Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Which Red-Dot or Holographic Sight?

if your in a dark room with a trijicon prism type optic and you turn on your weapon light is it easier to see than an aimpoint red dot set at 8 or so?

If you’re in a room, with a white light, shotgunning will be faster (JME) than either...if that’s what you’re asking. RDs and Holos are both faster than a 3-4x prism, in a room. They could be faster than a 1-2x prism, but LP prisms are fast, and you still have to get behind/already be behind any RD/Holo, to some extent, anyway. At room distances, both eyes open, looking over the weapon or shooting the PEQ4 dot was always faster for me, and plenty accurate for <50’.......unless you’re some TF/HRT and shooting around innocent heads, selling your story for movie scripts, or such. That’s a digressive discussion that doesn’t have much to do with shooting deer and hogs in low light, with no light, and outside your house. LOL

That’s because this isn’t the deer hunting section and most people asking for RDS advice for an AR aren’t asking for deer hunting advice.

LOL...yeah, but it IS a hunting site, and I tend to approach most stuff on the fire as it relates to hunting, ARs or not.....the tactical whizzing matches are best left to ARFCOM, but that’s just me. When you get down to it, most of my pure defense or tactical ARs wouldn’t hunt as well as my hunting ARs would defend/go tactical. Least that’s how I see it. Hunting with an AR is certainly more enjoyable than wearing one for work, nowadays.

I prefer a 1-4 or 1-6 with an illuminated reticle. However an Aimpoint Micro is good as well.

I'm not asking about deer hunting with an AR.

After spending the better part of 7 years with an M16A1 waiting for me in the arms rooms, about the last thing that I want to do is to carry around any sort of military style semi-automatic rifle. I was actually in the Army and don't feel a need to pretend being tactical.

The original question was posed because I gave my kids ARs for Christmas and they don't care to shoot with open sights on any rifle and don't want a scope on the ARs, so I was looking for advise on a quick on target sight that had about 1x magnification. They have shot my DPMS Sportical that has a Leupold 2-7x33 on it and that is clearly not what they want. When we were at Cabela's they saw a little Vortex VMD-3103 that interests them, but I didn't want to spend around $500 for 2 of them if there are better options out there. These are rifles that are going to used at the range and maybe every few years to shoot called predators. Neither of them are interested in hunting and only casually interested in shooting sports in general.

It depends on what you need. If the shooter has a tendency to see starburst instead a round dot, getting a model that offers shaped dot reticles helps. Reason being the dot is emitted through a filter that blocks off the part of the dot that flares. If your shooters have perfect eyes you don't need that.

You may want long battery life or solar power.

Low light performance? Models with clearer lenses are available but not from every maker. Aimpoint for instance is disappointing for round dots and low light clarity.

Best bang for buck for a range toy is Bushnell TRS25. Best value if you want the features mentioned above is Holosun. There are other considerations and models made to serve different parts of the market.

I've seen the Primary Arms Microdot II run on a half dozen ARs or Sig 556s. It's a decent 2MOA dot that won't break the bank.

https://www.primaryarms.com/primary-arms-microdot-with-removable-base-gen-2

Wasn’t trying to digress you. My apologies. The Holosun mentioned , or Sig Romeo 5 with the circle dot have worked well over the last two years on some of mine. I’ve also had a couple of Vortex RDS that are still going. The old Tasco ProPoint PDP2 were actually worth having, if you can find one. I also have Primary Arms RDS and Prisms, which are good so far. Eotechs would work well, also....you might find a used one priced right. Mounting any of them further forward will force their mount down a bit more and may help alleviate any shorter range parallax issues some RDs can have.....won’t matter for shooting milk jugs, but can cause issues (sometimes) trying to shoot smaller, plinker targets.

Arms Unlimited has ACOG 4x, red chevron sights for under a thousand.

I'll second the Bushnell TRS25
If you life doesn't depend on it, it's cheap, and has s lifetime warranty

https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Red-Dot-Sight/dp/B07T92TD5L

These are the best values for sure............have several of the Sig Romeo 5's & at the price you can get them for, they just cannot be beat. Maybe not military grade but they work for most civilian use.

If you want significantly better then go to Eotech or Meprolight RDS at 4-5x the price.

MM

has anyone used the sightmark wolfhound ?

Look at Holosun. Love the ones I have. 510C's on my rifles.

Are you stuck on a red-dot? I have several different options and another very versatile and affordable option would be the Vortex Strike Eagle 1-6x w/ mount from Palmetto State Armory. Use the discount code "VORTEX" and you can get this combo for $250/shipped right now.

Vortex Stike Eagle 1-6x w/ 30mm mount

I’ve got an Aimpoint T1 that I love. I have it on a shotgun right now but it goes between a few. It does suck in low light. I took it off my crossbow because it cost me a shot in the woods at last light.

Sig Romeo has worked great for me.

I've got two of the Vortex Sparc II red dots from Brownells and two of the Vortex Spitfire 1x prism sights (don't know if you can still find these).

Both are very clear and I think the Sparc II is a great sight for the money. A buddy has a Trijicon MRO and while I'm sure it's more robust and the battery life is better, the glass has a blue tint, isn't as clear, and the red dot isn't as sharp to my eye.

I can buy 4 Vortex Sparc IIs for the same price as 1 MRO.

Sig Romeo 5 . $119 on Amazon. Have two of them and really like them.

these conversations become funny after a while. I was at the range yesterday and while I did not shoot that well, everything that I had worked as advertised. I saw two red dot type optics fail on other peoples guns yesterday.