculation of how well all these shooters would have performed had their own handgun been equipped with a laser or XS Sights? Considering that 65% of the shooters faired better with a handgun and sight system they were not familiar with, you can only wonder how much better they would have performed had their own handgun had a laser or XS Sights.

Lasers and the right sights matter and it would appear they can improve your defensive shooting right out of the box!