What’s the difference between a red dot sight and a holographic sight? Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant says the biggest difference is price. A standard red dot sight is pretty straightforward: it projects a dot generated by a glowing LED on the lens. A holographic sight is more complex because it projects a laser on a mirror that reflects the dot onto the lens. The holographic sight’s greater complexity makes it more expensive than the typical red dot sight. Both types can be robust, so an Aimpoint Patrol Rifle Optic red dot is just as durable as an EOTech HWS 512 holographic weapon sight. Due to the red dot sight’s simpler operating system, its batteries tend to last longer – up to years of service – while a holographic sight may give you only months of battery life. Size is also a factor. The simpler technology of red dots enables them to be smaller than holographic sights, but…. Holographic sight technology allows for dot sizes as small as 1 MOA. The smallest dot you can typically get on a red dot is 2 MOA. That can be a problem when you add a magnifier to extend your sight’s range. Put a 2x magnifier behind a 1 MOA dot and it stays 1 MOA. Put that 2x magnifier behind a 2 MOA dot, and you now have a 4 MOA dot, which can actually obscure your view of a distant target through the sight.
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Brownells ship times are still horrible.
A 2 MOA dot WILL STILL be a 2 MOA dot behind a magnifier…or do you only magnify the dot but not the target you're looking at? The dot will still cover the same amount of target as it did before, hence the MOA stays the same. Don't know where this myth got started, but it needs to stop.
Otherwise a good and short introduction to red dot vs holo sights.
Eotec holographic sights are WAY MORE DURABLE than anything else; IT’S A HOLOGRAM! Even if the glass breaks YOU STILL HAVE A SIGHT!
one of my favorite statements @ :52 " It's actually alot more complicated than it sounds"
the battery costs $5. I change them every year. battery life is not an issue.
I would love to see Larry Potterfield hop into one of these videos and just have a cheerful mashup of information.
Love it
Eotechs are great and so are dots but I tend to do better with holo due to astigmatism
Are you saying that my chinisium 12.00 red dot is probably not as durable as these, OH,NO
Liked that. Dumbed down enough, that even I can understand it.
Another important difference is that holographic sights usually feature multiple reticle types and colors to flip between depending on the task and purpose at hand.
I didnt know I had astigmatism and bought a eotech exps2-2 looks like one big red blob when I look down the sight lol looks cool on the gun though
Meet the robinsons boy has come a long way..
I have 2 Eo's and 2 AP's. I love them both. You can't leave your Eo on. Depending on how you turn it on, it will turn off in 4 or 8 hours. Battery life is very good. You can go to the range many, many, many times before you need new batteries. You just can't leave it always on. For shooting practice i prefer the Eo any day of the week hands down. For the always on, always ready i prefer the AP.
Can't find anything anywhere that says human eyes can't see less than 1 moa. knowing I can see an eotech reticle smaller than a 1/4 inch dot at 25yards and the same size on a 1 inch dot at 100yds i'm going to need a citation. You also need to retract the misinformation that a red dot sight 2 moa reticle becomes a 4 moa reticle. Vast swathes of the comment section understand this correctly and you need to admit when you're wrong.
Algorithm defeated
You lost me on why 2 moa red dot is 4 moa when magnified, but a holographic is 1 to 1. Could you explain that in more detail?
I’m pretty sure that holographic sights are better at mitigating parallax shift too
I have astigmatism. Can you cover optics for those like me?
I aspire to one day get the chance to see what Calebs hair feels like.
Sorry, Eotech is 100% pure hot garbage. Let's not forget their decade of lying about performance while selling them to the public and military and law enforcement personnel. FUCK EOTECH.
I don't think you ever said, other than overall size and dot size any advantages or disadvantages of use.
Now do reflex and prism sights.
The difference is price lol
I would suggest that you don’t skimp on optics – you truly get what you pay for. And try them out first. You might like the speed and huge sight box that the Eotech provides – thousands of Army Rangers, Green Berets, and Delta prefer them.
One of the differences between a red dot and a holographic sight in theory is the removal of parallax. A red dot is reflected to focus at an average range of points along a plane where a holographic sight is a collimated light that in theory is focused at infinity.
Can you also add LPVO in the mix?
Yes I put a large holographic sight on my large frame handgun for minimal parallax error at close range.
This is a bulky configuration, but my requirements are precision over 'speed of the draw'.
some of these large phone manufacturers/consumers could take a lesson from the gun community….we wont buy stuff that isnt built to last
I really enjoy what you’ll do for Us and correct information every time
God Bless the 2A and President Trump
A lot of comments are wrongly correcting Brownells here. Vortex holographic reticles "grow" normally with the target under magnification – Eotech reticles do not. Their center dot is only a fraction of an MOA, human eyes just percieve it as the smallest they can at around 1 MOA. Magnifying it 3x or 5x will grow the center dott to around 1-1.5 MOA, meaning it obstructs less of the target.
Now a lot of wrong info has been put out about this, a lot of it seems to come from Vortex saying holo sights do grow, but not relative to the target. They are speaking about their sights, but talk about it like it is true for all holographic sights. Either their sales guys are missing some knowledge about holographic tech, or they are intentionally misleading people about an advantage of their competitor.