Rifle Scopes Offset sights/optics, astigmatism, and other problems

[cooks]

I have a dpms lr-308 with a fixed 10x scope that I would like to put some form of unmagnified offset sight or optic on. My initial inclination was to throw on a set of offset irons and call it a day. However, I had a few concussions last year and am still dealing with pretty severe symptoms from that, including a myriad of visual problems. I had a hunch iron sight use might be challenging, so I popped the scope off the rifle and popped on a pair of non offset irons I had laying around to find out. Long story short, it was actually pretty rough. Apparently, something with having to look at/through 3 different objects all at different distances from my eye is very problematic. Without getting too bogged down in the details of what happens, I'll just say offset irons are not going to be the solution to my problems. If I slow everything way down, I can use em just fine, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of this endeavor. Fast sight acquisition just doesn't happen for me now.

The next obvious solution, an offset red dot of some sort, is also out. I've never found a red dot that agreed with my astigmatism. My astigmatism isn't horrible (right handed, my rx is -1.25 in my right eye) but it's significant enough that I have more or less given up on red dots and holo sights. Every one I've tried ranges in visual appearance from an "L"or "/" shape to a odd looking bunch of grapes: sorta serviceable at best, completely hopeless at worst. The one time since my concussions I tried to use a red dot on a friend's handgun also proved rather unpleasant, so this definitely isn't gonna work.

So how's this for a dumb idea: A 1x prism sight mounted on an offset mount next to the scope? Prism sights play nicely with my astigmatism, and the option to lower the brightness of the reticle or kill the illumination entirely sounds perfect for my concussion related problems. I've never handled one in person, but the Vortex Spitfire in the 1x iteration seems relatively svelte. It doesn't seem absurdly heavy, although I do realize it will concentrate all of the weight above/around the receiver. It has a decent amount of eye relief, 3.7" according the the mfg. The scope on this rifle is an SWFA SS 10x42 in Seekins 1.45" tall rings. It seems like with the right mount bolted to the rail immediately behind the rear ring, I could probably get it to clear the scope, ejection port, and brass deflector and still be in a reasonably usable position?

Oh, and this is purely a fun gun. I don't see myself ever using it in competition, at least not seriously, so optic vs iron sight is not a concern in that regard.

What am I missing? I can't find anything with google on this, which leads me to think I'm either sitting on the next big thing in the tacticool community or I am missing some critical detail. My money is on the latter...

 

[Th3_Warm0ng3r]

Are you asking if you should try it or if someone else has tried it and you want to know if it worked out for them. If it's the first I would honestly say try it yourself and if it works for you the use it! No matter what your told, ultimately this is your gun and your sights, no point in having what someone would call a "proper" setup if you can't use it. This is coming from someone whose got a couple new major injuries over the last 2 years I have slowly developed this mindset with other things.

 

[rsb]

I have a dpms lr-308 with a fixed 10x scope that I would like to put some form of unmagnified offset sight or optic on. My initial inclination was to throw on a set of offset irons and call it a day. However, I had a few concussions last year and am still dealing with pretty severe symptoms from that, including a myriad of visual problems. I had a hunch iron sight use might be challenging, so I popped the scope off the rifle and popped on a pair of non offset irons I had laying around to find out. Long story short, it was actually pretty rough. Apparently, something with having to look at/through 3 different objects all at different distances from my eye is very problematic. Without getting too bogged down in the details of what happens, I'll just say offset irons are not going to be the solution to my problems. If I slow everything way down, I can use em just fine, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of this endeavor. Fast sight acquisition just doesn't happen for me now.

The next obvious solution, an offset red dot of some sort, is also out. I've never found a red dot that agreed with my astigmatism. My astigmatism isn't horrible (right handed, my rx is -1.25 in my right eye) but it's significant enough that I have more or less given up on red dots and holo sights. Every one I've tried ranges in visual appearance from an "L"or "/" shape to a odd looking bunch of grapes: sorta serviceable at best, completely hopeless at worst. The one time since my concussions I tried to use a red dot on a friend's handgun also proved rather unpleasant, so this definitely isn't gonna work.

So how's this for a dumb idea: A 1x prism sight mounted on an offset mount next to the scope? Prism sights play nicely with my astigmatism, and the option to lower the brightness of the reticle or kill the illumination entirely sounds perfect for my concussion related problems. I've never handled one in person, but the Vortex Spitfire in the 1x iteration seems relatively svelte. It doesn't seem absurdly heavy, although I do realize it will concentrate all of the weight above/around the receiver. It has a decent amount of eye relief, 3.7" according the the mfg. The scope on this rifle is an SWFA SS 10x42 in Seekins 1.45" tall rings. It seems like with the right mount bolted to the rail immediately behind the rear ring, I could probably get it to clear the scope, ejection port, and brass deflector and still be in a reasonably usable position?

Oh, and this is purely a fun gun. I don't see myself ever using it in competition, at least not seriously, so optic vs iron sight is not a concern in that regard.

What am I missing? I can't find anything with google on this, which leads me to think I'm either sitting on the next big thing in the tacticool community or I am missing some critical detail. My money is on the latter...

I can now longer use iron sights either. I have a Vortex Spitfire 3x prism scope that works well. The reticle is etched, so power is not needed. I use it on my .223 battle rifle and shoots well with 77g out to 600 yards.

 

[shoobe01]

Offset like 45°? Not super excited by those personally. I hear from a few serious people who use them that they are quite odd to use, and to zero. They CAN have the advantage of retaining cheek weld, and be quick to switch to, but it depends on the shape of your stock. And, you have to train on it. If you don't do weak side training, etc. then this may not be worth it. It may be easier all in all to mount an RDS inline straight above the magnified optic, and try using a chin weld. (Or

This should be easy to try out also: tape some sight you have laying around to the top of your scope, and try it (dry!) to see how the elevation works. Harder at an angle, but I suspect you can stuff enough foam or socks between an RDS and the gun to tape something on at appx the right position to see that before you buy products and bolt things down.


I also have awful eyes (the little grid the doctor fills out for your Rx? Every box has numbers in it. Astigmatism is only part of my issues). I looked into the prism sights and was discouraged by the weight and generally low quality of them. I have found a handful of RDS that work for me (and returned many, many others). My favorite current production RDS for dot, and being an actual quality product, is the Meprolite Tru Dot RDS.

I can ramble on (or link to somewhere I have posted a full review) of this sight if you want. But overall I had to buy, or go to multiple stores (each carries only a few product lines) and see, many, many dots. I had also done okay with the Insite MRDS. Not as good a dot, but it's a very, very much smaller sight so may be more suitable for backup mounting, and is capable of handling rifle recoil and handling, especially with the aluminum hood.

 

[steve123]

I have eye problems too so I "see" where you are coming from. RD's are getting harder to see right as the years pass by.

It'd be a lot easier to get a 1-? x24 riflescope.

Athlon has a 3.9x prism sight with a nice holdover reticle. It'd work okay at distance on bigger steel and has exposed knobs. Also a 1x prism but it's too big IMO to be used in conjunction with a riflescope.

 

[shoobe01]

I have eye problems too so I "see" where you are coming from. RD's are getting harder to see right as the years pass by.

It'd be a lot easier to get a 1-? x24 riflescope...

You are right, I didn't read the OP close enough. Even I have I given up on fixed power scopes and have all zoom, or RDS with flip off magnifiers.

A much simpler solution than an add on sight would be a superzoom, as low as you can to as high as you need. Illuminated might help for sketchy lighting as well. Crank it down, and you can use it maybe even (depends on your eyes more than the magnification both eyes open to snapshoot.

 

[cooks]

A much simpler solution than an add on sight would be a superzoom, as low as you can to as high as you need. Illuminated might help for sketchy lighting as well. Crank it down, and you can use it maybe even (depends on your eyes more than the magnification both eyes open to snapshoot.

Got any more info on this? Links? I am failing to get Google to turn up anything useful for me.

After playing around with various 1x prisms, I think it's a little more brick like than I'd prefer on top of/next to a rifle scope. I am liking the idea of something like the Insite mrds.. Form factor is ideal and hearing it has worked decently for others with deformed eyeballs makes it seem like something worth trying.

Re: Offset vs piggyback - I personally find using offset sights to be a more easily repeatable movement pattern than using a sight mounted in a piggyback style mount. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

I have also come to the conclusion that a 1-8x variable is likely the ideal solution to all this. Unfortunately, I don't really have a funds to throw at a quality 1-8x right now. I would really prefer that to a 1-6 or 1-4 (bad eyes and all), especially since I know I'd end up wishing I sprang for the 1-8x down the road.

Thanks for thoughts so far!

 

[shoobe01]

I probably mostly just used awful words, but your 1-8x finding is most of what I meant. If funding is an issue, I'd skulk the sale forum here for someone selling something closer to what you need used, keep an eye on the samplelist,* or do your research and hit up someone's outlet store. The Bushnell outlet center is a few minutes from my house, and I sometimes get great stuff there.


If you meant both eyes open, then it's just the part where a 1x** is not an RDS (a floating dot, no optics in the way) but your brain can still be a collimator, combining the most useful data from each field of view. You can generally get a good view of the world AND an aiming point to shoot at then. Parallax does matter, so keep that good cheekweld, and try it out to see how it works.

You can also train yourself into it; I have non-coincidental vision so can still barely use binoculars, but did make myself learn how to shoot RDSs and OEGs and so on with both eyes open. And I relatively suck at shooting, so if I can do it, you can!


The principle of all this is how the old occluded sights (Armson OEG, S ) work, and I've seen folks use it at higher magnifications or if the magnified optic otherwise messes with them by closing the objective cap, and using the illuminated reticle as the aiming dot without any sight picture from the strong eye. A related thing was called the Bindon Aiming Principle by Trijicon even though that's claiming rather too much credit for the idea. Google some of those terms and you may find better descriptions than I am providing you today.



* Unless posting links to products outside the forum is verboten, a few as pure examples:
Just a Burris, the 1-8x24 XTR II but it's well under $1000 as a demo, and so may be okay to try it out https://samplelist.com/burris-1-8x24-xtr-ii-34mm-rifle-scope-demo-b-141357.html
The March 1-10x24, all the way to TEN-X, but it's a bit odd to me, but for something like half of retail as also discontinued
Leupold 1.1-8x24 Mark 8 CQBSS for lots of money, but a lot less than retail.

** Note for the Leupold the 1.1 is not a minus, but just Leupold being more truthful than the usual bear; you never get /exactly/ 1x as far as I know and have seen, so having them admit it makes me happier to know how close they think they got.

 

[cooks]

Ah, I see what you mean. The only "superzoom" I knew of are camera lenses hah, so I was envisioning some sort of add-on ocular to a red dot or something.

I also shoot both eyes open, magnified optic or not. For whatever reason, it actually got easier for me to do so after my concussions. I can now easily sit behind a rifle and flip back and forth between "using" my left and right eye with no strain or disorientation, no having to come off the scope between targets, etc. Wasn't something I could easily do before...

The March 1-10x is firmly outside of my budget at the moment, but something like the burris sounds reasonable. I'm gonna do some more research but I have a feeling I'll probably end up grabbing a 1-8x when I find the one I want for the right price.

Thanks!

 

[Evintos]

How is your astigmatism when it comes to triangles? Have you looked through a triangle reticle Trijicon RMR (model RM08)? I have astigmatism that makes red dots look like an apostrophe only if I focus on the dot. If I focus on the target and "superimpose" the dot, the dot ends up looking like a perfect dot.

 

[cooks]

I have no idea actually. I can't recall ever looking closely at an illuminated triangle hah. 12.9 moa reticle sounds huge, but I know bigger objects tend to appear to distort less for me than small ones. Plus at the distances/speed I want this to perform at, I don't think reticle size is going to be the limiting factor. I'm gonna have to try to find one in a store to look through.