Green dot or Red dot?

Craig_VA said:

Only if the vertical light set follows the order spec'd in the roadway standards. Years ago some towns set their lights "upside down" causing color blind travelers a lot of problems.

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And that also messes with color blind Americans when they trace and drive in Europe too.

Back to topic. I personally find the green reticles easier to see even in full sun and with green foliage background versus red.

Trijicon has amber reticles in some of their offerings.

shoobe01 said:

Green dots require a green laser which is weird stuff. Quality products that have a green option like the Trijicon MRO have HALF the battery life for green, vs red.

Generally, if you have no experience/opinion: go with red for optical sight illumination/projection, and green for visible lasers.

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Green lasers more-or-less require an infrared laser diode as a pump and filters. As opposed to a green diode. This is a significantly less efficient system than pure-diode lasers.
I've always felt that the pumped green/infrared lasers weren't ready for firearm use. A diode-only laser will be inherently much more durable.

There's no reason a green dot sight requires a laser, though. As far as I know they all use green diodes. The difference in red/green LED efficiency is measurable, but not that bad.

I entirely believe you, don't know why it is, just that the actual quoted figures are that bad (half the life) for many green dot sights.

Very few mfgs talk about what is inside the sights as far as I have seen (aside from the Aimpoint factory tours, none so far as I know) so hard to tell what they are all up to either.

I prefer green, but yet to see an RMR in green. And RMRs are all I will use for CCW pistols.

Really want to get a Holosun 508T in green, but they are way to close to RMR pricing without having the durability of them. But they (Holosun) seem to have a good track record with the 407/507 series.

I like to keep it simple, think there is less to go wrong with fewer options and and functions. One reason I like the 407 series from Holosun and non adjustables from Trijicon. Just one reticle and one color. The 407K is rumored to come out in green soon. Most be my next RDS for a G45.

Lefty

I don’t believe Red or Green dot sites are laser sights. Lasers actually project a beam down range. Dot sights that dot is a projection on a screen. I stand corrected if wrong however. I have two different reflex sights with the option of either. Red on a cloudy day or indoors. Green in brighter conditions.

whughett said:

I don’t believe Red or Green dot sites are laser sights. Lasers actually project a beam down range. Dot sights that dot is a projection on a screen. I stand corrected if wrong however. I have two different reflex sights with the option of either. Red on a cloudy day or indoors. Green in brighter conditions.

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^^^THIS^^^
Dot sights do not use lasers.

Some "red dot sights" use a laser to make the reticle. EOTech holo sights are an example.

"One requirement of holographic projection is a laser. Lasers use more power and more complex driving electronics than an LED of an equivalent brightness,[citation needed] reducing the amount of time a holographic sight can run on a single set of batteries." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EOTech

However, I don't know if some of these brighter (battery draining) green dot sights use a laser internally, like some have said.

12Bravo20 said:

Swampfox is now offering their 1X Blade prism sight with amber illumination. The amber/gold color does seem to work better for those that are color blind.

https://www.swampfoxoptics.com/blade-1x25-prism

While a Prism is too big to use on a pistol, they do work well. I have a green Swampfox Blade and it is a nice sight.

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I have a Swampfox Blade 1x prism scope for one of my AR's. Very nice scope. I should add I also have a Steiner 3x prism and a Steiner 5x prism. They all work well, but I wish I'd bought the Swampfox 3x instead of the 1x. It's all good, the 1x is on my AR set up for home defense, so I don't really need any magnification.

I shoot targets with an orange bullseye, so I use green .