Newbie to ARs and the site, so please go easy on me here. Just picked up my first AR, an unfired Saint Victor with a Sig Romeo 5 red dot on it for $700. The Romeo was the first red dot I've looked through, and the dot looked like hell to me. Both the seller and guy behind the counter verified it looked fine to them, and the guy told me to look at it through my phone, where of course the dot looked perfect. Fun way to find out you have an astigmatism!

Trying to figure out where to go from here. I've read that magnifiers help clear up the dot, but if I'm just going to run around on 3x I might as well get a prism and save some weight. LVPOs also an option, wanting to keep everything under $500 on this rifle no matter which way I go. Don't anticipate ever taking this rifle out beyond 300 yards but would love to hear from guys that have astigmatisms that may have done some trial and error. TIA!

Hello fellow shitty eyesight person.

For me, a magnifier will clear up a red dot because of the adjustable diopter. Not really an ideal set up though cause you still have the non-magnified distorted dot.

I use mostly prisms and LPVOs due to astigmatism. I have some of the Primary Arms micros 1x and 3x, and also the new swampfox raider.  

For LPVOs, there are so many choices that it can be overwhelming. For a budget of $500 I’d look at getting a used Steiner 1-4x P4Xi or a new Primary Arms SLX 1-6x.

You could get corrective lenses to fix the astigmatism, I assume. I have glasses that do this but they may not always be available.

I also have astigmatism. With a red dot you want the smallest dot possible (1-2MOA). I find that as long as I keep the brightness low I can use red dots ok. It's also one of the reasons I like Eotechs because of the 1 MOA center dot. I wish Aimpoint had more 1 MOA options however the 2 MOA dots work ok for me too. Another trick is looking at the red dot through a rear sight aperture. I use that trick when zeroing because it makes the dot super crisp for my eyes.

Prism optics and LPVOs are really the best choice though for those with astigmatism. I'm a big ACOG fan and have them on several rifles.

I’m a fan of the spitfire prism from Vortex. I have two.

The dot within a circle reticle is clean and fast. And the circle actually helps with bulletproof drop estimates at longer ranges if you ever have access to a long distance range and can learn your drops relative to the circle. It’s certainly not precise at longer distances, but you can gets hits and certainly get close enough to motivate someone into cover at long distances. Realistically, it’s going to be long odds for you to ever have legal justification for engaging someone at hundreds of yards. So to my mind, for a first self-defense rifle, a prism is the way to go.

I also love that the dot is etched and therefore visible even if the illumination is out for some reason. I don’t bother with BUIS’s on the prism guns.

You must have pretty mild astigmatism. I’ve tried acogs but could sold them off due to fuzzy reticles with the fixed diopter.

I've got a slight astigmatism in my dominant eye. It's just bad enough to ruin optics but not bad enough to get glasses/prescription. I went on an optic buying spree and here's what I learned (everyone has different types of astigmatism and maybe not all of these fit your price requirement so maybe it isn't applicable but maybe you'll find it useful in the future or something):

For holo/red-dots; EoTech is by far the clearest and easiest to use even with a magnifier I don't get any significant blurring or starbursting. All other dots including Aimpoint are ok but the dot tends to smudge or become oblong.

For prisms; Elcan SpectreDR 1-4X is easily the best optic for my eye. Dot is precise/reticle is perfect/super clean image. ATACR is close and even though it's the better optic and reticle, the Elcan seems to give me the best image. ACOG red chevron was awful with my eye. Green Reticle ACSS is ok.




I'd say mine is very mild too and I had crazy bloom even with tape over the top. Maybe their horseshoe reticles would be better but the chevron just did not work.

Any PA or Swampfox prism.  

 I had and liked the GLx2 and waiting on the new GLx1.  I do currently have the SLx1 which I like as well.     Price wise and quality wise they are hard to beat.   Unless you are really stuck on where they are built, which I am not.

That depends entirely upon the individual’s astigmatism.  Some people with astigmatism see the 4 MOA Aimpoint dot more crisp than the 2 MOA dot.




Which defeats the purpose of using a red dot sight.




Just because a manufacturer states an optic has a 1 MOA dot in the lab, does not mean that dot will only subtend to 1 MOA at a useable illumination in the field.

Head Shots With Red Dots





For this ballistic exercise, I did a brief comparison of the level of accuracy that was attainable when aiming with four different “red-dot” sights.  The following four optics were tested:


>  Aimpoint CompML2 with a 4 MOA dot

>  Aimpoint T1 with an advertised 4 MOA dot

>  Aimpoint CompM4S with a 2 MOA dot

>  EoTech 551 with the 65 MOA ring/1 MOA dot


All shooting for this ballistic exercise was conducted from the bench at a distance of 50 yards using my Lothar-Walther barreled AR-15 and match-grade, hand-loaded ammunition.  The head-targets used for this exercise were reduced in scale to simulate aiming at distances beyond 50 yards.  

The testing was conducted at 50 yards in order to mitigate the variable of wind-drift that would have been significant if testing had been conducted at actual distances and to remove the vertical variation of the points of impact that would have occurred due to bullet drop at actual distances.  The objective here was to determine what the limitation on accuracy was, due to aiming with the various red-dot sights, not how well I could dope the wind and distance.  Each optic was zeroed for POA=POI at 50 yards prior to testing using 10-shot groups.  All aiming was conducted with the entire dot of each optic placed over the head-target.  (No aiming was done using just the bottom or top of the dot or holding the entire dot above or below the head-target.)


The targets used for this exercise are copies of the head portion of the Front Sight Official Training and Qualification Target.  The Front Sight target is an “accurate representation of human dimensions taken from medical cadaver studies and 3000 x-ray studies.”  

Only the head portion of the target was used so that no visual cues could be obtained from the larger body portion of the target.  The full-sized head-target is approximately 6” wide by 9” high.  The targets were sequentially reduced in scale to simulate the full-sized head targets from 75 yards to 600 yards (at the actual distance of 50 yards), in 25 yard increments.  (Again, all shooting was actually conducted at 50 yards.)














The simple test procedure for this exercise was as follows: one shot and one shot only was fired at the head-targets in increasing simulated distance (smaller and smaller targets.)  Testing for each optic ended when I missed a target on the first shot.  The entire exercise was conducted twice, with the same results each time.

To establish a control base-line of accuracy, I tested a NightForce NXS 1-4X with the NP-1 reticle prior to testing the red-dot sights.   Using the NightForce scope (set at 4X magnification) I was able to make first-round hits on the simulated 600 yard head-target (the farthest simulated distance that I used for this exercise.)








Aimpoint Comp ML2





Using the Aimpoint CompML2 with the 4 MOA dot I was able to obtain first round hits on the simulated 225 yard head-target.






Aimpoint T1





Using the Aimpoint T1 with the advertised 4 MOA dot I was able to obtain first round hits on the simulated 250 yard head-target.






Aimpoint Comp M4S





Using the Aimpoint Comp M4S with the 2 MOA dot I was able to obtain first round hits on the simulated 400 yard head-target.






EoTech 551






Using the EoTech 551 with the 65 MOA ring/1 MOA dot reticle (and aiming with the 1 MOA dot) I was able to obtain first round hits on the simulated 375 yard head-target.









…..

Really appreciate all of the replies, this was exactly what I was looking for. Aside from the astigmatism, I have perfect vision so it’s not something I’ll get corrective lenses for. I’ll probably sell the Romeo and add that onto the budget. The swampfox tomahawk 2 with the different color reticle options is intriguing; have you guys tried different color dots with any success? They have a blue and amber in addition to the more traditional red and green.

Thank you for posting this, I thought I might be the only one with this issue. I have several rifles with Elcan’s for this very reason. It’s outdated and kinda low on the magnification spectrum compared to newer optics but for my eyes it provides the clearest and crispest dot and reticle by far.

Astigmatismbro!

It was a shot in the dark getting the Elcan and to be honest, I got it mainly because it looked awesome. It turned out to be the best optic purchase that I ever made. I just wish they'd stop using ARMS mounts.

Whether I'm in 1x or 4x, reticle on or off, the Elcan gives me the cleanest image. I only get a little bit of blurring on the bottom left corner with the ranging lines.

Prism sights ended up being my favorite answer.

Green has worked best for me although I still end up with red reticles.

Consider an SLX 3X

With your budget and intended range, I would wholeheartedly recommend the PA GLX 2x. Just upgrade the mount to an ADM and you’re GTG.

LPVO or Eotech, Eotech is grainy but doesn’t star burst. If going LPVO if you’re going cheap get a Primary arms slx 1-6 nova. If you want something nicer get the Trijicon credo 1-6 red BDC. I have bought two for $750 each

I just upgraded one of my Burris RT-6 to a Vortex Viper PST Gen 2 1-6...been doing drills... love it with the daylight bright dot at 1x.

On my 12.5... I'm debating going with an aimpont dot (starburst) for me...or another viper.

I'm looking at going to a 1x prisim, probably from PA, down the road.

Always qualified w/ an Aimpoint in the Army, just try to zero & shoot w/ the same point on the squiggle every time.

I feel your pain. The last year or so I have been seeing more " flare" with some of my red dots , Holosun , Aimpoint , PA , and so on. If I wear my contacts I see it more and will have to ask my eye doc if there is anything they can do.

My PA 3x is fine as well as my Holosun 510c's , Steiner and Trijicon scopes that have a illuminated dot.

If that stays true I will probably have to start dumping some red dots and deciding what to move to.

No issues so far on my pistol dots.



Sucks having shitty eyes and getting older.

Green dots work better for me, but still starburst. I tried a Swampfox. Hard pass. Poor quality IMO.

I found the eye relief on the spitfire to be terrible & sold it. Unusable without being terribly uncomfortable while shooting

I’ll add that what you see will be different from sight to sight. I have a couple of the exact same rds and some look ok and others are dog shit. The best thing you can do is buy one in person and look through it. If you want an aimpoint t2 for example, try and look through multiple T2s and pick the best one.

Every aimpoint Ive looked through look like crap for me but I could probably manage.. Some holosun are ok. Sample size of 1 sig is decent. By far the worst was trijicon MRO - completely unusable for me across multiple samples. Prescription glasses, shooting glasses and sunglasses clear the dot right up.

Moving forward I will probably be sticking with prisms from primary arms where possible.