As a relative newbie, I must say that the whole deal about learning irons first is quite dogmatic--which is no surprise to anyone here.

I never really gave the topic question until I was debating whether I should invest in a scope for my .22 bolt trainer. I decided that I will scope my gun, but after I get a self-loading rifle. All my current weapons use a turnbolt, so I guess I'm starting at the lowest possible place. More experienced shooters told me that a scope presents its own challenges, and my guess is that this applies more or less to the RDSs.

What I realized is that there are different kinds of shooting, the precise and the "combat effective" or "good enough." I think a good shooter should know about both and when a certain type is called for and so forth.

Anyway, thanks M4C members for helping to break down this dogma. Like always many threads here have changed my way of thinking, and I try to pass it on to others. Keep up the good work.

Virtually all of my shooting is done with traditional tangent sights (think AK sights). To me even a rear peep sight is like a small luxury, so I hope being a relatively decent marksman with tangent sights pays off somehow later. The only perk I know so far about starting waay at the bottom is that Mosin recoil isn't that bad, and semi-autos don't have recoil whatsoever.