Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Aimpoint 9000L - Defective?

I have received it in the mail this afternoon. This is my first red dot sight, purchased it for day time pig drive hunts. It was a heavily overcast, cloudy day. To my surprise the first six settings ( out of ten) did not produce any visible dot. 7 and up had an undefined, blooming dot elonged downward. As light faded the dot came on at 3rd-4th setting but it became even messier. It looks like a cheap Chinese illuminated scope's dot. I am 60 years old with decent distance vision. For reading I use a 2.25 magnifier.
Have any of you had similar experience with an Aimpoint? Their major selling point is the fine dot aiding fast target acquisition?

In my experience it's your eyes. Getting glasses fixed my dot type sights.

I'm guessing you have an astigmatism. Pretty commonly first noticed when you get behind a red dot sight and the dot looks like a bunch of grapes or a scarlet Star of Bethlehem. I have been using Aimpoints since the late 1980's and the dot was always perfectly round....back then. Once I arrived at my mid- forties, not so much. I am told that a trip to the optician can fix it but I otherwise don't have any occasion for glasses other than some +1 readers I use if I'm reading in bed. Which now that I think about it coincided with about the same time Aimpoints and EOTechs stop looking so geometrical and more abstract.
For what it's worth though it hasn't mattered much other than to some part of my self that was apparently quite proud of my vision. Groups on paper are still the same size and running game still tips over as regularly as it ever did. The trick to a red dot is kind of the opposite of using a scope reticle and more akin to a shotgun where you stare the target to death while your brain is sort of unconsciously keeping track of the dot(or approximation thereof) in relation to the target and you just feel when it's right to pull the trigger. Aiming per se, with a red dot is uncomfortable to me and really unnecessary. Kinda like taking coconuts to the beach or worrying about asking your wife to the prom.

Agreed, a combination of astigmatism to blur the dot and eventual cataracts - check street lights for sharpness and other such for early cataract symptoms - to hide the low power settings.

For many fine red dot sights such as my own favorite T2 the lowest power settings are very low indeed for night vision device compatibility. To avoid NVG bloom the low power settings can be too faint for aging eyes.

That said it always pays to have some youth with known sharp vision take a look. The overwhelming majority of the time it is your eyes but occasionally it is the optics or some combination.

Also a way I found to test the optic to determine if it is at fault, or if it's your eyes, is to take a picture of the dot with a camera (phone or otherwise). If the dot is round in the pic, it's your eyes, if not, it's the optic. My Aimpoints used to look round, and are now more abstract with me looking through the optic, but the dot is perfectly round in pictures and to my teenage niece and nephews. Aging sucks

Thanks for all the replies. I have tried the picture method without much success. I am going to have one of my younger co-worker look through it and see what he says. Aging indeed sucks.

Still beats the alternative

I had three of my younger mates to check it out. They all came to the same conclusion as I did. All of them had the impression of an undefined blooming, smudgy dot. One of them owns a cheap Tasco yet claims that looks better than the Aimpoint. I am going to send it back (Optics Planet) for an exchange or refund. Thanks for your kind help again.