It does take some reps but not necessarily a lot of live fire. Have you ever looked at Modern Samurai Project? Scott "Jedi" Jedlinski has some drills that can shave months off of the time it takes to get your draw stroke in line with the optic. It's definitely easier with a rifle; as soon as you get a cheek weld you're pretty much lined up in the dot. It does take more work to learn to use the RDS on a pistol but IMO it's worth the effort. It's especially good for those of us with older eyes. I have pretty strong corrective lenses so it's a real challenge to focus on the front sight. The huge advantage of the RDS is having the "sight" ie the dot in the same focal plane as the target.