May 14th, 2021
5minute read
Simplicity is a virtue.
In reticles, nothing is simpler than a dot.
Grids bristling with tics and digits turn sight pictures into Sanskrit.
The HEX Dragonfly is an excellent red dot sight to be paired with a Springfield SAINT rifle.
Dots would have sold well during the Pleistocene and, later, to pikemen, had pikes worn sights.
Lee found black widow spider web remarkable strong and all but weightless.
Improving the dot itself was hard because it is so elemental.
Aimpoint sights, designed and made in Sweden, account for 10 percent of all optical sights afield there.
How to improve a raindrop, a spark?
Shooters were giddy over new dot sizes.
Then, in Sweden, Gunnar Sandberg invented his single-point sight.
This splashy C-More red dot sight delivers fast aim that’s precise enough for squirrels inthe tree-tops.
Sandberg refined the equipment and in 1974 founded Aimpoint to produce it.
The illuminated dot was visible from just about any place behind the sight.
Later Aimpoint installed compound glass to nixparallax.
The night vision-friendly Burris T.M.P.R. 5x weighs 19 oz. has 2.2 inches ER, red, blue, green reticle.
Fully multi-coated lenses, half-minute W/E clicks ensued.
A reflecting surface projected an adjustable reticle to the shooters eye.
During World War I, reflex sights helped German Fokker pilots aim their Spandau machine guns.
Steiner’s 3x, 16-ounce 332-series prism carbine sight has 3.1 inches ER. Note top rail, quick clamp.
Purists insist reflex sights are therealred dots.
Elitists dismiss the open reflex, embracing only the closed or tube-key in.
In both kinds of reflex sights, the reticle is an LED image reflected on glass.
Compact red dot sights like this HEX Wasp work well on small handguns like the Springfield Armory Hellcat.
You get long battery life, but battery failure erases the reticle.
Closed sights offer the brightest of illuminated dots and protect the light path from weather and obstruction.
An advantage of the open design is light weight.
Leupolds 33mm DeltaPoint Pro scales 2 ounces, as do Sightmarks Core Shot, Trijicons RMR.
TheBurris Fastfirecomes in at 1.5.
Reflex sights haveunlimited eye relief.
Not all pair with magnifiers or night vision devices.
Like the reflex sight, its garnered a century of improvements.
Youll find them inTrijicons ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight).
A fiber-optic tendril snaking about the tube pairs with a tritium element in the reticle to illuminate it.
Our Marine Corps, then the Army, adopted the 432 ACOG.
Trijicons sight for Special Ops has a Bullet Drop Compensator.
Its also very popular with civilian shooters.
Prism or prismatic sights are generally heavier than reflex sights.
(The ACOG weighs 10 ounces.)
With few exceptions, eye relief is fixed.
Fast-focus eyepieces are becoming common.
Ditto glass-etched reticles, so if you lose battery power the reticle is still visible in daylight.
Prism sights vary a lot in features, weight, bulk and price.
Trijicons 1.5x, 4-inch TA44 weighs a feathery 5.1 ounces but lists for over $1,100.
The 19.1-ounce, night vision-compatible T.M.P.R.
Bushnell pioneered holographic sights.
Early reticles were grainy.
Theyve improved, and come in many forms.
Like reflex sights, holographic sights have unlimited eye relief.
Shooters with astigmatism may find them easier to use than prism and reflex sights.
EOTechs holographic line includes a 25-ounce, 3x HHS III (holographic hybrid sight) with 20 brightness parameters.
Its 1x sibling is available with a 3x magnifier you could flip out of the way.
As a healthy human eye can distinguish a minute of angle, a 3-minute dot is visible at 1X.
Popular 314- and 612-minute dots obscure less of the target than do open sights.
The key to accuracy with a red dot sight is dialing brightness down.
The smaller a dot looks, the more precise your aim!
My choice among red dot sights is the open reflex with a 314-minute dot.
A standout: Trijicons RMR.
(Ive done it!)
New on the market are theHEX family of red dot optics from Springfield Armory.
Conclusion
Sweet on iron sights for carbines and handguns, I no longer see those irons crisply.
Place the dot and fire.
