Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Red dots on riflescopes

What's the deal with these? I've seen an influx of this setup lately. Anyone else?
Are you referring to red dot attached to the regular scope? If so, sure that comes from tactical shooting. Really has no place in the hunting world other than to get more "likes" on the gram. Maybe it is because they have a too high of a power scope and they can't see nothing but hair at 30 yds.
 
I dont have one and cant justify one but could see how itd be a nice feature if you were hunting woods with 4/5x min magnification and only had one rifle. Just gives you a 1x point of aim.

The battery life on most modern quality red dots is 10k-50k hours...
 
Better to get 2 scopes. 1-6 and a 4-20 or whatever. Mount them in Warne QR rings. LPV for the woods work, swap it out for the Long Ranger when the time comes.
 
I have scopes with illuminated red dot in them. Never used the illumination though.
And a Henry Single Shot that because I have a hard time seeing the open sights, I put a green dot on.

But a separate red dot and a scope, both mounted on the rifle?

Can we say "Tacticool Mall Ninja"?
 
My buddy put one on his deer shotgun (Illinois).
Opening day about daylight he texts me to say he's running to town because the batteries in his scope were dead.
He probably ran out of gas on the way back to town to buy those batteries he should have put in new before the season. I have a buddy like that. Always need batteries in the middle of a hunt. I dont have any hunting rifles with iluminated reticles or dots. I do have other firearms with illumination. I change out the batteries on every piece of equipment on the same day every year. And I keep a box in my truck with a spare battery for everything that needs one that goes hunting.
 
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Scopes with red dots are very helpful when hunting in extremely thick and dark jungle environments like my picture above from Equatorial Africa. I used the camp rental .375 H&H with a low, magnification Leupold red dot scope on my bongo and forest sitatunga hunt in the jungles of southeast Cameroon, Africa this past May.

The PH told me beforehand to always keep the red dot scope illuminated while hunting. He was right and I am glad that I listened to him. The 4 shots at the bongo were all under 15 yards and I still could barely see the bull in the thick underbrush.

We also used the same rifle and scope a few days later to kill a forest sitatunga at an open savanna/pond at about 80 yards. Great rifle and optics. Happy hunting to all, TheGrayRider a/k/a Tom.


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IIRC Leupold illum dots turn off after so many minutes. Otherwise it would behoove the shooter to turn it off themselves, tho it's easy to forget.
 
I think I read somewhere it was meant for target acquisition, like if you were to max out your magnification, shot and lost the animal in the scope, you could use that to help relocate the animal.
 
I think I read somewhere it was meant for target acquisition, like if you were to max out your magnification, shot and lost the animal in the scope, you could use that to help relocate the animal.
Ive seen guys at a range here that use them on spotting scopes too.
 
Calling coyotes it might have its advantages when you have one pop up at 30 yards on a dead run
 
I have a red dot on a .350 legend. For kids the red dot has advantages with no worries about eye relief. For inside of 50 yards it is a very fast setup.
 
Yeeeeeahhhhh.....
I'm absolutely certain that these put a scope at the right level for your eye.
NOT!!

I've been shaking my head since the 1980's at these.

If you ever see a set on a rifle that I own, please kick me in the coconuts!! 🤪

I never said it was a good idea! lol. I inherited a few guns with those rings, can't see a damned thing through them
 
I bought a couple with the red dot because people online recommended them. So far, I haven't turned the dot on. I just don't hunt in thick woods much.
 

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