Airsoft red dot sights. What’s the most popular on the market?
The red dot is an optoelectronic device that’s used for the aiming process of a firearm, pneumatic gun or like in the our case – airsoft gun. Instead of co-witnessing the iron sights for every single shot, you just simply aim with the red dot or that is projected on the lenses of your optic. As you have probably already found out – the whole procedure is much quicker and intuitive, than the regular sights. The other pro is the easiness of using both eyes open with that type of sights.
The fission of the red dots
Currently there are 2 basic types of the construction present – the open and closed type. The main difference between them is in the placement of the diode that is projecting the reticle. The more specific differences will be listed below.
The open red dots
They are lightweight, but because of their construction - very sensitive and vulnerable. The projecting diode is placed outside the body of the device, which makes it very vulnerable for the harsh conditions like, dirt, mud or rain. When things get dirty, you’ll simply “lose” your dot in the most unexpected (and unwanted) moment. Talking about the pros of the constructions, the open red dots are quite cheap. On the other side, the bigger models are not really the real firearms constructions lookalikes. Be aware, that the little red dot copies of the Docter or RMR sights are poorly made and not really usable because of their sensitivity and lack of proper reticle brightness.
The Closed type red dots
These are a lot more popular in the airsoft, mostly thanks to their similarity to the “real deal” models that are used in the military. Their construction is also more durable and there are a lot of variants available with different types of the source power. Because of the closed type mechanism, they are less likely to fail during the harsh outside conditions, because the diode is harder to reach by the water, dust or mud.
Airsoft red dot copies – what’s most popular on the market?
There is no doubt that the red dots are currently the most used kind of optics in the airsoft games. Because of that, the offer on the market is wider, than the magnification optics. However, there are a few red dot models that are the most popular in the airsoft world. To keep everything simple – I have used the names of the originals, because that’s how airsofters tend to call their copies . It just simpler
The Aimpoint CompM2 and CompM4
Both optics are practically the same, expect for the externals, so I’ve put them in the one basket. Not so long time ago, they were very popular both in the military and in the airsoft world. However, they have been replaced by more modern constructions – and the same happened in the the airsoft world, because we simply stick to the newest military fashion trends ;). If you like this particular model of sight, stay away from the cheapest ACM models - they keep work for a random period of time and then suddenly, the switch doesn’t work anymore. Situation looks better in the case of the G&P products, which are well known for incredible (for the airsoft wolrd) reliability – there are even models that are working straight 6-7 years without any issues. What’s interesting is that they’re not that much more expensive than the cheapest Aimpoint construction clones. There are also the Theta Optics products on the market, but I can’t really make any bigger judgments about them – I’ve tested some of their first model and they performed pretty well.
The Aimpoint Micro T1
I would call it the Holy Grail of the airsoft red dots. It’s probably the best Chinese airsoft knockoff model available on the market. I’ve spend some time with various models from the ACM to the G&G or Theta Optics each one was performing correctly for its price. The dot had the proper brightness, the adjustment screws worked like a charm and the parallax was acceptable – are there really more requirement for the airsoft? I would especially recommend the models with 11-level brightness adjustment, which are in my opinion slightly better than the 2-color versions.
The Eotech series
The Eotechs, just like the Aimpoints, are available for a quite long time on the market. The older models had a little different reticle than the protoplast and dark lenses. However, the newer versions of this red dots (yep, the airsoft Eotech copies are the red dots!) are very usable. They only have just that one flaw – you must be very careful when adjusting the reticle horizontally and vertically, because it’s very easy to damage the threads during calibration of the sight. In the worst case, the electronics can be poorly soldered – but that’s more a fabric defect that can happen in each type of red dot sights.
How about the “real steel” optics?
People tend to buy expensive optics dedicated for airsoft, when for the similar amount of money or a little more they can get a budget solution dedicated for firearms. What does it mean? It will be MUCH MORE durable, the reticle will be brighter, optics will be clearer and the construction will easily stand a GBB replica, which is not that obvious in the case of cheap airsoft knockoffs. The cheapest budget red dots begin with the Delta Optical and PWS products, which are a little more expensive than the airsoft micro T1 copies, but perform far better than them. Sometimes you can also buy occasionally one of the Bushnell’s products or one of the Vortex red dots. Everything depends on your budget and requirements.
Airsoft red dot copies – what’s most popular on the market?
That’s all all about the most popular airsoft red dot models. The current market of that type of sight is incredibly huge and expands practically everyday – if you’re interested in a review of particular models, give me a sign, I’ll see what I can do about that ;).
Author:
Paweł "Fishbonee" Napieralski
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