I learned a valuable lesson today. Don't buy cheap red dots. I bought a swift tactical red dot for my plinking pistol. 5.56 with 12.5 barrel.

It lasted three rounds and then the glass was broke. It chipped all around the front lens.

Worst $100 bucks I ever spent.

Lesson learned, buy an aimpoint or Eotech.

primary arms red dot is that price and really good quality, especially in comparison and for price.

You know what they say.. Buy once, cry once.

And excellent customer service/warranty.

Cheap, Good, Now - you only get to pick 2.

OP:  Don't go from one extreme to another.  There are many excellent and durable mini red dots on the market priced well below the combat grade and outrageously priced stuff.

I really like the dots of Lucid.  The full size HD7 is built like a tank.  I've run one for over a year.  It takes everything I can dish out, even 12 gauge shotgun slugs and full power buckshot.  Then Lucid released the little M7 microdot.  It is amazing.  I now have two of those after finding that it would handle the shotgun recoil, too.  One is now in a QD riser mount to swap out with a QD mounted  midpowered scope, and the other is permanently mounted low with no riser on the tactical 12 gauge.

Each of these Lucid optics are priced at $189 or less with discount coupons from lots of vendors.  They both have a lot of really good advanced features, including automatic dot intensity with manual override, automatic shutoff after two hours, run on a single AAA battery that ought to last perhaps years with the auto shutoff for most of us, and a very effective EOTech like donut dot reticle.  The bigger HD7 has a separate reticle turret with three other dot choices, all useful, and they all shoot to the same point.  Turrets on both models are capped and along with the battery cap are securely tethered with a sturdy covered wire.  Amazing value and performance.  I don't think you'll find a bad review of either anywhere.

Forgive my enthusiasm, but this is really good stuff.  I tried some of the cheap stuff and was disappointed.  I don't mind spending $1,000 or more on a good scope and $200+ on a high quality QD mount, but I see no reason to spend $400-600+ on a red dot.

SWFA had the Doctor optic red dot for $ 250.00 and that's more or less the price for a Burris FastFire III which has an on and off switch.

Just because you bought a no name brand red dot does not mean all budget red dots are going to fail as quickly. I'd say your mistake was buying a "Swift" over a Primary Arms or Bushnell. You might try browsing here more as even a couple minutes of reading will direct you to some solid budget options.


I have to ask though, are you new to shooting? Most experienced AR shooters know better than to buy unknown name brand.optics on the cheap, no offense.

Busnell TRS-25 or PA Microdot are the lowest you should ever go.

Edited...VA-gunnut

I'm not new to shooting but this is the first time I haven't been shooting an eotech or aimpoint or leupold. Military kind of spoils you :)

I just wanted to try something different. I'll do some more research and see what I can find out. I abused the same aimpoint for 5 years and over 100k rounds and two combat tours and never had a problem. I don't need that extreme of durability but breaking third shot was a shock lol.

Good shit aint cheap and cheap shit aint good...

I have a Barska red dot sight that I have had on my Buckmaster 22 for years. I swaped it out on my AR15 when I finished it just to seee how it shot. It has been working perfectly,  I think I may have paid $29 for it years ago.

Vince

This.