Lights mounted on the gun: the main problem with them is that if you are using the light to identify someone or thing, you are pointing a hot weapon at something you ahve not yet identified as something you don't mind shooting. That's generally a bad practice. If it is something you don't mind pointing a loaded gun at, then it works fairly well except for lighting up what is usually something hovering around your vitals.

 

Lasers mounted on the gun: About the only pro is that under stress, lots of people go to a target fixated focus. The laser allows you to still aim with a target fixated focus. For me, when I have tried lasers on the range, I found them awkward as heck, and seeing what shake I had with them would result in a negative feedback loop for me where trying to reduce it just made it worse. That was with slow aimed fire. With rapid aimed fire, the dot just becomes very hard to track quickly and slowed me down. I didn't find it that useful, but that was also in comparison to having skills I have practiced I could substitute. I can't say there isn't some point where it is a useful crutch rather than mild hinderance, depending on skill level. I also didn't find it that hard to ignore it unless it was dim enough that the contrast between the gun's silhouette and the target got crappy.

The GTL22 came today. Not too shabby. I had to put a small piece of ribbon around the lower battery, since it sits at the inside bottom of the unit and will certainly have to be pried out when the time comes. Also, it's a tight fit on a 22 Gen 4 to get the unit to lock onto the rails. While it needs to go to the range for the laser to be tweaked, it seems like a good unit. The only issue I can see is that the light/laser hangs out slightly in front of the barrel.

I believe that anyone who sees a laser on his chest is likely to comply with the person holding the gun. That makes it not stupid. Not having been in that situation in person, that is just my two cvents.

 

LOL, First thing I though was someone with a laser pen and a recording of a shotty racking a shell and you would be good.. ROFLMAO

I can tell you from first hand experience, when your pointing a gun at someone & your hand is shaking people comply a hell of a lot quicker than when your calm, cool & collective & it's obvious you know what your doing. No one wants someone who's nervous pointing a loaded firearm at them.

 

Ok I rarely disagree with people but in my opinion, I can see that being the case in 1 out of 1000000 cases but with that aside, I find that a little ridiculous.

 

I don't know what situation you'd be in where the bad guy would notice your laser shaking and evaluate you as having low self confidence.

 

I just can't believe that.

Lights mounted on the gun: the main problem with them is that if you are using the light to identify someone or thing, you are pointing a hot weapon at something you ahve not yet identified as something you don't mind shooting. That's generally a bad practice. If it is something you don't mind pointing a loaded gun at, then it works fairly well except for lighting up what is usually something hovering around your vitals.

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I was watching a gun show the other day, I think it was SWAT TV, and they were going through the pro's and con's of pistol mounted flashlights. One way you can somewhat get around this is, depending on the situation/brightness of the flashlight/room you're in, you could technically point the gun to the slight left or right of the person and still be illuminating them if you have a bright enough flashlight and you have a little bit of distance from them. They were a lot more specific though, it was a really good clip of the show...wish I could find it online.

There was no laser involved. 

Differences aside as to whether, or not, a laser will act as a deterrent, I just got back from the range and with a little tweeking, the Glock GTL22 is awesome. Again, so far the only issue I see is that it's a very tight fit on the Gen 4 G22. I thought it was locked on the rail and it came flying off once. Other than that, I was very satisfied with the accuracy.

Even if you have a weapon mounted light then I'd recommend carrying a separate flashlight e.g. SureFire Fury which is very very bright but comes in a small package. It resolves the issue of always having to point your muzzle at where you are trying to illuminate, but allows you to have a good two handed grip for those times when you really need it.

 

My personal view as stated earlier is lasers are of limited benefit on weapons whereas lights are very useful. I believe there are far more SWAT/Police with flashlights only rather than flashlights/lasers but could be completely wrong on this.

 

Why not try a Low Light/No Light class and see what works for you?

 

TheWombat