Comparative Study of Red Dot Sight Parallax

[jellydonut]

ETA: Saying its a clue, that a Unit, that prides itself on not making things public, hasn't publicly spoken about it, doesn't make much sense. I wonder what optic those sorts are currently using...

I realize this is a rhetorical question but I'm going to go ahead and add the chaser.

Hmm, truly a mystery..

Could it be..

My, my, would you look at that!

Really makes you think..

[NH Shooter]

Friend of mine (swat cop, avid 3 gun competitor) got to shoot at a major match in 2 different divisions. One gun had a Sworovski LPVO, other gun had an Aimpoint T2. One particular stage had two plate racks at 100 yards. My friend said he had a much easier time shooting the plate racks with the red dot than the LPVO (which was also at 1x). That was somewhat surprising.

Not surprising the LPVO had the advantage on the longer distance targets.

I think the actual brand/model of the LPV has significant impact on its performance, especially at the lowest magnification. Also with excellent eyesight (and no astigmatism) I'm sure one can become mighty proficient with a RDS. But for those of us with eyesight deficiencies, I have found that an etched reticle provides a sharper, better-defined aiming point. A short experience with a Leupold Prismatic, as well as three different LPVs proved that in my case (with my eyesight) to be true beyond any doubt.

I've owned three Aimpoints over the course of my shooting career: an ancient Mark III back in the 80s that was mounted on a High Standard .22 target pistol for use in a Bullseye league, and a Comp M3 and a PRO used on ARs. Along the way there was an Eotech 512 too. But as my eyesight changed with age, the red "dot" became anything but a dot, though viewing the dot through the rear sight aperture helps.

But my eyesight has become a moving target. I was diagnosed near-sighted in first grade and that conditioned worsened for the next 45 years. Then about 10 years ago as I began to suffer with presbyopia my near-sightedness began to improve, with my corrective lens prescription getting dialed back with each visit. Today, I'm still near-sighted but not nearly as badly as I have been for most of my life. I could easily function in every day life with no corrective lenses at all, and in fact have come to prefer shooting with no corrective lenses. The diopter on my precision rifle scope is adjusted for my naked eye and the view through it (both reticle and target) is spectacular.

Here's now the case with iron sights on my carbine: with no corrective lenses the front post is sharp and due to looking through the aperture, the target is reasonably sharp as well, without having to force my focus to the front post. At the same time, my astigmatism has grown much worse, making the 2 MOA dot in the PRO look like a 6 MOA smear. I'd love to make a RDS work as well for me as it does for others, but with my eyesight I'm left wondering if it's time to accept that I may no longer be able to do so. It would still be my first choice for mowing down zombies in the front yard, but for anything else not so much...

Growing old, a trip one can only appreciate the implications of after they have arrived... :-(

[NH Shooter]

My, my, would you look at that!

Now I'm really confused: RDS or LPV? :-0

[dopushups]

Sort of old issue. Guy who started it is the only voice making an issue. Gained a lot of looks,yet he is the only one, particularly from that community making an issue. This should be a clue. I have yet to see any support from his former unit folks in this. From the cop side we call this a clue.
Everything with glass has some parallax. Most red dots that are true 1x do not have a issue worth “banning” them.

I've watched this thread the last couple days and figure it is time to join in.

Couple inaccuracies here.

First- I'm not really making this an issue. The internet did. I did the study because some in the community were upset by my not allowing one optic in one course.

Second- You make an suggestion here that this was done for publicity. I know you have been involved with threads on other sites where you know that I took steps to ensure this was not a point of contention. One of the main ones was releasing a clean report on the other firums, without any links to my website. I also delayed any social media posting on it for 48hrs- which as most know is the sweet spot for those looking to generate views.

Third- There are other Unit folks that educate students on this issue. Many consulted on the report. Many well known competition shooters and instructors did as well. However- they all refuse to publicly state the issue they have personally seen in courses and ONLY mention it in courses- many accompanying it with the entire class doing a "story board" live shoot to see the actual affects. The reason for this is because of comments like this and the ensuing drama that is accompanied by the emotional response and some of the more toxic forums. You won't see any public support for the article because most Unit guys in the industry do not enjoy hopping into internet conversations like this or the forums in general. Before anyone asks- no I won't drop names, if they want to join the circus- that will be their choice.

Fourth- ""everything with glass has parallax" is not a useful statement. Unless you don't care about inaccuracies or how they combine with other inaccuracies to form compounding inaccuracy. That would be like saying "all bullets have drop, it doesn't matter".

So, either way- you should care or don't. If you think the results of the report are BS- then the protocols used are available for download. You can replicate it and produce date that disproves the results. If that isn't your contention and you think it doesn't matter- that's fine as well. It is simply data. It is no differnt that battery life, size, weight, form factor, light transmittance, etc. You decide whether the capabilities, limitations and characteristics meet the requirements for your useage and make the call on the equipment.

I think some are taking this report, which only measures one aspect of an optic, as a buyers guide. It is not and should not be taken that way. It should also not be taken as an absolute representation as real world performance. Some of the optics tested consistently with observed performance, some did not. The MRO is a prime example. Its test results were horrible. That being said- I have yet to see a student with an MRO exhibit any significant POI shift between groups. The main reason for this- is that the degree of aiming dot deviation as it related to the degree of view angle was not measured. The main reson for this, is that we wanted the test to be as simple as possible to allow for anyone to replicate it. This worked out very well because, as you can see in the report, we had numerous remote testers including: an Army SFG, a few SWAT Teams, individual LE officers, and civilians. (In case those in this thread were unaware, to avoid any perceptions of bias- I did not peresonally involve myself in any of the testing. The volunteer testers elected its own test administers within the group and ran the tests. I just entered the results into the spreadheets to produce the graphs and averages.) At what point a dot starts to move during what degree of viewing angle is a pretty important consideration. And it does vary. Here is a quick video I did showing the movement of 4 of the optics that were tested in the report- an EXPS 3,0, a T-1, an MRO, and an LCO:



If you slow down the video or pause it at points, you can clearly see some optics will start to deviate immediately after departing from the centered axis of view. Some of the optics were more sensitive to lateral movement, some to horizontal, etc. All were different.

This shouldn't be an emotional point of contention. It is just data. Either it is valid or invalid. Either it matters or it doesn't. It isn't a buyers guide. There were no "winners". The sole reason I did the report was not to justify a descision I made for one course, because I don't need to do that. The hope was to change something in the industry. That thing was this very conversation. People get emotionally attached to gear. Broad statemants are made about what people should or shouldn't use without any hard data to back it up or without knowing the users specific requirements. A lot of this is due to the fact that not a lot of actual testing data gets released from the .gov or .mil circles. The goal was to raise the bar a bit and encourage guys that didn't agree with the report to actually go out and replicate it to disprove it. I would be honestly very happy if someone did. The most simple way to defuse some of the industry toxicity, brand fanboys, and general marketing hype is to foster an approach to equipment evaluation that removes emotions from the equation.

[Sigfan26]

I've watched this thread the last couple days and figure it is time to join in.

Couple inaccuracies here.

First- I'm not really making this an issue. The internet did. I did the study because some in the community were upset by my not allowing one optic in one course.

Second- You make an suggestion here that this was done for publicity. I know you have been involved with threads on other sites where you know that I took steps to ensure this was not a point of contention. One of the main ones was releasing a clean report on the other firums, without any links to my website. I also delayed any social media posting on it for 48hrs- which as most know is the sweet spot for those looking to generate views.

Third- There are other Unit folks that educate students on this issue. Many consulted on the report. Many well known competition shooters and instructors did as well. However- they all refuse to publicly state the issue they have personally seen in courses and ONLY mention it in courses- many accompanying it with the entire class doing a "story board" live shoot to see the actual affects. The reason for this is because of comments like this and the ensuing drama that is accompanied by the emotional response and some of the more toxic forums. You won't see any public support for the article because most Unit guys in the industry do not enjoy hopping into internet conversations like this or the forums in general. Before anyone asks- no I won't drop names, if they want to join the circus- that will be their choice.

Fourth- ""everything with glass has parallax" is not a useful statement. Unless you don't care about inaccuracies or how they combine with other inaccuracies to form compounding inaccuracy. That would be like saying "all bullets have drop, it doesn't matter".

So, either way- you should care or don't. If you think the results of the report are BS- then the protocols used are available for download. You can replicate it and produce date that disproves the results. If that isn't your contention and you think it doesn't matter- that's fine as well. It is simply data. It is no differnt that battery life, size, weight, form factor, light transmittance, etc. You decide whether the capabilities, limitations and characteristics meet the requirements for your useage and make the call on the equipment.

I think some are taking this report, which only measures one aspect of an optic, as a buyers guide. It is not and should not be taken that way. It should also not be taken as an absolute representation as real world performance. Some of the optics tested consistently with observed performance, some did not. The MRO is a prime example. Its test results were horrible. That being said- I have yet to see a student with an MRO exhibit any significant POI shift between groups. The main reason for this- is that the degree of aiming dot deviation as it related to the degree of view angle was not measured. The main reson for this, is that we wanted the test to be as simple as possible to allow for anyone to replicate it. This worked out very well because, as you can see in the report, we had numerous remote testers including: an Army SFG, a few SWAT Teams, individual LE officers, and civilians. (In case those in this thread were unaware, to avoid any perceptions of bias- I did not peresonally involve myself in any of the testing. The volunteer testers elected its own test administers within the group and ran the tests. I just entered the results into the spreadheets to produce the graphs and averages.) At what point a dot starts to move during what degree of viewing angle is a pretty important consideration. And it does vary. Here is a quick video I did showing the movement of 4 of the optics that were tested in the report- an EXPS 3,0, a T-1, an MRO, and an LCO:



If you slow down the video or pause it at points, you can clearly see some optics will start to deviate immediately after departing from the centered axis of view. Some of the optics were more sensitive to lateral movement, some to horizontal, etc. All were different.

This shouldn't be an emotional point of contention. It is just data. Either it is valid or invalid. Either it matters or it doesn't. It isn't a buyers guide. There were no "winners". The sole reason I did the report was not to justify a descision I made for one course, because I don't need to do that. The hope was to change something in the industry. That thing was this very conversation. People get emotionally attached to gear. Broad statemants are made about what people should or shouldn't use without any hard data to back it up or without knowing the users specific requirements. A lot of this is due to the fact that not a lot of actual testing data gets released from the .gov or .mil circles. The goal was to raise the bar a bit and encourage guys that didn't agree with the report to actually go out and replicate it to disprove it. I would be honestly very happy if someone did. The most simple way to defuse some of the industry toxicity, brand fanboys, and general marketing hype is to foster an approach to equipment evaluation that removes emotions from the equation.

Sorry if I am interpreting the video incorrectly, but it appears the parallax is negligible? Is it really a serious consideration?


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[dopushups]

@dopushups, sorry for the delay approving your post. I’ve been away from the internet for the majority of the day.

No worries, thanks

[dopushups]

Sorry if I am interpreting the video incorrectly, but it appears the parallax is negligible? Is it really a serious consideration?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So, your response is really a perfect summary of the entire discussion.

Whether it is negligible or if it is a serious consideration entirely depends on you. It is only data. In the end, you have to decide if it is significant for your purposes. The same could be said of quality of ammunition, your barrel, etc. If an aiming dot deviating out of the black circle you see in the video is acceptable, then it is negligible. Your normal usage of the rifle, if it is mainly sport/competition, may not incur the possibility of an imperfect head position to the extent of someone that may find themselves in full kit needing to engage under a vehicle in a rollover position or with a pro mask on. That is why I mentioned that it is just data that you may or may not consider when you evaluate equipment.

[Sigfan26]

So, your response is really a perfect summary of the entire discussion.

Whether it is negligible or if it is a serious consideration entirely depends on you. It is only data. In the end, you have to decide if it is significant for your purposes. The same could be said of quality of ammunition, your barrel, etc. If an aiming dot deviating out of the black circle you see in the video is acceptable, then it is negligible. Your normal usage of the rifle, if it is mainly sport/competition, may not incur the possibility of an imperfect head position to the extent of someone that may find themselves in full kit needing to engage under a vehicle in a rollover position or with a pro mask on. That is why I mentioned that it is just data that you may or may not consider when you evaluate equipment.

I really appreciate the info! What red dots would you recommend that don’t have this issue.


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[dopushups]

I really appreciate the info! What red dots would you recommend that don’t have this issue.


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I tend to not blind recommend equipment without knowing the users intended use, environment, requirements, etc. Different optics have their strengths and weaknesses, so the answer could change based on that information

[Sigfan26]

I tend to not blind recommend equipment without knowing the users intended use, environment, requirements, etc. Different optics have their strengths and weaknesses, so the answer could change based on that information

Intermediate range to CQB with possible magnifier use.


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