People are typically 16-18 inches across the shoulders, so that gives you a third-third-third width-aiming ability. A 2-MOA dot subtends 6.6 inches at that distance. On the computer-controlled pop-ups we shoot on the distance ranges in the Patrol Rifle classes, the farthest one is 300 meters away. The camera sees this dot as brighter than it really appears to the eye, but this is about the max brightness you need to shoot well. It would be another entry in the catalog and something to be tracked on the web page. The manufacturers could make 1-MOA units for us who ask, but why? It would be a different production line or a different production run. (Hey, let’s not beat around the bush, OK?) The gents who do the trigger-pulling apparently find that a 2-MOA dot is big enough to be fast, and precise enough to be, well, precise. They have no-doubt offered them to the military groups who shoot a lot of people on a regular basis. The red-dot sight makers could make 1-MOA dots. “It isn’t that much more difficult to make a 1-MOA dot, but our end-users don’t ask.
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Meaning, the bearded gents in the various hot and dusty places in the world want 2-MOA dots. “We make the dots the size the guys asking want them to be,” reported one manufacturer. So, how big of a dot should your red-dot sight have? Well, if you run it at “mid-day sun” setting, it doesn’t matter if you have a tiny ½-MOA dot: It’s going to flare so much that it will be this red atomic blob in your line of sight. We’ll go into the differences at a later date. With all due respect to the various designs and the engineers involved, the end-users don’t know, don’t care and can shoot well with either. If this is what you see when you look through your red-dot sight, then you have the power too high - way too high.įor those asking, the difference between a reflex red-dot and a non-reflex is not germane to this discussion. When they click the power back a couple of settings, they can actually see the targets through the tube and get down to aiming - even on a clear summer’s day.
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Invariably, we find that during the law enforcement patrol rifle classes, when it comes time to shoot past the 50-yard square range and engage the knock-downs out to 300 meters, officers have their dot cranked up too bright. Unless you’re in the Southwest, or in a sandy range on a bright day, you don’t need to dial your power up to max.
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When the dot is so bright it pulls your attention away from the target and surroundings, and it insists, “Focus on me!” If it “blooms” or shows a star-like pattern when you aim, you have the power turned up too much. What I found, over time, was that almost everyone who starts shooting with a red-dot optic runs it too bright. When the dot is 20 MOA, you don’t need a lot of power to see it. Since then I’ve paid close attention to the size of the dot in our optics, as well as the brightness. And overlapping hostage targets? Well, that was real conundrum, even at close range. But when the distances got much past 35 yards, the dot covered the entire target. With a dot that big, I was warp-speed fast on close- to medium-range targets. Let me tell you: For a short while, I was a monster on the stages. Just like that, I went from a 4-MOA dot (which was tiny for the time) to a 20-MOA dot. Soon after, the mask inside of the tube, the one that blocked the emitter, fell off. In the very early 1990s, I’d just had one custom-rebuilt for my USPSA Open pistol.
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100yd Field Pistol and 200Meter Big Bore. Magnum Hunter w/factory supplied UTG Leapers red dot.įF3 is 3moa.