Taking Aim with Holographic and Red Dot Sights

Red dot sights are non-magnifying sights used on cameras, telescopes, and firearms for enhanced viewing. Designed to attach to your gear, these reflex sights create a red-dot style reticle by reflecting LED light on the field of view. This allows for accurate aiming and faster target acquisition compared to traditional iron and night sights. Red dots shouldn't be confused with holographic sights (holosights).

Red Dot Sights vs. Holographic Sights

While a red dot sight has an LED emitter that reflects the beam to the front glass, holographic scopes use lasers and mirrors to superimpose a sighting reticle on your field of view. Both red dots and holosights have red reticles, which are easily picked up by the eyes when aiming. If you're looking for archery sights to shoot from long distances, consider holographic weapon sights, as they're immune to parallax errors. Parallax distortion occurs when your eye isn't perfectly aligned to the sight. For hunting or any activities that require a lot of movement, shop for red dots. Because of their simple operation mechanism, they consume less power, and are slightly less bulky than holosights.

Red Dot and Holosight Body Configurations

There are two main weapon sight body configurations: open sights and tube. The open-style sights have a small, square-shaped window design that offers a wide scope of your field of view. For convenient everyday carry, shop for open slim window sights. The design is also compatible with most magnifiers for reflex sights. The tube style option comes with the interior workings of the optics enclosed in a tube. There are several variations of this body configuration, including full-tube, medium-tube, small-tube sights. With the outside tube casing, sights with this design are more suitable for rugged use, so they're more durable.

Whether you're looking for shotgun reflex sights or holographic hybrid sights, you can be sure to find them among B&H Photo and Video's wide selection of scopes.