Author Topic: Help me choose optics for my AR  (Read 12576 times)

Condition 1

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #15 on: June 23, 2011, 03:07:44 AM »
rusirius, if you have one rifle I would say the red dot (Aimpoint or EOTech) with a magnifier behind is probably a better choice than an ACOG.

Here is the best of both worlds, an ACOG with an Aimpoint on a Larue offset mount
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=385824
lol
« Last Edit: June 23, 2011, 03:09:32 AM by Condition 1 »

Condition 1

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #16 on: June 23, 2011, 03:28:20 PM »
Another thing to consider is if you run rifle matches. This case I would argue an ACOG is better than Aimpoints or EOTechs with the flip to side maginifier. Some ACOGs, equiped with BAC, give you the ability to keep both eyes opened for target aquisition, the problem I've seen is that you still have to get closer for a proper aim. This however is an advantage if you are running matches as it is faster than flipping the magnification to the side and back depending the distance you are shooting.

rusirius

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #17 on: June 23, 2011, 05:37:22 PM »
Another thing to consider is if you run rifle matches. This case I would argue an ACOG is better than Aimpoints or EOTechs with the flip to side maginifier. Some ACOGs, equiped with BAC, give you the ability to keep both eyes opened for target aquisition, the problem I've seen is that you still have to get closer for a proper aim. This however is an advantage if you are running matches as it is faster than flipping the magnification to the side and back depending the distance you are shooting.

I'm not sure I've ever understood the whole concept of the BAC ACOGs.  I fully understand BAC, and use it myself, but I don't understand what difference there is between the standard ACOG and the BAC model, short of possibly a brighter reticle.  The EOTech supports two-eye open targeting in the absolute truest sense.  Rather one eye is looking through the glass and the other is just open, or rather both eyes are looking through the glass, the results are still always the same (without magnification), that being an absolutely 100% crisp and clear sight picture along with a 100% crisp and clear reticle.  In fact, in my opinion the holographic nature of the EOTech makes it one-up the Aimpoint in this respect as well.  Because of the holographic design, it's not a reticle or dot that is seen on a close object super-imposed over the target.  Instead the reticle becomes a part of the target.  Your focus is 100% on the target and yet the reticle is 100% in focus as well, not even a small or slight bit of blur.  Sorry, I'm rambling... Back on point...

The point is, with the magnifier engaged the EOTech works perfectly fine with BAC technique.  And again if the only difference between the ACOGs with BAC and without is the brightness of the reticle (and from what I can tell, that's it), the EOTech can be adjusted to everything from "barely make it out at night" to "it's in full bloom in the brightest of sunlight and I can't see a @@@@ bit of the target..."  LOL...

At the end of the day, for anyone considering optics for their rifle, I think this discussion makes one thing very clear.  It's not one size fits all.  There is no "best" sight.  It's all about your personal preferences and what makes you most comfortable.  I've seen lots of posts on other forums asking about what sight they should put on their rifle... I think I have a new answer for that question...

NONE...

That's right... Don't spend one @@@@ bit of money on anything until you can arrange to try rifles with the various sights on them... Try one with an ACOG, try one with an Aimpoint, try one with an EOTech, and try one with a more traditional scope.  Engage close targets, distance targets, and various drills.  If you decide to go with a traditional scope, even then you owe it to yourself to try at MINIMUM a cheaper Bushnell and a more expensive Leopold or similar.  See the differences first hand and ONLY then should you make a choice...

Yeah, your right... That's all a bunch of BS and completely impractical... Which is exactly why the next point is so very important...

Aimpoint, ACOG, EOTech... It doesn't flippin matter... You buy either one of those and you WILL be happy.  You'll love it like it's your first born.  That doesn't mean one day you won't try something different and WISH you had made a different choice, but you'll still walk away happy with your own... ;)

Condition 1

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #18 on: June 23, 2011, 07:52:16 PM »

[...]

At the end of the day, for anyone considering optics for their rifle, I think this discussion makes one thing very clear.  It's not one size fits all.  There is no "best" sight.  It's all about your personal preferences and what makes you most comfortable.  I've seen lots of posts on other forums asking about what sight they should put on their rifle... I think I have a new answer for that question...

NONE...

That's right... Don't spend one @@@@ bit of money on anything until you can arrange to try rifles with the various sights on them... Try one with an ACOG, try one with an Aimpoint, try one with an EOTech, and try one with a more traditional scope.  Engage close targets, distance targets, and various drills.  If you decide to go with a traditional scope, even then you owe it to yourself to try at MINIMUM a cheaper Bushnell and a more expensive Leopold or similar.  See the differences first hand and ONLY then should you make a choice...

Yeah, your right... That's all a bunch of BS and completely impractical... Which is exactly why the next point is so very important...

Aimpoint, ACOG, EOTech... It doesn't flippin matter... You buy either one of those and you WILL be happy.  You'll love it like it's your first born.  That doesn't mean one day you won't try something different and WISH you had made a different choice, but you'll still walk away happy with your own... ;)

Excellent post!!!

Note: If anyone is planning on running a 1x red dot (Aimpoint, EOTech...) I have a VORTEX VMX3 for sale with an American Defense flip to side mount  ;D
« Last Edit: June 23, 2011, 07:54:42 PM by Condition 1 »

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2011, 08:04:29 PM »
Vortex SPARC has received great reviews, $199

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16ZB4itTusM

rusirius

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2011, 01:25:13 AM »
Vortex SPARC has received great reviews, $199

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16ZB4itTusM

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tested parallax with it?  I'm curious because I remember seeing the same guy do a review on one of the Vortex red dots and he mentioned the parallax effect of it.  What's odd though is that in it he mentioned that you DO have the parallax at anything less than 50 yards, but anything beyond that you don't.  He shot a target (i don't remember distance) and had about an inch of parallax exhibited by not having the dot centered.

But here's what doesn't make sense to me, and I'll admit my experience with red dots is only limited shooting of a few and not though testing, and the holographic sites don't have it, so maybe I'm missing something.. but....  How the hell can the parallax go AWAY past 50 yards?  If you have an inch of deviation at say 20 yards, then how the hell can it be back to normal at say 100 yards?  I guess I'm thinking in relative terms...  If I have my sight off say 4moa, then at 25 yards i'll have an inch (roughly).  So at 200 yards I should have 8 inche, not dead center...  I mean I know we're talking about two things completely different here, but I'm not sure I can wrap my head around it...  if having the dot offset results in an inch at say 25, then how can it come back to center at say 100?  I suppose the thought experiment would be getting the rifle perfectly lined up with two targets that were also perfectly lined up.  What this is telling me, is that if I placed the dot ABOVE the two targets so I could see over them, even though I was looking in a perfectly straight line, but the sight was off center enough to throw the dot to the side, it's saying that the dot would be an inch off the near target, but perfectly on the far target...  It's kinda hard to describe in a thought experiment, but hopefully you get what I'm saying...  I dunno... just doesn't make sense to me....

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #21 on: June 24, 2011, 01:01:42 PM »
My thought is the further the distance the lesser parallax effect you will have. Just as an experiment, put your index finger close to your eyes and align to a target (i.e. wall clock) against the wall, now move your head side to side and see how much parallax effect you have. Now stratch your arms with the index up and look align to the same target, move your head side to side and the effect will be lesser.

rusirius

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #22 on: June 24, 2011, 01:12:43 PM »
My thought is the further the distance the lesser parallax effect you will have. Just as an experiment, put your index finger close to your eyes and align to a target (i.e. wall clock) against the wall, now move your head side to side and see how much parallax effect you have. Now stratch your arms with the index up and look align to the same target, move your head side to side and the effect will be lesser.

Yes, but I THINK that logic is flawed... Let me explain...

In this situation you are moving the distance of your finger from your eye...

This to me would be akin to moving the distance of the red dot optic from your eye... (i.e. moving it further out on the rail, away from the eye...  NOT sighting from the same red dot to a target further away...

A more logical experiment I think would be to do the same thing except CHANGE targets...  So in other words, put your finger close to your eye and alight to a target that is close, like a wall clock and move side to side... Now do the same, but with a target much further away... Let's say across the yard on the other side of the street, but keep the finger in the same position...

See what I'm saying?  Now instead of parallax changing the point of aim a couple of inches on the wall clock, you're now moving it several feet when the targets that much further away...

Or again, maybe I'm just missing something! ;)

rusirius

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #23 on: June 24, 2011, 01:42:42 PM »
Hrmmm... I have to think about it more as I'm still a bit confused, but I think I might finally be starting to get my head wrapped around how this is possible...

I'm thinking about it in terms of a scope where you have an objective lens... In that case you're going to have a "range" of distance where there is no parallax, but anything closer or further away (basically outside the focal area of the objective and reticle) is going to have it.  I'm still not sure how that relates to the red dot precisely though.  I haven't studied them closely, but I was under the assumption that a red dot (with no magnification) was essentially the same as my EOTech... Well, sort of... In other words, the EOTech uses a holographic plate.  (i.e. the interference patterns created by the reticle are printed in the plate itself.  This plate is illuminated from behind by an LED.  So any time you are looking through it, the light pattern of the original reticle is recreated.  Because it's created from the interference patterns, that's why there's no parallax, because when you change the angle you're looking through that plate, you're changing the position of the reticle because the original reticle was some distance away from the plate.  If that makes sense... If not, check out how holograms are made and it will... ;)

With a red dot, I was thinking it was more like a "HUD" type display.  In other words, you have a single pinprick of light with a plate of glass in front of it (and presumably some sort of coating to help with reflecting the dot).  In this case, the reticle would be probably less than an inch away from the plate.  i.e. you get a parallax effect...

What I'm not sure about is why that effect wouldn't simply start small and continue to get worse...  UNLESS despite not having magnification there is still an objective lens working with a focal lens... ARG.. Now I'm confusing myself again... Ohhh well... LOL

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #24 on: June 24, 2011, 03:09:02 PM »
My thought is the further the distance the lesser parallax effect you will have. Just as an experiment, put your index finger close to your eyes and align to a target (i.e. wall clock) against the wall, now move your head side to side and see how much parallax effect you have. Now stratch your arms with the index up and look align to the same target, move your head side to side and the effect will be lesser.

Yes, but I THINK that logic is flawed... Let me explain...

In this situation you are moving the distance of your finger from your eye...

This to me would be akin to moving the distance of the red dot optic from your eye... (i.e. moving it further out on the rail, away from the eye...  NOT sighting from the same red dot to a target further away...

A more logical experiment I think would be to do the same thing except CHANGE targets...  So in other words, put your finger close to your eye and alight to a target that is close, like a wall clock and move side to side... Now do the same, but with a target much further away... Let's say across the yard on the other side of the street, but keep the finger in the same position...

See what I'm saying?  Now instead of parallax changing the point of aim a couple of inches on the wall clock, you're now moving it several feet when the targets that much further away...

Or again, maybe I'm just missing something! ;)

Now try to do the same exprient with your left foot up...then your right foot....now try both feet up... LOL













You are correct, the logic I used would not apply to this case, very confusing indeed.

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Re: Help me choose optics for my AR
« Reply #25 on: July 10, 2011, 11:52:21 PM »
OP, here is another option to you - Trijicon TR24. I dont have experience with it but some people really like it.