Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics red dot or similar on shotgun ?

what optics do you guys use for pig hunting on shotguns ?

Was looking at an RMR, Vortex red dot and an Aimpiont. Prices get high quick and not sure if they'd work well and hold up to a shotgun.

thank you for insight and help

I've got a burris FF3 on my 870 for turkeys. Never hunted pigs with a shotgun, only a bow. Will be hunting them with a rifle this Winter.

JonS do you have to remove it to change battery and re zero every time ?

There are a whole lot of us turkey hunters running red dot sights on our shotguns. Bushnell Trophy TRS25 on mine. About $80. Love it.

If a red dot holds up well on a handgun slide, a shotgun receiver should be no problem. I have an RMR on my 1911 and find the window a little small to get the sight picture quickly. I think that I would have been a little happier with the SRO Trijicon.

Aimpoint for me or possibly an eotech

Eotech .

which Eotech are you guys looking at ?

looking at Euro Optic and a few other places last night, found a HOLOSUN 508T and looked at Aimpoint T2

the holosun has a shake awake feature that looks good too.

Burris Fast Fire is plenty tough for a shotgun. I'm running them for turkeys. However, nothing is as fast on a moving target as a well-fitted shotgun using no sight.

I put a $20 ebay chineezy red/green mini reflex on the barn 410. Its held up fine for several boxes of ammo.....

Eotech XPS2-0 unless you need a nightvision compatible eotech?

It isn't a turkey gun, but I have had an Aimpoint T-2 on a shotgun for just over four years. It's been through a shotgun class and many ranges sessions - well over 1000 rounds of full power buck or slugs. If I were to build a dedicated turkey gun, I'd use the T-2 without hesitation.

High Viz works great for me. I like the green.

I use red dots on all of my Turkey guns. My SBE2 duck gun as a Burrs ff3 on it for waterfowl

ya like that lower mount over the pic rail ? witness with the sights that way ?

If exclusively using buckshot, no optic, and no sights at all. The gun has to fit though, and you have to get close - close enough to be able to put all or pretty near all of the pattern on the pig. Depending on the cartridges and choke that will probably be no more than about 30- 35 yards, before effectiveness falls off pretty steeply. I have shot literally truckloads of pigs like that though, either walking them up in thick stuff or off a vehicle, spotlighting them at night or racing up to them and shooting them at full gallop.

If you are going to use slugs, or a mix of buckshot and slugs, you could use a low-range variable scope. I have a couple of combination guns and a drilling with 1.5-6x scopes, and on 1.5x have not only shot lots of running pigs but also rabbits, foxes, birds on the wing and even trap. If you want the red dot experience you could get such a scope with an illuminated reticle, but personally I'm not a fan, whether for daylight or at night - and I've shot a lot of pigs at night too. YMMV

Thanks. It’s the Scalarworks Sync. It’s kind of a bottom 1/8 cowitness...no where close to an AR cowitness. Check the link, they show a good image of the sight picture.

I had put many red dots on top of rails previously and always ended up removing them because they were so tall, awkward, very bulky, and heavy. I doubt I gained much weight, if any, removing the stock rail and adding the Sync and T-2.

You’re using a red dot on a duck shotgun?

Thanks whitebread for the reply