Best Cheapie Red dot?

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atek3

atek3

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I'm going to put a red dot sight on a 10/22 to teach new people with. I don't want to spend more than $125 on a sight for this gun. I've heard of ADCO, OKO, Tasco, Hakko, who makes the best low budget red dot sight.

thanks,
atek3
 
If you don't mind a Chinese (heck - so many are these days) I honestly think the ''MEC'' offerings from Sportsmansguide are well worth trying. Offers from time to time when i got mine. Bought 'em in batches of three!

Arguably you may get the odd lemon but - gotta say - I have thrown these on carbines and the like - and even one on my high power pellet rifle - they are well good enough for general work.

The dot does go somewhat ''out of round'' when cranked up real bright but, they take std 2032 batteries and even come with one IIRC as well as rings.

For $30 or so - when I got mine a coupla years ago or less - not bad at all. As ever you get what you pay for but these for cheapies are OK in my book - just don't expect total perfection ... tho I am sure for a .22 - well adequate.
 
Make sure whatever you get has a parallax greater than 25 yards or you're asking to frustrate the snot out of the new shooters. I made the mistake of mounting a pistol dot on a 22 rifle for the same use and the shooters were going nuts because the dot was dead center, but the shot hit way off...seems that the cheek weld was shifting a bit and the POA and POI were no longer lined up...
 
I've got a Blazer, made by Simmons I think, that has been on everything from 22 pistols to Mosin rifles to 44 mag Contenders. Dang thing just refuses to die.
 
Rather than getting another Aimpoint for my Ruger MKII, I got an Ultradot. It's pretty nice for $120. Not sure how it will hold up on a rifle, though.
 
Bushnell Multi Reticle dot scope, sells for $75 or so...Midway and Natchez have them.

They are well built, hold their zero, and you can choose from 4 reticles (like an eotech, crosshairs or dots).

Here's mine on a Storm.

Storm_Complete.jpg
 
I've got a Tasco Pro Point (PDP3CMP) on my 16" AR. around 1,000 rounds through it and it's held up well. Takes 2 2032 lithium watch batteries. It would be nice if the dot was smaller. It's a 10moa dot so it can be hard to see a paper target at 100, 4moa or so would be better. I think I got mine for around $100 from either cheaperthandirt or sportsman's guide. Comes with it's own rings to. The only problem with that is I had to buy a Tapco riser block because the rings were so low that when mounted directly to the reciever the dot was in the middle of the front sigt base. I looked for high rings but they are 33mm which I found to be an odd size.
 
Target Sports/NCStar DTB130 has a small sharp BRIGHT dot, for under $33 shipped on Ebay I dont think it can be beat for what you get. The dot is about 1/2 the size of the dot in my BSA RD30 and 5x brighter, it can be used in ALL lighting levels in my experience, the BSA craps out even during the evening.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=66828&item=7152593648&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

He is a pleasure to deal with as well.

Get these rings for it though http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=52512&item=7150131430&rd=1 if the gun has a 3/8" rail, not sure if it does. If it has Weaver get these. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=52512&item=7150133646&rd=1

I've ordered a couple sets of rings from him and they were here in 2 days each time.
 
From my experience, iron sights are better than cheap scopes, but good scopes are better than iron sights (for the most part). I'd stick with irons unless you buy quality. For a newbie training gun, the standard iron sights wouldn't be a bad idea, as that sight type/alignment can carry over to many rifles, shotguns, and almost all handguns.

Good optics > iron sights > cheap optics
 
How many of these units are reasonably parallax-free? Seems like every time I look at one or another at a gun show or dealer, when I point the red dot at a nearby wall (25-50 feet) and move my head around while focusing on a single spot on the wall, the red dot moves around a pretty considerable amount. That just CAN'T be good..... ????
 
I tend to find yeah - cheap = parallax (some at least). However, my thinking there is - it is not so hard to develop a good centering of dot, thru hold on gun - if you will - an instinctive centering. Serves me Ok - enough to be able to get adequate results - in a plinking sense at least for many.
 
I tossed on a cheap (~$30) BSA red dot when I first replaced the barrel on my 10/22 with one that lacked iron sights. My goal was to find a stopgap until I could score a better scope.

You never get something for nothing (or $30) and I did have to mill some material from the weaver mount to get the BSA to fit to my satisfaction. In the end, it works fine, though I recommend putting Lock-tite on the screws threads--they tend to loosen up right around a quarter of the way into a brick of ammo.
 
If the dot sight is 1X (most are) then there can't be parallax since there is no optical image plane for the dot to be focused on.

You need to focus on the target and look thru the dot, unlike with a scope where you focus on the reticle, or irons where you focus on the front sight. If you focus on the dot then parallax is a given because you are lining up the target and a spot at the apparent viewing distance of the dot.

I've been reasonabley happy with the cheap "Target Sports" brand from CDNN Investments. Although on some the four screws that hold the battery compartment to the body shoot loose -- a little locktite seems to be the fix.

--wally.
 
"If the dot sight is 1X (most are) then there can't be parallax since there is no optical image plane for the dot to be focused on."


Very very untrue. I recently sold a 1x sight that had so much parallax at 25 yards that I could miss by as much as 10 inches, and it got worse with distance!

BTW my DTB130 had the screws come loose as well, thats the only weak point I've seen in these sights.
 
I recently sold a 1x sight that had so much parallax at 25 yards that I could miss by as much as 10 inches, and it got worse with distance!
Click to expand...
Care to name names? :evil:
 
It was a "LETS" panoramic sight, its the same as the JH400 and FM400 that can be found on Ebay.

http://tinyurl.com/9gcgr

They appear to either be clones of the Hakko BED-35 or may even be the same thing. I suspect they are clones because the Hakko is considered to be a very high quality sight. All the other inexpensive ones appear to be the same sight marketed under different names.
 
I suspect you were focusing on the dot, intensionally or not, took me a while to get the hang of 'em. Or perhaps you had one with a loose front reflective element -- I had a BEC like this, the thing would not hold zero. The retaining ring either was not insstalled or shot loose and fell out and got lost. Been using Target Sports since.

Another problem with Dot sights is if you have uncorrected astigmatism you will see elliptical ot "star" shaped dots.

Its not a big deal to locktite the battery compartment screws before using these.

Took me a while to get the hang of dot sights looking "thru" the dot and focusing on the target is counter to everything I'd been doing all these years. Still not sure I like them, but they sure are fast for minute of pie plate shooting :)

--wally.
 
It was a "LETS" panoramic sight, its the same as the JH400 and FM400 that can be found on Ebay.
Click to expand...

I have an NcStar reflex sight that appears to be the same Chinese maker as these. First one was a POS that wouldn't hold zero, dealer exchanged it, was obvious something was wrong with the base comparing the original and replacement, I'd got a lemon initially. Replacement seems to hold zero on my 45ACP Norinco 1911 with Leupold mount.

I learned I definitely don't like reflex sights on a handgun as its way to easy to see the target but not the dot/reticle thru the window making them much slower than a 20 mm red dot sight which directs your vision scope like. Might be OK on a rifle, but they seem to "stick out" too much for my tastes -- I'd worry about breaking it off.

OTOH I do like the circle and dot reticle, Making me think of spending ~$90 for the Bushnell red dot with four switchable reticles -- shot one of these on an AR-10 and liked it a lot.

--wally.
 
No it was holding zero perfectly. I was shooting 1.5-2" groups at 25 yards with the MKII as long as I kept the dot centered. I have personally owned probably 7 different dot sights so I know parallax when I see it. I set the pistol down on a box and looked through the sight, then moved my head side to side and up and down, the dot was moving all over the target. That doesnt happen with my other sights.
 
another vote for the bushnell trophy 4 different reticles and two different colors for less than $100.
 
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