In the last few years my eye sight has degraded to the point where I have to wear corrective lenses. With a quick trip to the eye doctor I gained a prescription and the knowledge that I have an astigmatism. Shortly after this discovery I decided to give red dots a try. My first purchased was an Aimpoint Comp M2.

For those who do not know, Aimpoint is known for making some of the best red dots in the world. All other similar optics are judged against Aimpoint for their quality and incredible battery life. To say I was excited about my purchase was an understatement. Soon after I learned my eyes were not suited for this type of optic.

It started out working very well. As with other red dots the speed on target was extremely fast. I was hooked. Until I started to notice something a little weird. At times the dot would be a nice crisp round dot. Other times it would look like a cluster of grapes. At first I played it off and thought maybe I had the brightness turned up too much. The more I would shoot the more I would notice it. The final straw was on a hunting trip where I stalked to within a 100 yards of a nice bobcat. I raised my rifle to take the shot and my entire field of view was obscured. It looked like two grape clusters spread apart with a bar connecting them. Needless to say the opportunity was lost.

When I got home from my trip I did some research. I talked to my eye doctor and scoured the internet for others who have had a similar experience. What I found is that a red dot that projects the dot onto a screen does not agree with astigmatisms. It seems like cheaper red dots do it even more than a quality piece but they all do it. Some have suggested optics that can work with this problem. These are usually something with an etched reticle instead of an electronic dot. Some also suggested a red dot with a smaller sized dot works better.

A few examples, with etched reticles, are ones such as the Leupold Prismatic, Reflex sights from Meprolight and Trijicon ACOG or reflex sights. I personally own an ACOG and have not experienced any ill effects like I did with the Aimpoint.

I have not been able to find out why this happens with a red dot or how to fix it. It was very disappointed to learn of this but I was also glad to learn my newly purchased Aimpoint was not defective. I decided to stick with the ACOG and sold the Aimpoint. I didn’t think it was something I could live with or trust that it would work correctly when I really needed it.

Hopefully my experience with this subject can shed some light on something that many are learning the same way I did. In my opinion it is not something that is an absolute. It is something that you will have to try for yourself and decide if you can live with the pros and cons. The more experience I gain with optics the more I learn there is no perfect one. They are all a set of compromises and some are better than others.