I got my first red dot today. I bought on of the Vortex Sparc II sights that Brownells had on sale for $125. Overall the sight seems nicely finished, it came with extra screws, 2 mounts and a spacer, and 2 batteries. It mounted easily and seems solid and I didn't have too much trouble getting it on target. The adjustment clicks are pretty mushy but still usable. 1 MOA clicks are hard to get used to when you are used to 1/4 MOA but I got it on paper.
The dot itself sucks. Its pretty much a snowflake. Maybe an angry spider. It also seems much bigger than 2 MOA but I didn't think about the fact I had it on the highest setting during the little bit of shooting I did today. I have it on an M4 and don't really care for it for target use but I think for defensive purposes it will work out just fine.
My question is on how to properly use the co-witness set up. I thought that red dots were supposed to be basically parallax free, but I noticed that depending on my cheek weld the front sight moves in relation to the red dot quite a bit. I understand that if the battery were dead and I had to use it as an iron sight that I would have to keep the front sight centered in the optic, but if I am using the actual red dot, do I ignore the front sight? Or do I need to line the dot/spider/snowflake up with the front sight each time?
The dot itself sucks. Its pretty much a snowflake. Maybe an angry spider. It also seems much bigger than 2 MOA but I didn't think about the fact I had it on the highest setting during the little bit of shooting I did today. I have it on an M4 and don't really care for it for target use but I think for defensive purposes it will work out just fine.
My question is on how to properly use the co-witness set up. I thought that red dots were supposed to be basically parallax free, but I noticed that depending on my cheek weld the front sight moves in relation to the red dot quite a bit. I understand that if the battery were dead and I had to use it as an iron sight that I would have to keep the front sight centered in the optic, but if I am using the actual red dot, do I ignore the front sight? Or do I need to line the dot/spider/snowflake up with the front sight each time?