Thread: Red dot scopes on rifles.

Originally Posted by timattalon

I am not going to dispute that they have their place and their uses. And I know how to use one and had one for quite some time. And I agree whole heartedly on your comment "Red dot scopes are fantastic gor close shrug or snap shots."

But if the dot is big enough to see for those "close shrug or snap shots."then it is too big for any accuracy further out. If it is small enough to be accurate at ranges over 150m, it is so small that you cannot see it in a hurry. Those snap shots in the bush require a bight dot to be 4 to 6 moa in size in order to be a 2" to 3" circle (or there abouts) at 50 metres. Thats a 6 inch bread and butter plate at 100m. At 300m that dot is 18 inches across and this is likely to mean your group will be similar. That is not good enough for a long shot. You can get a nice bright 1moa dot scope, that has a nice tight dot so at longer range you get a smaller group, problem is when you look at a pig at 50 metres you are now looking through your scope for a dot on the animal the size of a 10c copper coin. Try seeing that in a hurry.....This is not just a dot problem. Look at cross hairs too. A big thick bold cross hair is easy to see fast, but obscures a lot more of a target. Try shooting a 2 inch cricle at 100m when the cross hair is is wider than that.... a fine thin precise cross hair can see a 1 inch circle at 100m but is hard to pick up in a hurry.

Why does the size of the dot equate the size of your group?

How big is a iron front site post at 100m? At 300m?

An AR front site post for example is 11MOA, does that mean my groups will be 11 inches at 100m? Or 33 inches at 300m? No, because I'm not obscuring the target with the entire post. I'm using the tip of the post, the same can be/is done with a dot.

If accuracy is the priority then clearly the preferred option is a magnified optic. To say that a red dot isn't accurate past 100m though, is .....well inaccurate.