Thursday, May 11, 2006

The red-dot strikes!

Or something like that. Over the last while I've taken notice of the shooting Mr. Completely does with red-dot sights, and wondered if they might be worth trying. However, being cheap conservative with money, never got around to it.

Last time I was at the range, there was a man there with two Beretta Neo pistols with new red-dots he was sighting in. I asked how he liked them and he handed me a couple of loaded magazines, pointed to one and said "Try it". Don't you just love gunny people? So I put two mags through, and it was great. And I've got the Trailside which has a 3/8" dovetail on the barrel... So, remembering Mr. having mentioned some inexpensive sights at Sportsmans Guide I checked them out and bought this one. It's a Barska 25mm, 11 brightness settings, comes with rings and a battery for fifteen bucks. Of course the rings that come with it are for a standard Weaver-type rail so I needed rings, so off to Midway and browse around. Yes! 30mm rings for a .22 receiver for a good price! 'Course while I was there I remembered something else I needed to check on, and one other thing(report later)... So rings were on the way. And it being from Midway, three days later they arrived. So the sight was mounted on the pistol:














Took it to the range tonight to sight in & try it out. It has click adjustments for windage & elevation like a scope, and just took a little shoot & adjust to center it, after which I tried it at ranges from about ten yards to 20.

And it's nice. Very quick to line up, doesn't add much weight and unlike iron sights the dot doesn't get fuzzy when my eyes get tired. I put a little over a hundred rounds through, and shot very well with it. I didn't run the target out to 25 yards because the targets I was using have a 2" bull, and at 20 the dot completely covered it. At ten you could place the dot in the center of the bull and squeeze off, at 20 hide the bull with the dot and fire.

Ok, I'm a believer. Now I want to get a forward mount rigged for a rifle and try it out on that; if it's as handy as this is- and I believe it will be- I'll be a very happy gunny.

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