Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Red Dot Question I never see mentioned

So I bought a Burris Fast Fire 3 and put it on a camo 870 12 gauge with a 26" barrel. This was my duck gun and turkey gun ( with open beads ) now I guess it's my turkey gun, but I hate it and here's why..................I can't stand seeing the barrel and the mid bead and the front bead AND the red dot. I just want a clean sight picture of just the red dot and I imagine I would need about 1.25X to only see the bead and the turkey. Does anybody make a red dot with just enough magnification to get you out past the barrel and bead? I can't be the only one that hates the view and I won't go back to the beads as I've called in three in the last six years that got too close and I missed and around here with as few gobblers as we have that's not good. I guess the only trade off would be you would have to get your eye directly behind the dot and not have the ability to see the dot and pull the trigger even on the opposite shoulder.

Bet when a Tom comes in you will never see anything but the dot and a turkey.

There are prism sights in various low power models. They can be focused to your vision like a regular scope, but you lose the unlimited eye-relief. Ditto for low-power illuminated scopes. A tube-type red dot might restrict your view of the bead, might not.

Try your setup on a target. Look at the target, not the bead. I doubt you’ll have trouble worth mentioning if you practice a bit.

I can’t picture how you would get the red dot mounted low enough to still see the beads. How is the Burris attached to the shotgun?

I used the extra thing that slips in between the stock and receiver made by Burris. forget what it's called but you can order the FF 3 with it. It gets the sight really low for a great cheek weld.

i think it's called the speed bead

1x will do that.

Meadow creek mount puts the sight on the vent rib. Might help you for what you want.

That's the speed bead mount. I went to that last year from being mounted on top. I like it because if a battery dies, I still have the beads. Also when I had it mounted on top, I needed quarter inch pad on the stock to make it feel right With it mounted on top, you can still see the front bead. I don't mind seeing the beads and love the red dot. I've killed several gobblers in odd positions (laying down, left handed, ect).

That makes sense; I forgot about those mounts. I would suggest a different mount to get the red dot higher.

What do you mean?

1 power is giving the same field of view as your naked eye.

Even using a 2x scope at bottom end and you can generally see the front sight of the end of a barrel through a scope.

Those work well. I have the one for FF3s on an O/U. Can’t recall if I could still see the beads or not, but it’s a good setup. Even shot some clays with it.

So guys that mount the dot on a drilled and tapped receiver are not seeing anything other than the turkey and the red dot out in space?

Anytime you have to bob and weave to find the dot(poor cheek weld ) target acquisition speed goes down. I've tried to use one on my coyote shotgun and found it had to be mounted high and was a pain to use and have gone back to low mounted 1-4 scopes and find them faster than a red dot(holographic sight). I do use them with my bow, lines up quickly as I have anchor point when the bow is drawn and my handgun but that I need to practice with as I do have trouble finding the dot at times..

Seeing ribs and front sight are one of the things that happens when you have large FOV's, ust a matter of getting used to it and focusing on the target.

there's about a five hundred red dot scopes made by dozens of makers .....surely somebody makes one for a turkey gun that has just enough magnification to get past the clutter...............or maybe not...............nobody makes a decent all around deer rifle scope anymore either

I guess an AR w/ a red dot and a front sight housing would blow your mind.



mike r

AFIK, there are no red dots with magnification, either tube or open. There are magnifiers that mount in front of some like Aimpoints, and there are prism sights that I mentioned before that are available in various low power models, but those have to be receiver mounted due to limited eye-relief. You could try an 8moa FF3 on your Speedbead mount and see if the bigger dot can draw your eye away from those pesky beads. When I use a red dot on a shotgun for wingshooting, I look at the target just as when using one with no sight. Trying to aim with it on a claybird works about as well as the same method with the bead sights, not very well. For stationary targets, I use the red dot just like a scope reticle; put it where I want to hit and shoot.

There are no Speedbeads for any of my shotguns. I wish there were, as it looks like the perfect mount. Since you have it, and no one makes what you want, why not give it an honest try on some targets and see if you can make it work.

Funny, The scopes I have on my deer rifles are the best ones I’ve had in 50-odd years, better in almost every way.

I like seeing the barrel beads and my red dot. I pay attention to the relationship of the dot to the beads. Just nice to see to make sure nothing is off after it gets beat on

What really messes with me is the sight picture has the beads with a huge gap between them ( I see a foot of rib between them) so that it makes you think you are way off target and are going to hit two feet high aiming at the turkeys head. if the beads lined up like you would need them to if the red dot failed the dot is way off. if the beads looked like they were on target at the same time as the dot it wouldn't be so darn distracting