Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska electronic sights for bears and other dangerous game

Thinking of putting one of those new aimpoint hunter sights on a rifle I will be getting this year... not immediately.. i'm in new york.. but I do plan on traveling to alaska at some point and also northwestern canada to hunt a brown bear and maybe one day a kodiak... it's been a dream since I was a kid.

I like these new aimpoint hunter sights because they are faster then a scope.. and it has a 2 moa dot so you can probably shoot comfortably out to 200 yards if your really had to.. but for 100-150 yards and under it's perfect.. super fast.

My question is... would you trust your life to one of them? or would you just stick with iron sights

If it's faster than a scope you need to practice more with the scope.

Have mounted an Aimpoint Micro H1 on a Remington 750, then on my Marlin 1895.

Failed twice to switch on in sub - zero temps, leaving me with useless rifle...

I know, not supposed to happen; tested in combat... but that does not mean a lot in AK.

Dependability is king - in all gear. Only bring tested stuff.

In optics - 1,5-6x42 is a good versatile for bear hunting.

Carl

JIC - I was using the 'fast reply' button.

Agreed, especially with the scope cranked down to 1-1.5x...which it should be before the wet work starts....

CMG, what do you mean by "failed to switch on?"

I own 4 aimpoints on assault rifles, 3 T1s and one Comp M4, and one of the cool things about aimpoints is that you can leave them on at all times because battery life is measured in years. If you want to be safe, you can change the batteries annually, but they are meant to be always on and ready to go. The joke at the carbine classes I have taken was to shout "turn off your eotechs" at every break because their battery life stunk and it wasn't uncommon for them to die when you needed them.

I'm sure they sometimes fail, but so do scopes. Aimpoints are the gold standard for red dot reliability and toughness, so although I haven't tried one on a hunting rifle, I wouldn't be afraid to try. I think the idea is valid, especially if you could get it to co-witness with iron sights for backup.

Cope -

simply turning the power dial to setting 6 or 7 failed to produce a red dot in those two occasions.

Both were follow ups on wild boar in subzero temps (�C). The rifle was in the case in the car with the sight off. On the start of the searches I switched in on with no results.

On both occasions - the sight functioned fine after being warmed up in side the house later - but for the time being I was w/o a rifle, having to resort to back ups - a .44 Anaconda in one occasion and a opensighted 8x57 of a friend in the other. Both searched were successfull - pigs were still alive and got bayed by my dog.

Not what I would want my hunter to have in AK going after brown bear.

I'm sure band camp and Alaska are equally as tough on [bleep]. Good luck with that.

or if I can't get it to co-witness I can atleast get the lower 1/3rd so I don't have to break off the sight if it doesn't work at a bad time

I think the old gunfighter's axiom of "speed is fine but accuracy is final" is appropriate here. If facing charging bears was the norm then maybe (?) an electronic sight would be better. But it is not. The usual scenerio is that you need to place a bullet correctly at some distance, often through brush where a bit of power helps. For those circumstances I prefer a scope.

I agree with you there, but what about a situation where a bear walks buy close up 50 yards or less and your zoom is left on 4 power or even 2 power... it's not gonna be as quick or accurate as a dot.

I don't believe in shotting any animal past 150 or 200 yards, until their is better technology in 10 or 20 years and we have laser like the predators. Thats just my personal thing which I don't wanna get it into, but I think the aimpoint would be better then a scope cause I can throw it up quickly and the dot is there or even if i'm in an awkward position I don't have to find that "sweet spot" like with a scope.

No offence intended -

Steelhead had it right, a few posts above.

If it is so problematic for you to keep your scope dialed down or find the "sweet spot", you need to practice basic rifle skills - irrespective of sighting eq.

And - 458 Win chiming in on brown bear hunting should give you a moments pause to consider what he said. Just saying.

Unless you are dead set - in that case, why ask for advice on two seperate forums?

If I've traveled 2,500 miles and do not have a backup unit in hand, I will not count on a $1.00 battery to complete my hunt.

I put it in 2 seperate forums because I want an opinion from people who hunt in alaska and people who hunt in africa... both very different climate and animals and terrain. Makes sense to split them up.

No Offense- but you seem a little mad that I put it in seperate forums via your constant remind and criticizing of me doing so

I am pretty set on the aimpoint but I wanted an honest opinion... from an unbiased source... I know there are scope fanatics and also electronic sight fanatics I want opinions from both and use my common sense to judge whats best.

I don't see how any 800 dollar electronic sight will fail for no reason.. you guys make it seems like its a 5 dollar alarm clock that you got from a dollar store that will malfunction if you press the buttons too hard. This is an 800 dollar piece of equipment... I don't think it will fail just from a plain ride or a few accidental bumps along the way. It's just as tough as your leupold, swarovski or any other high end scope... if not TOUGHER.

You wanted an honest opinion, and you got one. Now you are arguing with it.

See cmg's first post in this thread about an Aimpoint failing in the field.... twice... under pretty mild conditions. Is that really worth the .02 seconds you think you can save over using a good low power scope?

More crap to go wrong at just the wrong time. Put a 1.5-5 Vari-X III Leupold on it & be done. In addition, use QR mounts and make sure you have a set of open sights to fall back on. What do I know tho? I've only hunted Ak. for about 40+ years.
Bear in Fairbanks

"I don't see how any 800 dollar electronic sight will fail for no reason.. you guys make it seems like its a 5 dollar alarm clock that you got from a dollar store that will malfunction if you press the buttons too hard. This is an 800 dollar piece of equipment... I don't think it will fail just from a plain ride or a few accidental bumps along the way. It's just as tough as your Leupold, swarovski or any other high end scope... if not TOUGHER."

Good luck with that mindset. Sounds like you had your mind made up, before asking the question.

Jeff

Do you now or have you ever had a penis ATTACHED to your body? You sound like a chick, as you have ALL the answers so why the [bleep] did you ask the question.

Good luck Treadwell.

Depends if you can use a scoped rifle properly and if said scoped rifle fits: look at the target, mount the rifle and the crosshairs should be more or less on...

And x4 at 50 yards is not an issue, if you know what your doing...

Prezactly.

Course, its not as quick as trying to warm the battery in your Aimpoint....