Quote Originally Posted by maximus83 View Post
What are your thoughts on the role of a magnifier behind a red dot that has no ballistic holdovers, no reticle? Is it basically to let you get more precise hits within the MPBR of the zeroed rifle?

I've never run one of these red dot magnifiers, but if trying to choose between this and an LPVO for a new rifle, having a hard time thinking of the incentive to go this route. Maybe weight and cost savings, depending on what LPVO you get? Plus the SLIGHT possible advantage of a true red dot at close range?
Just to butt in here for fun, let's look at the size of the dot as a quick reference in comparison to the 5.56 BDC used in our JM-1 reticle of the Razor HD Gen II 1-6x

- Assuming we're using a micro red dot with a 2 MOA dot, if you zeroed your dot at 50 yards at the top of the dot, you're going to be on steel all the way out to 200 yards. Assuming that 2.4 MOA drop on the first has of the JM-1 is solid for your 300 with your ballistics, that means you just hold barely under the bottom of the dot at 300 and, again, you're hitting steel. Even out to 400 yards, that's a 5.6 MOA holdover, so hold a dot and a half-ish over the target and it should be good enough for larger steel silhouettes. Understanding, too, this is all just with 3x in comparison to the Razor HD's 6x on the high end, which helps when its BDC goes way out to 600. Take a dot with a 4 MOA dot, zero the top of that dot at 50 yards and its on out to 200, hold middle of dot at 300, just under bottom of dot at 400 and a little more than two dots over at 500 and you could be ringing steel.

Any time you have a reticle or literally any consistent feature in front of you, it can be used for measurements and be used for holdovers. Not saying it's better or worse than an LPVO because that's entirely user preference. The LPVO is designed more around the idea of stretching out to those intermediate distances whereas the magnifier is designed to allow you to still maximize your performance close up with the red dot/holographic sight, which is undeniably always going to be the best true 1x experience, while giving you just a slight boost when things stretch out a bit.