I have been looking at CHEAP red dot sight.  Of the designs, clones, and look-alikes, the two types below seem best for all around vision and sighting.  These are CHEAP, and probably made cheap, and probably will not stand up to rough use, and will probably not co-witness on an AR flat top.  What are other drawbacks to these types of CHEAP red dot sights?

The upper is basically floating on springs over the base. When used with heavy recoil, it bounces back and forth causing a lot of stress on the optic.

I had a buddy with one of those that wouldn't hold zero with a 10/22.

I had one that distorted the reticle so bad that a 5MOA dot became 15 MOA oblong.

I've seen one that blew off the rotating battery compartment (not just the cover) after about 200 rounds of FA out of a suppressed M4.

In short, save your money and grab either a TacPoint or EOTech. I spent probably $180 on cheap optics before I go a $280 EOTech. Not to mention the cost in ammo to re-zero, and time spend dealing with it.

Most of the cheap ones have dots that cannot be seen in bright noon summer sunlight against most backgrounds.


The ones that do have bright dots, (like the design above) are usually fragile.


I'd like to check out the brightness of an Ultradot sometime. For $125 a lot of bullseye guys swear by them and say dot is visable and can handle stiff recoil. They have a lifetime no BS warranty, so that's nice to know in case it does break. Only thing that sucks about them is battery life. But that is true of everything except EOtech and Aimpoint.


Burris has the speed dot for a little under $200. That is suppose to be nice and bright, and reasonably tough. I think for low $200's you can get a Holosight  by Bushnell (made by EOtech, but without the armoring) Also the Tac-point which was kinda-sorta torture tested here on AR15.com a while back. It is an Aimpoint clone that many feel does everything you need it to do for most uses...except combat.

parallax error. On any cheap optic of this type that I have seen you had to have your head in the exact same location every shot or you would miss. After alot of searching the cheapest one I found that did not have this issuse was the ATN for around $190. I think its cheaper now. This optic is alot of fun on my shotgun. It is accurate enough for hunting with slugs. Bright enough to see at anytime. However this thing is nowhere near durable enough for a combat weapon. The buttons fell off my first trip to the range. Changing the brightness level is a pain in the ass without these buttons.

I will say its hillarious to shoot skeet with it. I think its excellent practice as you have to keep both eyes open to even have a chance.

Just buy one and make your own decision on them.  They could be the worst, or best thing you've ever bought...

I have one that looks similar to the top picture, its a HAKKO BED-24
http://www.azoutdoor.net/media/catalog_images/HAKMKIIIl.gif It is made in Japan and  it has the 4 different reticles and 11 brightness levels, Personally I am not too happy with it, it needs to be re-zeroed frequently, and depending on your head position the point of impact changes drastically. On the plus side it is bright enough to see in all light conditions, but I think I would have been better off waiting and getting something a bit better in quality.