There’s no faster sight than a red dot. However, some look like receiver sights, others like scopes. What gives? The term “red dot” itself is a logical moniker, given the first models, but almost generic — as “engine” covers a range of types: steam, petrol, jet and diesel, V-8, radial, lawnmower and Formula One. Meanwhile, red dots define prism and holographic sights along with open and closed (tube-type) reflex sights.
Unlimited eye relief and countless mounting options make red dot sights a hot trend for pistol shooters, especially on defensive and competitive guns.
The prism sight is the gray beard of the bunch — Zeiss had a prism sight in 1904. It’s essentially a riflescope using an internal prism instead of a series of lenses to produce the sight picture. Perhaps the best-known modern prismatic sight is Trijicon’s ACOG, or Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight.
The ACOG is tough as Caterpillar cleats but scales at 10 oz., as much as traditional fixed-power 4x scopes. Prism, or prismatic, sights are generally heavier than holographic and reflex sights. They’re also battery-hungry and with few exceptions, they have fixed eye-relief (ER). In such respects they most resemble riflescopes with illuminated reticles.
Most modern prism sights feature glass-etched reticles. If you lose the battery power illuminating the dot, you can still see the reticle in daylight while electrical failure in holographic or reflex sights erases the reticle. Prism sights also offer magnification. Like riflescopes, many prism sights boast fast-focus eyepieces to sharpen the reticle.
Prism sights vary a great deal in features, bulk, weight and price. Trijicon’s 1.5x, 4″ TA44 scales a delightful 5.1 oz. but lists for over $1,100. Primary Arms has a more affordable, 10-oz., 1x Cyclops ACSS which is ranging- and BDC-capable with a generous 3.7″ of ER. The TMPR 5 from Burris weighs 19.1 oz. and has just 2.2″ of ER but offers 5x magnification and a ballistic reticle in red, blue and green. Want lighter and simpler? Burris also sells a 3x RT-3 just 3.5″ long weighing 8.8 oz.
Even to its color, this lightweight C-More open reflex sight is a good match to this Volquartsen .22.
The first holographic sight I used was from Bushnell, which pioneered this device commercially. It generates an image appearing not against the target, like an ordinary reticle or red dot, but out on the target. Early renditions had grainy reticles but they’re better now and comprise a wide range of shapes and sizes. Holographic sights, like the 11.8-oz. Vortex Razor AMG UH-1 and EOTech’s 9-oz. XPS2-2, weigh about the same as prism sights. There is one major, important distinction — holographic sights have unlimited ER. My Browning .22 auto pistol wears a Bushnell Holosight. It sits low, the sightline as snug as I get with irons and the “heads-up display” delivers a huge field with a circle-dot reticle. Shooters with astigmatism, whose irregularly shaped cornea can’t easily focus LED reflection on the cornea may find holographic sights easier to use than other prism and reflex sights. For easy hits near and far, Eotech’s HWS reticle has a 68-MOA ring with a center dot. Their 3x HHS III (“holoraphic hybrid sight”) has 20 brightness settings and weighs 25 oz. A 1x sibling is available with a 3x magnifier you can flip into service or out of the way.
Holographic: The EOTech is technically a holographic sight rather than a “red dot.” It appears to project the reticle onto the target using lasers and glass.
Reflex sights, you could say, date to 1900, when Irish optics engineer Sir Howard Grubb patented a “Collimating-telescope Gun-sight” without “imperfections inherent in the old form of telescope-sights.” His design used a reflecting surface to project an adjustable reticle into the shooter’s vision. During WWI reflex sights enabled German Fokker pilots to aim their dual Spandau machine guns.
Sir Grubb’s idea and Teutonic engineering took most of a century to refine. In 1975 Swedish inventor Gunnar Sandberg developed what he called a “single-point sight.” You didn’t look through this sight, rather you looked into the tube with one eye while your other registered a dot superimposed on the target.
Sandberg founded a company, Aimpoint, which went on to define this type of sight. You could see the illuminated dot from almost any place behind it. The front lens of an Aimpoint sight is compound glass that corrects for parallax. It brings the dot to your eye in a line parallel with the sight’s optical axis so you hit where you see the dot even when your eye is off-axis. Like holographic sights, reflex sights have limitless ER, but they’re not forgiving of astigmatism.
Now generations of Aimpoints later, these sights are smaller and lighter but sturdy enough for military use. Advanced circuitry has reduced power demand; batteries now last up to 50,000 hours at mid-range brightness settings! Positive windage and elevation clicks move impact 13mm at 100 meters. A 3.5-oz. Micro S-1 was designed for mounting at mid-barrel on shotguns where its optical axis is snug to the rib. It has a 6-minute dot with 12 intensity settings. At least one in 10 glass-equipped moose rifles in Sweden wear an Aimpoint. I’ve used them on two moose, both in dark forest.
The first ghosted by at 70 yards, in very low light. I waited to shoot but followed the bull with the sight. He paused at 90 yards, just his shoulder visible in the gloom, where the Aimpoint’s dot found it. My .30-06 bullet struck spot on. Years later another bull was milling, with two other moose, at thicket’s edge. Brush stopped my approach at 80 steps. I saw only blinks of hair through a small alley and couldn’t tell which beast was which. Then antler base and neck stalled in the opening. Again the Aimpoint’s bright dot came instantly to bear. The moose fell to my Norma bullet from a double rifle in .375 Flanged.
Both the closed (tube) and open reflex sights function the same way. The reticle is a reflected LED image focused on the glass screen. The dot in a closed reflex sight is as bright a reticle as you’ll get in any sight. A closed sight also protects the light path from weather and from obstruction. A leaf blown atop an open reflex sight kills the reticle, at least temporarily. The advantage of the open design is lightweight. Leupold’s DeltaPoint Pro, with its 33mm lens, weighs 2 oz., as does Trijicon’s RMR and Sightmark’s Core Shot A-Spec. Bushnell’s Advance Micro Reflex comes in at 2.2 oz., the Burris Fastfire at 1.5 oz. Triple the heft for a closed reflex sight. Holosun lists its $227 HS503G at 4.9 oz. It and the 5-oz. Burris SpeedDot are lightweights for the closed type.
Prism sight: Steiner’s 332-series prism sights have 3x magnification and 3.15" of eye relief. Weight is around 16 oz.
Even more so than riflescopes, red dot sights of all flavors beg comparison in front of your eye. Big differences in weight, bulk, mounting height, eye relief, reticle options, battery life and price are hard to sift on a spec sheet. Neither “red” nor “dot” applies to all. You may prefer the eye-friendly green or a center circle. Regardless, when speed is of the essence, there is a “red dot” to fit your needs.
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