The dot on my Short Dot most definitely increases in size as magnification is increased. It is very evident when shooting in low light on 4X.
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I recall from the Brian Enos forums that the inclusion of RDS's with irons was as much or more due to the fact that the irons division rarely saw more than one or two participants at anything but the largest matches. I recall also reading that the inclusion of RDS's with irons increased match participation in general.
My memory could be bad, though. And what I read may not be accurate, either.
If you are planning on shooting at people outside of your ability to communicate effectively with them, variable or ACOG. :D
If you are planning on finding out who they are and what they want before you shoot them, RDS or irons. :D
This all changes if you are planning on everyone carrying cell phones/walkie talkies/megaphones in your SHTF plans. :p
Seriously, buy the optic that best fits what you do with your rifle 80% of the time and hopefully you will actually use it and be good enough with it to prevail over 95% of the people out there who buy a rifle and take pictures of it and then postulate on how they would use it, if they ever actually took it out of the safe.
That other 5% will get you anyway even if all they had was a rolled up newspaper.:D
The vast majority of the members on this and other forums will never shoot at anything other than paper or steel, although they should be prepared to fight things that go bump in the night. Sometimes we make things way more complicated than they really are.
Then you should return it as defective. If you are unsure what it is really doing, you should use grid paper that indicates a constant size at 100 yrds and work through the power adjustments. It is visually deceiving b/c the dot is appears to be moving closer to your eye and thus getting larger and brighter. In reality it covers the same area down range at 1x and 4x.
Good luck
Well it does long range as good as the ACOG and it does close range as good as a red dot with the exception of akward position shooting.
As for the post who was worried about moving parts. I have seen scopes go through torture tests like the Nightforce for example and keep on ticking. There is an add showing a bullet through a soldiers Nightforce scope and it still worked. So I am not worried about robustness just because its a variable scope.
Pat
As for cost I want the best optic that will give me an edge and help me come home at the end of my shift. I don't care so much how much it costs now as long as I don't end up paying with my life because I went cheap.
Now for weight that is a factor but I have got my rifle down to a weight I can handle so its now a moot point. I would not run a RDS without a magnifier anyway and that would bring the weight up to a comparable level. Like I said the new breed of low power variables are sealing the fate on the ACOG and the older full size red dots. The micro red dots still have a role on light weight weapons and as a back up optic. (such as in conjunction with a low power variable to deal with those akward shots you find so daunting. I can accept that you have come to a different conclusion in your journey. Perhaps its because you did not train hard enough with a variable to become familar with them or you gave up too easily or you went cheap on the quality of the optic. Not sure not my problem. But as for me and my training and testing I have found the low power variables to be the best do all optic out there.
Pat
C'mon Pat, so that means the reticle only appears to be growing and shrinking too?