Fuck redots, revisited

I read those posts on the red dot titled “Fuck red dots”, and all the comments.

I have had a love affair with reddot sights since I bought my first Aimpoint in 1981. At the time I felt that if you put one of those on a AR15, you could teach a 5’2″ blonde to shoot accurately.

Seems the military agrees with me.

But then I saw that post and read comments about how they wander and I wondered what had happened since I bought that Aimpoint so many years ago. Now since then I have owned a few red dot sights, ranging from unknown brands right up to a Tasco peice of shit a few years ago.

One I had for years on everything from an AR to a 44 mag but mostly on a silenced Ruger, that had a cracked lense up front from over tightening the rings, I shot it for years after that and it worked fine.

The last quality reddot I had was a Ultra dot, I used it for a couple of years until my brotherinlaw in the PH talked me out of it.

The mentioned Tasco would not work on my silenced Ruger so I gave it away to a friend so I had no idea how it would have worked.

Reddot sights are supposed to be parallax proof, meaning no matter where your head is, if you can see that dot, you will hit where it is positioned, end of story!

Aimpoint made their reputation on that fact and it has been killing turban heads for years doing just exactly that.

So today, having a brand new 2240 breech on one of my guns, that will not take iron sights, I went red dot shopping.

First I looked for the infamous Walmart special, I found that at my Walmart, they all had centerfire weaver mounts, I tried Dicks, they had a great sale on Trueglo’s but again all centerfire mounts.

So then I went to Bi-mart, and low and behold, they had the Walmart special there, the Tasco Reddot, but due to the fact I got to purchase it from Bi-Mart, it was $7.00 more than the Walmart one.

They also had a Millet for $69.99, but being a cheap ass, I did not buy it.

I purchased this Tasco beauty and then drove my wife to her favorite shopping outlet and played with the Tasco while she was shopping. I placed the Tasco on my dash, and set the dot on a bush that had a drying leaf, about 40 yards away, then I moved my head back and forth to test if it had parallax.

That fucking dot danced around like a…..well like a peice of Chinese shit.

So as soon as the wife returned to the car, I announced, were going back to Bi-Mart.

I contacted the manager and explained all of this, and told him I wanted to put it on a handgun, he explained that reddot sights were never meant to be put on handguns. But then he did not know what parallax was either.

Don’t you just love these store clerk fuckups they hire and then promote?

I explained in my most civil tone, that he was full of shit and wanted to exchange the sight for the next one up in quality and we were going to do it now. He agreed and I went looking for that Millet.

Enter the Millet Reddot sp-2. Read that better Chinese shit. It looked just like the Ultra Dot I got talked out of.

I laid that baby on a shelf between the fishing reels after explaining to the clerk why I was back and moved my head back and forth to see if the dot moved, it seemed to stay still.

I have been playing with it all afternoon. The only rings I had were high rings I took off one of my AF rifles after getting a Etac and needing high rings no more. I tried various ways to mount the scope and fired it in many positions, loading the chamber was the hardest part, until I just put one ring on and put the objective lense just in front of the loading port.

I shot several groups this way just leaning against the back of my Audi S/W the range was 12 yards, the groups were averaging around .25 for five shots and one .22 for 10 shots using, you guessed it, Walmart specials CPLHP’s.

At 25 yards, leaning over my 6 wheeler Polaris for a rest, I got .75.

Then I got the bags out and went back to 42 yards, happened to be the distance to my taget from a table top I could steady the gun on while moving my head back and forth.

The dot did not move. The Sp-2 works like a Reddot is supposed to, it also cost me $69.99, and yes it is made in China, and it is 30 bucks more than the wandering Tasco peice of shit.

I wonder what happened to the Millet SP-1, perhaps Bushnel/Millet did not accept it and Tasco will come out with it later this year and sell it to Walmart. 😆

So yes, don’t put a Tasco on a springer, or for that matter anything else. The reddot does move on the Tasco, but not on higher quality Millet units.

You can shoot good groups with reddots, just put your aiming point off of the dot so you can see it and not cover it up.

Reddots can be great aiming devices, our military is proving that every day.

Roachcreek