shotguns, sight, tactical, laserI’m putting together a tactical Mossburg 500 and need some suggestions for sights. Are ghost rings worth the effort? Seems like I need a rugged laser sight if I go that route. Any suggestions are welcomed.
You will have to make this decision based on comfort, accuracy, pointability, speed, and personal preference after you’ve tried all of your options. Lasers are not recommended in general as they telegraph your position, your movements, and your point of aim.
Conversely, a tactical light source is recommended in most situations. While, like a laser, it can telegraph your movements and position, smart use of a light source can be a dramatic enhancement to your situation and your situational awareness.
There are two schools of thought for pump shotguns. For the purposes of this answer I’ll exclude talk about rifle sights as they’re mostly only useful for shooting slugs in states that won’t allow hunting with rifles.
The first school of thought is that shotguns are weapons to be naturally pointed, and bead sights are the epitome of natural use to the eye and arm when pointing. There is a lot of truth to this. Much of the speed and quickness of target acquisition for shotguns comes from the natural pointability they posses. Bead sights are very quick to acquire, and very accurate with practice. They are low to the bore, and right in the line of sight when naturally pointing a shotgun with the proper length of pull.
The second school of thought is that ghost rings or electronic sights are the natural evolution of technology, and we must press forward. Ghost rings can be fast, and red dot sights are very fast, but both sit higher and farther away from the plane of the bore. They affect (possibly negatively) the way that the shotgun sits in your shoulder, the way your head sits on the stock, the way that the gun feels as it points naturally in your arm (which makes it less natural).
On my personal 870P, I have the stock bead sight and have never wanted for anything more. I’m fast with it and very accurate. My friend has a red dot on his and while shooting it is uncomfortable for me because of its height, I’m just as fast with it because of the amount of practice I’ve had with red dots on the M4 platform. Because speed is not the issue for me, I chose comfort.
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