Red Dot Deep Dive | Open Vs Tube

[PeaceOfficer]

Another from the treasure trove of open tabs and long lost bookmarks...

This article provides a quick overview of the basic differences between the Reflex sight and Red Dot sight designs.

https://sightmark.com/2019/01/17/ope...-should-i-buy/

[Marius@Jizni]

The author has some technical details wrong, though.

The light is not projected onto the lens, the light source is reflected from the lens. Think about shining with a torch on a dirty window. The beam of light is projected onto the window. If the window is dirty enough, you can clearly see a circle of light on it. In fact, if the air is dirty enough, you can even see the beam of light. If the torch stays stationary, the circle stays stationary, irrespective of what you do with your head, so a projected dot will always stay in the center of your optic. But you can also see the reflection of the torch itself, and that reflection moves when you move your head. That is consistent with what happens when we look at the red dot in our sight. And of course a lot of the light goes through the screen. I can look from the front of the sight and see the LED. The coating only allows it to reflect more. What difference does it make in terms of choosing an optic? Probably none.

The Bindon Aiming Concept is also applicable to magnified optics only. It tries to explain how the bright dot, seen by our dominant eye, is superimposed over the unmagnified view seen with our non-dominant eye to find the target quicker through a magnified optic. I think this idea was more applicable in a world before Low Powered Magnified Optics, though, and has run its course.