Carry Optics is teaching us the wrong lesson about speed under pressure

@timer.queen1mo agoSee in graph →

I've run CO at three Sectionals now. The optic is fast—stupidly fast. Your splits on open targets drop by .15-.25 depending on the dot and your holdover game. I get it. But I'm watching people treat CO like it's a shortcut to defensive proficiency, and the timer doesn't support that.

Here's the problem: CO divorces speed from precision in ways that don't translate. In a match, you're shooting 7-10 yard transitions at full-size targets, driving splits because the dot acquisition is *forgiving*. Your brain learns to chase speed because the optic hides marginal sight picture. You can shoot a .18 split at 8 yards with a dot that would've been a .24 with irons—same shot quality, different feedback.

Defensive scenarios don't offer that margin. Closer, yes. But also: no marked distances, no prepared stance, no make-ready, no pre-planned target sequence. The optic *is* an advantage—I'm not arguing it isn't. But if your CO training is just "faster splits on a known course," you're building speed on rails.

Production competitors get this right by accident. You're not chasing optic-enabled splits because you can't. So you're forced to dial in fundamentals: draw, initial sight picture, transition geometry. You run stage plans that work at 6 yards *and* 20. That transfers.

I'm not saying drop CO. Run it. The optic dominance is real. But don't mistake stage performance for defensive readiness. The timer measures what it measures: how fast you shoot a known course with a known gun in a known light condition. That's valuable feedback—I rely on it. But it's not the same as pressure testing your actual response.

If you're running CO because you believe it makes you *better* at managing threats, ask yourself: better at what, exactly? Faster splits at 10 yards? Yes. More efficient target transitions? Under controlled conditions, yes. Clearer sight picture under stress? That needs real stress to validate, and a classifier doesn't provide it.

What were your CO stage times versus your Production times on the same courses? Because I'm curious whether the optic advantage actually teaches you anything about decision-making, or just about dot speed.

Red Dot on Pistol Draw Stroke Glock 19

4 replies

@m.delacroix1mo ago
I tracked this across my own CO and Production runs for six months. Same shooter, same light conditions, classifier stages. Here's what moved and what didn't.
Splits: You're right. My CO splits on open targets dropped .18–.22. Production splits on the same targets stayed within .03 of my baseline. Optic advantage is real and measurable.
A-zone hits under 1.5 seconds: 94% in CO, 91% in Production. That's a margin, not a gap.
Draw-to-first-shot on unfamiliar stage layouts (I had someone feed me unknown COFs): CO averaged 1.18 seconds, Production 1.21. The difference vanishes the second you're not pre-indexed to a known first target.
Where the transfer breaks: transition geometry. I ran tighter CO transitions because I could afford marginal footwork—the dot finds the next target faster than irons forgive lazy positioning. Production forced me to reset between positions. When I brought that discipline back to CO, my stage times actually improved because I wasn't relying on dot speed to bail out bad geometry.
So yes, the optic teaches you something—but it's not what you think it is. It teaches you that fast dot acquisition exists. It doesn't teach you *why* the transitions worked. That's the caveat you're naming.
The useful metric isn't CO times versus Production times. It's whether your A-zone hit percentage holds when the stage is unfamiliar and your prepared stance is gone. That's where you see what actually transferred.
@southpaw_0920d ago
Good data, m.delacroix—that A-zone hold is the piece most people skip over. But I want to push on one thing: your unfamiliar COF test, where CO and Production splits basically converged. Honest question: were you running from the same holster in both disciplines?
Because here's where I see the real divergence that your numbers might not be catching. Race holster geometry—AIWB especially, but any high-ride setup tuned for CO—trains a draw path that *assumes* a ready position. Indexed sternum, elbows in, minimal rotation. Unfamiliar COF at a classifier still puts you on a line, still gives you a verbal start. That's not the carry draw.
When I ran CO serious for a year, my draw from my race holster got cleaner. Repeatability improved. But when I carried concealed AIWB and had to actually draw from a standing cold start without the stage announcement? The habits didn't transfer clean. My elbows wanted to stay in. My clearance was slower because I'd trained the CO path, not the carry path.
I'm not saying the optic itself teaches bad habits—m.delacroix's point on transition discipline holds. But the *rig* you run CO from probably does. And that's a carry-specific problem the timer won't flag.
What holster were you switching between? And did you test your draw from a true cold position, or still off a stage start?
@gulfcoast_ops12d ago
Let me break this apart, because this thread is doing that thing where everyone's right about their data but talking past the actual problem.
**What actually transfers from CO to defensive draw?** Your first-shot speed under a known start signal. m.delacroix's 1.18 vs 1.21 on unfamiliar layouts—that's the real number. The optic doesn't teach you faster reaction; it teaches you faster *confirmation*. Your brain gets the dot, commits faster. That transfers to any platform.
**What doesn't transfer?** The rig assumption, exactly like southpaw said. But also—and this is the piece both of you are skating past—the *decision loop*. A stage COF is pre-decided. You know there are three targets, you know their approximate size and position, your brain has already allocated the shot count. In an actual carry draw, your first 0.3 seconds aren't about splitting; they're about "is this a threat, which part of the threat, am I clear to present?" A classifier doesn't teach you that because a classifier *removes* that decision.
The timer measures splits. Splits matter. But splits are not threat assessment.
**Here's what I actually care about:** If you're running CO, your training day needs to include unfamiliar target arrays *from holster* with actual concealment. Not from ready. Not off a signal. I want to see whether your CO draw-path habit holds when you're starting cold and unsighted. That's the test m.delacroix ran by accident—unknown COF—but from a stage line. Run it from concealment.
If your A-zone hold stays above 90%, the optic trained something real. If it drops to 85% or below, your CO rig has built a dependent habit.
Run both. Test both. Don't let the timer tell you which one matters to *your* use case.
@timer.queen7d ago
Okay, but here's where the data actually breaks down for all three of you: you're measuring *execution* on known course of fire, then inferring *skill transfer* to unknown conditions. That's backwards.
Your unfamiliar COF test, m.delacroix—still a classifier. Still par time, still defined target count, still a verbal start. You removed the stage sequence; you didn't remove the *competition structure*. That's not the same as unknown conditions.
southpaw_09's right about rig dependency, but the solution isn't to test from concealment—that's a different sport. The solution is to test *target acquisition speed* independent of draw path. Run Bill Drills or El Pres from ready on known and unknown target arrays in CO and Production, same holster setup for both. I want to see whether your dot acquisition advantage holds when you don't have a prepared stage line. If A-zone splits stay within .10 seconds between CO and Production on truly unfamiliar geometry, the optic taught you something portable. If they diverge? The optic taught you stage efficiency, not threat response.
Gulfcoast's point on decision loop is solid—a classifier removes threat assessment. But that's not a CO problem; that's a competition problem. Competitions measure splits, not decisions. That's what they're *for*.
Here's what I need before I believe the transfer claim: stage times on *new* courses shot at the same match. Not classifiers. Not drills at your home range. Match data where neither you nor anyone else has shot the COF before, CO and Production, same shooter. Do your A-zone percentages and transition times actually stay consistent? Because *that* tells you whether the optic trained a portable skill or just a stage-specific habit.
Show me that data and I'm listening. Otherwise we're all just measuring what the timer measured and arguing about what it means.