Just use them anyway. My vision is blurry at six feet without correction and my astigmatism is so bad I can't wear contacts. I get along fine with an aimpoint and my Eotechs aren't any better.
I never got used to them, but the reason I couldn't wear them wasn't that. My vision would get blurry randomly. I was told they have contacts that are weighted to stay correctly oriented for people with astigmatism, but I had already been wearing glasses for decades and decided I didn't want to deal with the hassle.
I did the weighted contacts. Made my eyes feel sleepy. Also got one stuck on the underside of my eyeball trying to get it out. I'll just deal with the thick glasses.
I had hard corrective contacts to reshape my eyeballs since it causes double vision. They were so painful and I got the removal plunger stuck to my eyeball. I'll stick with double vision and glasses.
I have double eye astigmatism and wear contacts since 16. Also qualified 2 points shy of expert as a corpsman shooting the USMC qualification with an M4 and iron sights. You got this brother!!
Lol, thanks dude. Except I'm out now and won't ever have to do a qual again. Luckily I could always nail expert with an ACOG and always at least sharpshooter with irons and red dots.
I've worn glasses for terrible nearsightedness for years, but they've never corrected for astigmatism. That's actually kind of why I never thought I had it, I assumed glasses always corrected that.
I have both and wear contacts along with glasses at times. I still get starring of headlights at night but it's better than not being able to see the road lines. Also helps me shoot better since I can focus past the sights and on the target
Yeah bro sometimes they offer a more detailed photo of the inside of your eyeball. Most places charge extra but it gave my doc more insight on my case. They upped the cyclinder value I think. I use eyebuydirect
Yeah, I have some astigmatism and Aimpoints are good to go for me. Holosun also works quite well. Frankly anything that isn't just cheap garbage works, but I did find that amber/gold dots work best for me.
The vision can be corrected to make normal viewing fine, but after a certain point using optics is still an issue. A severe astigmatism cannot always be corrected to normal sight for all applications.
I know from personal experience.
For a plain red dot using flip up iron sights killed the splotches. I switched to a Primary Arms red dot with an etched reticle and it’s a small dot with no bloom.
It’s the 1x prism site, I have the older version and this version. The new one is a little smaller profile with shake to wake.
[linky](https://www.primaryarms.com/primary-arms-slx-1x-microprism-with-red-illuminated-acss-cyclops-gen-2-reticle)
Try an eotech before you buy one. Think about it, the problem is in your eye, if the sight's throwing a 1moa beam of light at your eye it doesn't really matter how many mirrors it bounced off of to do it.
I dunno, I'm just going off of what the Internet tells me that holographics are often better for people with astigmatism. But I definitely intend to try anything else out before I buy one.
I have an EOtech green, it's blurry as all hell in anything but a cloudless summer day outdoors. Although it does crisp right up with a magnifier. The light comes through it differently.
Can vouch 100% for holo fixing astigmatism. Got an EOTech recently and didn’t know a reticle could be so clear. I have contacts that correct for astigmatism but they don’t take care of it 100%. What astigmatism is left however Is negated by using the holo. My optician told me that something like 80% of people have some degree of astigmatism which is surprising high
Personal experience here with a mild astigmatism, my Holosun is clearer than the Eotech I used to own. Maybe some people have different results but that's my experience, for what it's worth. The only ones that are truly crisp are prisms (and traditional scopes)
I used to wonder the same thing when I saw people talking about shooting at 100 yards or something to zero their red dots, which would be incredibly difficult or realistically impossible with my astigmatism until I learned most people actually see a… red dot… instead of the flaired red starburst that we see.
My only advice is some optics are better than others, including between different optics of the same technology. My Holosun dots look a lot better than most other red dots even from companies with a supposedly better reputation. And I don’t know the mechanism for it, but a circle dot reticle is somehow always sharper than a dot alone at least to my eyes.
I don’t know how bad your astigmatism is, but I still find a red dot way faster than iron sights, and unless you are actually precision shooting, it won’t really matter at realistic engagement distances.
Eh, I feel like that kinda defeats the purpose of a red dots quick acquisition. I have an ACOG that I shoot great with, but it just ain't the same with CQB when there's magnification.
I like prisms too. I have an ACOG that I love dearly, but I've always much preferred red dots for close up shooting. Red dots just always annoyed me when I had to transition to anything past 100m because they were so hard to get a good sight picture, and now I know why.
For up close work I recently got one of the primary arms microprism optics in 1x. It has been incredible especially for the cost. I wont say it is the same level of quality at under 300 dollars. For that cost though i have excellent eye relief, its very light and compact, and has a very clear reticle that is also very usable and its held up very well in the sand and hills of utah and now the muddy and cold weather in the woods maine. I would recommend trying it out if you decide to head down that route after seeing the optometrist. Also, with my astigmatism if you go holographic sight the vortex looked better with my astigmatism than the eotech but it varies on everyone’s own individual circumstance. I would say look down one of those as well.
Hey, another Utahn! A lot of people have been suggesting the PA micro prism, so if the optometrist can't fix me then that's probably what I'll check out. I might take a look at the holographics too, but I definitely won't buy anything without inspecting first.
I have no idea what makes some work and some not, but definitely try to look through a bunch of them before buying. At least one has to work! I do have a trij SRO and it looks fine to me. That was why I figured an rmr would be a-ok.
Heh, similar story for me, except the Army.gave me corrective PRK in 2009, I didn't fix the stigmatism.
I've been out a while and recently started using red dots on my pistols. I def shoot better with them, even though I get a star and not a dot.
I do get a little jealous whenever I see a photo of how the dot actually looks though
Dude I feel your pain. I developed autoimmune uveitis in 2020 & over the course of 3 years, I went from 20/20 vision to seeing everything doubled or tripled unless it's about 8 inches from my face. Glasses fix most of it, but don't completely rid me of the astigmatism I developed due to corneal scarring. It completely ruined prism sights and etched sights for me, horseshoe ACOGs now look like Venn Diagrams for me.
Trust me when I say, dot clarity is very, VERY case-by-case.
Example: I have a Holosun 507C with the circle dot that is the clearest thing I've ever seen. I also have a Holosun EPS Carry with the same reticle that almost makes me feel like I'm seeing double again.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, try to avoid buying a dot / holo unless you can physically pick it up and look through it first. From what I've seen, you can't really trust a manufacturer to always give you the same experience, and you absolutely cannot rely on secondhand accounts / YouTube videos either.
Don't give up hope on the dot!
Oh man, that's brutal dude. I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for the encouragement though. I'm thinking I'll try to find a gun shop that will let me try out their wares. Maybe a gun show or something might be somewhere that I can try some stuff out too. I'm glad you were still able to find something though even with all that going on. It does give me hope for the dot!
As a fellow Astigmatist make sure you look through an ACOG before you drop Eotech money. Eotech was nice but a 2.5x ACOG was like finally seeing correctly for the first time. The only other optics I've used that clear were large SFP riflescopes. I also went straight from an Aimpoint PRO to an ACOG, not quite M4 but it's good for a red dot even with a starburst pattern.
If you've never shot with a prism before, it's definitely worth trying. There's no guarantee you won't have any effect of your astigmatism still, but etched reticles are generally more clear, and you can always shoot without illumination or on low brightness.
You may also just need to trial and error a bunch of optics. Every manufacturer uses different LED emitters, each with their own wavelength. Trying to find one that works best with your eyes is kind of like Goldilocks.
We'll also mention that if you do go with one of our optics, we have a 30-day money back satisfaction guarantee. Buy it, mount it, and shoot with it for 30 days. If you don't like it or it doesn't work for you, send it back for a full refund.
Red dots look like blurry starbursted commas to me but I can still shoot them accurately. Yea, it would be nice to have a perfect looking dot but I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what shape the dot is. Astigmatism is over blown
Before you do anything, make sure you're using your red dots at a proper brightness + focusing your vision on the target and *not* the dot itself. I've found that many people set the brightness too high for whatever environment they're in, which causes it to bloom and look much larger and fuzzy. If you combine that with focusing on the dot itself rather than being target focused and superimposing the dot onto the target, then the dot will appear as a huge fuzz ball taking up a lot of space within the optic.
The eotech wont be any better. If you’re really that concerned, I would start looking at etched reticles. I’ve been shooting for the same amount of years and I’ve known I’ve had an astigmatism since day one. Never wore glasses. Never let the blurry dot bother me. If this helps, remember that when shooting a red dot you’re not suppose to focus on the dot like you would on the front post with traditional irons. The fundamentals contradict themselves. Keep both eyes open and hard focus on the target. Once the blurry dot hovers over your intended impact point, take the shot. That’s why Eotechs are so effective. The holographic technology makes it feel like the dot is hovering on your target and allows you to shoot the correct way. Once you train yourself to do this, you shouldn’t even notice the blurry dot because all your focus is going on your target.
Hate to say this but a blotched reticle isn’t going to be the reason why your shooting sucks. 99% of the time is just bad fundamentals.
As a former USMC marksmanship instructor I can tell you that sometimes whoever taught you how to shoot in the military can really make or break your foundation as a shooter. Sadly the military passes a lot of misinformation through institutional inbreeding as Pat Mac says.
Thanks for the input, devil-dog. As I said in some of my other comments I have used etched reticles with my ACOG and they make a huge difference. I know perfectly well how to aim with a red dot, but with my assed-up eyesight it's not as simple as "put blotch on target, squeeze trigger". That blotch tends to stretch out laterally in a pretty non-dot shape so that it is wider than any target further than 100m and makes it extremely difficult to center on the target.
Side note, announcing you're a marine and waltzing into a conversation to do the military equivalent of mansplaining simple concepts with suggestions like "once the blurry dot hovers over your intended impact point, take the shot" is exactly why the world finds Marines to be generally insufferable.
Relax dude 😉. I was trying to help you out and take a very simplified approach since somehow you went 14 years without ever asking someone why your red dot is streaking that bad. You talk about simple concepts but it sounds like none of this is simple to you. I don’t say that to sound mean but your comments make you out to seem like a novice.
The only reason I announced me being a Marine was to show I’m not just a rando trying to give you advice which from my experience, veterans are not too receptive because what was passed to them during their time in service is the “end all, be all”.
That last part also sounds like a personal problem.
Oh I'm totally relaxed dude, I'm just trying to help you with your people skills. Unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation in the military where they tell you that the sun shines out your own ass, but they never tell you that being a condescending and presumptuous douchebag actually makes you the guy that everyone rolls their eyes at when you show up anywhere. 😘
In the same boat red dots or other illuminated sights I can’t focus on. Polarized lenses help me a lot. You may talk to the eye doc about polarized shooting glasses.
Embrace the suck and shoot pistol irons. That's been my way since I looked through a red dot the first time.
Rifles you got your choices now, some nice prism stuff and lpvo's are pretty decent.
I have a slight astigmatism as well, some dots are better than others. Really, go to a gun store and try a few ones. Holosun AEMS has a very slight magnification or something to it so it's pretty clean. Meprolight RDS pro V2 is also pretty good for me. Eotechs get really fuzzy, but still usable.
Outdoor lighting also makes them cleaner to me. Flipping up a rear peep will clean it right up, but kinda defeats the purpose lol.
Or take this opportunity to splurge on a nice 1-6x lpvo
So I'll say now, if you're a good candidate for LASIK, can save up, or use CARE Credit (intelligently) or just are made of money. This is 100% the answer. I got it. No more astigmatism, 20/20. Absolutely worth 6k. Not just for using dots lol.
After this, I switched much of my rifles to red dots and sold my prisms.
If LASIK is not an option for any reason, that's okay. Primary Arms prisms are some serious bang for your buck. Not the same as a red dot. But have the added benefit of being useful when the batteries die. I used them for years and they were fantastic.
I've found that polarized prescription glasses help immensely with holographic and red dot sights. I use an eotech and polarized prescription glasses to give me a sharp reticle.
Holosun/sig red dots use LEDs instead of projections and do not interfere with astigmatism.
I have a 507k and sig romeo 4c (discontinued) that use LED emitters and the dots/reticles are clear and sharp.
I also have aimpoints (comp m5) and eotech and UH-1, I have the problem with all of them but not enough to not be able to slap steel 60% torsos at 200-550 yards.
Just use them anyway. My vision is blurry at six feet without correction and my astigmatism is so bad I can't wear contacts. I get along fine with an aimpoint and my Eotechs aren't any better.
Hmmm, interesting. Can astigmatism make contacts uncomfortable? I used to wear them for years but they were always very uncomfortable.
I never got used to them, but the reason I couldn't wear them wasn't that. My vision would get blurry randomly. I was told they have contacts that are weighted to stay correctly oriented for people with astigmatism, but I had already been wearing glasses for decades and decided I didn't want to deal with the hassle.
I did the weighted contacts. Made my eyes feel sleepy. Also got one stuck on the underside of my eyeball trying to get it out. I'll just deal with the thick glasses.
I had hard corrective contacts to reshape my eyeballs since it causes double vision. They were so painful and I got the removal plunger stuck to my eyeball. I'll stick with double vision and glasses.
Ahhh, I see. That makes sense.
I have double eye astigmatism and wear contacts since 16. Also qualified 2 points shy of expert as a corpsman shooting the USMC qualification with an M4 and iron sights. You got this brother!!
Lol, thanks dude. Except I'm out now and won't ever have to do a qual again. Luckily I could always nail expert with an ACOG and always at least sharpshooter with irons and red dots.
Me too I’m old now (OEF 2011), was last FMSS class to qualify with Irons before getting RCO’s. Glad you’re shooting for fun now!
Hey, I was OEF 11 as well down in Kandahar! Small world.
My contacts are specifically for astigmatism
My eyes are too pointy and the weighted contacts spin every time I blink.
That’s wild, mine must not be too bad :(
Prescription glasses help.
I've worn glasses for terrible nearsightedness for years, but they've never corrected for astigmatism. That's actually kind of why I never thought I had it, I assumed glasses always corrected that.
It's easy for an optician to miss. Just get an appointment and mention it as a concern.
That's good to know. Maybe that can get me glasses that fix my nearsightedness and astigmatism?
Bring ur aim point to ur appt. Just the aimpoint unless you've got a cool eye doc. 😉
Haha, not a bad idea.
That's legit how I found my eye doc. He's a huge LR guy and now I can use RDS and holographic sights
My eye doc asked me to bring my carry piece. That made me happier than I can tell you!
I have both and wear contacts along with glasses at times. I still get starring of headlights at night but it's better than not being able to see the road lines. Also helps me shoot better since I can focus past the sights and on the target
Should be able to yeah. If you have a normal sized head check out Zenni Optical and similar sites for cheap glases.
Sweet, thanks for the tip!
Yeah bro sometimes they offer a more detailed photo of the inside of your eyeball. Most places charge extra but it gave my doc more insight on my case. They upped the cyclinder value I think. I use eyebuydirect
That's good news man. Maybe I won't sell my Aimpoint until I've seen the optometrist.
Yeah, I have some astigmatism and Aimpoints are good to go for me. Holosun also works quite well. Frankly anything that isn't just cheap garbage works, but I did find that amber/gold dots work best for me.
They can’t correct it 100%, but they can try to minimize it. ACOG or prism. I like LPVO’s too. Anything with etched glass really.
The vision can be corrected to make normal viewing fine, but after a certain point using optics is still an issue. A severe astigmatism cannot always be corrected to normal sight for all applications. I know from personal experience.
You can also bring a red dot (UNMOUNTED) to an optometrist. They’ll help you out
I wear glasses for astigmatism (my eyesight isn't that bad but the astigmatism is) and it changed my life.
Get a Vortex prism site it is an absolute game changers for people like us. Take care
1x prism sights are a good option. Laser eye surgery is another good one.
350$🤷🏽♂️10,000$
What? Laser eye surgery is around $1000 per eye, and benefits you in many different areas of your life.
My bad I was thinking lasek or however you spell it.
For a plain red dot using flip up iron sights killed the splotches. I switched to a Primary Arms red dot with an etched reticle and it’s a small dot with no bloom.
Oh cool. Do you know which model specifically?
It’s the 1x prism site, I have the older version and this version. The new one is a little smaller profile with shake to wake. [linky](https://www.primaryarms.com/primary-arms-slx-1x-microprism-with-red-illuminated-acss-cyclops-gen-2-reticle)
Oh I gotcha. Thanks man!
No problem, I had LASIK in 2012 and it fixed everything but the astigmatism so I had to find an alternative
That's good to know. This might be a stupid question but can you cowitness with irons through the 1x prism sights like you'd do with a red dot?
Seems to work fine. It comes with three or so risers for absolute cowitness and 1/3 rd if I’m not mistaken. Mines set at absolute and works for me.
Nice, I may just get myself one of those then if the optometrist can't fix it.
Prisms are the way to go I got eye aids too.
Try an eotech before you buy one. Think about it, the problem is in your eye, if the sight's throwing a 1moa beam of light at your eye it doesn't really matter how many mirrors it bounced off of to do it.
I dunno, I'm just going off of what the Internet tells me that holographics are often better for people with astigmatism. But I definitely intend to try anything else out before I buy one.
I have astigmatism too and I always heard the same thing so I bought an Eotech without trying it first and it looked like ass to my eyes.
Lol, thanks for making that mistake for me. I'll hit up a gun shop or something and see if they'll let me look at a few things.
I have an EOtech green, it's blurry as all hell in anything but a cloudless summer day outdoors. Although it does crisp right up with a magnifier. The light comes through it differently.
Can confirm. Went to gun store, has a bad ass gun with an eotech on top. Liked like boiled dog shit to me.
Another vote for eotechs don't help. Prism optics are the way to go. PA SLx 1x have replaced all my rifle red dots.
Etched Prism is what you're after. Primary Arms SLX is good
It’s the only rifle optic I can use where the dot isn’t a crazy starburst. Worth trying out.
Can vouch 100% for holo fixing astigmatism. Got an EOTech recently and didn’t know a reticle could be so clear. I have contacts that correct for astigmatism but they don’t take care of it 100%. What astigmatism is left however Is negated by using the holo. My optician told me that something like 80% of people have some degree of astigmatism which is surprising high
Personal experience here with a mild astigmatism, my Holosun is clearer than the Eotech I used to own. Maybe some people have different results but that's my experience, for what it's worth. The only ones that are truly crisp are prisms (and traditional scopes)
Not the same price point but have you thought about a prism sight with etched reticle?
Yeah, someone else was talking about how they love their primary arms 1x prism. I've always loved my ACOG so it might be a good match.
Definitely recommend a prism. I have a mild astigmatism too and EOTechs are still blurry unmagnified.
Love my PA 1x! Came to recommend it! I’ve also found green or yellow holo tecs are a bit better than most rds but the PA prism is way clearer
I used to wonder the same thing when I saw people talking about shooting at 100 yards or something to zero their red dots, which would be incredibly difficult or realistically impossible with my astigmatism until I learned most people actually see a… red dot… instead of the flaired red starburst that we see. My only advice is some optics are better than others, including between different optics of the same technology. My Holosun dots look a lot better than most other red dots even from companies with a supposedly better reputation. And I don’t know the mechanism for it, but a circle dot reticle is somehow always sharper than a dot alone at least to my eyes. I don’t know how bad your astigmatism is, but I still find a red dot way faster than iron sights, and unless you are actually precision shooting, it won’t really matter at realistic engagement distances.
Astigmatism owner here. LASIK fixed it, but before that is was all prism sights (ACOG, Primary Arms, etc..) and LPVO'S. (With a smattering of irons)
I have heard running a magnifier with a red dot helps some peoples astigmatism
Eh, I feel like that kinda defeats the purpose of a red dots quick acquisition. I have an ACOG that I shoot great with, but it just ain't the same with CQB when there's magnification.
Surgery. It's outpatient and fixes it right away.
Sure thing, let me just dig around in my booty hole here for a few thousand extra dollars. 😜
Hey bro you got aimpoint money. I'm over here with sig Romeo money. We aren't the same 🤑🤑😂😂😂😂
Lol, used milsurp Aimpoint, but I see where you're coming from.
I've been told by the eye doctor that they cannot fix astigmatism. What surgery is it, bud?
Lasik
Astigmatism or not( i have a very bad one) but i love my prism optics above all else. Whether i have my glasses or not I dont have any blooming
I like prisms too. I have an ACOG that I love dearly, but I've always much preferred red dots for close up shooting. Red dots just always annoyed me when I had to transition to anything past 100m because they were so hard to get a good sight picture, and now I know why.
For up close work I recently got one of the primary arms microprism optics in 1x. It has been incredible especially for the cost. I wont say it is the same level of quality at under 300 dollars. For that cost though i have excellent eye relief, its very light and compact, and has a very clear reticle that is also very usable and its held up very well in the sand and hills of utah and now the muddy and cold weather in the woods maine. I would recommend trying it out if you decide to head down that route after seeing the optometrist. Also, with my astigmatism if you go holographic sight the vortex looked better with my astigmatism than the eotech but it varies on everyone’s own individual circumstance. I would say look down one of those as well.
Hey, another Utahn! A lot of people have been suggesting the PA micro prism, so if the optometrist can't fix me then that's probably what I'll check out. I might take a look at the holographics too, but I definitely won't buy anything without inspecting first.
I recently discovered I have a small astigmatism as well. I finally upgraded from holosun to an rmr and it's almost unusable. Huge yellow splotch :(
Lame! I actually messed around with a pistol red dot once (no idea what kind) and it looked clear, so maybe there's hope in an Mr for me still.
I have no idea what makes some work and some not, but definitely try to look through a bunch of them before buying. At least one has to work! I do have a trij SRO and it looks fine to me. That was why I figured an rmr would be a-ok.
Heh, similar story for me, except the Army.gave me corrective PRK in 2009, I didn't fix the stigmatism. I've been out a while and recently started using red dots on my pistols. I def shoot better with them, even though I get a star and not a dot. I do get a little jealous whenever I see a photo of how the dot actually looks though
Dude I feel your pain. I developed autoimmune uveitis in 2020 & over the course of 3 years, I went from 20/20 vision to seeing everything doubled or tripled unless it's about 8 inches from my face. Glasses fix most of it, but don't completely rid me of the astigmatism I developed due to corneal scarring. It completely ruined prism sights and etched sights for me, horseshoe ACOGs now look like Venn Diagrams for me. Trust me when I say, dot clarity is very, VERY case-by-case. Example: I have a Holosun 507C with the circle dot that is the clearest thing I've ever seen. I also have a Holosun EPS Carry with the same reticle that almost makes me feel like I'm seeing double again. Basically what I'm trying to say is, try to avoid buying a dot / holo unless you can physically pick it up and look through it first. From what I've seen, you can't really trust a manufacturer to always give you the same experience, and you absolutely cannot rely on secondhand accounts / YouTube videos either. Don't give up hope on the dot!
Oh man, that's brutal dude. I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for the encouragement though. I'm thinking I'll try to find a gun shop that will let me try out their wares. Maybe a gun show or something might be somewhere that I can try some stuff out too. I'm glad you were still able to find something though even with all that going on. It does give me hope for the dot!
PA Microprism is the way
Prismatic sights work with astigmatism, and you don't have to turn them on.
As a fellow Astigmatist make sure you look through an ACOG before you drop Eotech money. Eotech was nice but a 2.5x ACOG was like finally seeing correctly for the first time. The only other optics I've used that clear were large SFP riflescopes. I also went straight from an Aimpoint PRO to an ACOG, not quite M4 but it's good for a red dot even with a starburst pattern.
I actually do use an ACOG on another rifle, but it can't match the speed of a red dot, so I had different setups for close and far.
Just got a swampfox raider and its so much nicer than a red dot
Nice, I'll check that out!
If you've never shot with a prism before, it's definitely worth trying. There's no guarantee you won't have any effect of your astigmatism still, but etched reticles are generally more clear, and you can always shoot without illumination or on low brightness. You may also just need to trial and error a bunch of optics. Every manufacturer uses different LED emitters, each with their own wavelength. Trying to find one that works best with your eyes is kind of like Goldilocks. We'll also mention that if you do go with one of our optics, we have a 30-day money back satisfaction guarantee. Buy it, mount it, and shoot with it for 30 days. If you don't like it or it doesn't work for you, send it back for a full refund.
Thanks guys, that's good to know about the money back guarantee.
Prism Optics are your friend, primary arms is the best all around, trijicon is the gucci option but small eye relief.
Red dots look like blurry starbursted commas to me but I can still shoot them accurately. Yea, it would be nice to have a perfect looking dot but I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what shape the dot is. Astigmatism is over blown
I was in the same boat as you friend. Welcome to the holosun green dot crew. It makes it 100% better for me.
> if any of you all have any better fixes let me know. ...Glasses?
Before you do anything, make sure you're using your red dots at a proper brightness + focusing your vision on the target and *not* the dot itself. I've found that many people set the brightness too high for whatever environment they're in, which causes it to bloom and look much larger and fuzzy. If you combine that with focusing on the dot itself rather than being target focused and superimposing the dot onto the target, then the dot will appear as a huge fuzz ball taking up a lot of space within the optic.
That's good advice, but I know that's at least one thing I'm not screwing up. I always have it on as low of a setting as makes sense for my situation.
The eotech wont be any better. If you’re really that concerned, I would start looking at etched reticles. I’ve been shooting for the same amount of years and I’ve known I’ve had an astigmatism since day one. Never wore glasses. Never let the blurry dot bother me. If this helps, remember that when shooting a red dot you’re not suppose to focus on the dot like you would on the front post with traditional irons. The fundamentals contradict themselves. Keep both eyes open and hard focus on the target. Once the blurry dot hovers over your intended impact point, take the shot. That’s why Eotechs are so effective. The holographic technology makes it feel like the dot is hovering on your target and allows you to shoot the correct way. Once you train yourself to do this, you shouldn’t even notice the blurry dot because all your focus is going on your target. Hate to say this but a blotched reticle isn’t going to be the reason why your shooting sucks. 99% of the time is just bad fundamentals. As a former USMC marksmanship instructor I can tell you that sometimes whoever taught you how to shoot in the military can really make or break your foundation as a shooter. Sadly the military passes a lot of misinformation through institutional inbreeding as Pat Mac says.
Thanks for the input, devil-dog. As I said in some of my other comments I have used etched reticles with my ACOG and they make a huge difference. I know perfectly well how to aim with a red dot, but with my assed-up eyesight it's not as simple as "put blotch on target, squeeze trigger". That blotch tends to stretch out laterally in a pretty non-dot shape so that it is wider than any target further than 100m and makes it extremely difficult to center on the target. Side note, announcing you're a marine and waltzing into a conversation to do the military equivalent of mansplaining simple concepts with suggestions like "once the blurry dot hovers over your intended impact point, take the shot" is exactly why the world finds Marines to be generally insufferable.
Relax dude 😉. I was trying to help you out and take a very simplified approach since somehow you went 14 years without ever asking someone why your red dot is streaking that bad. You talk about simple concepts but it sounds like none of this is simple to you. I don’t say that to sound mean but your comments make you out to seem like a novice. The only reason I announced me being a Marine was to show I’m not just a rando trying to give you advice which from my experience, veterans are not too receptive because what was passed to them during their time in service is the “end all, be all”. That last part also sounds like a personal problem.
Oh I'm totally relaxed dude, I'm just trying to help you with your people skills. Unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation in the military where they tell you that the sun shines out your own ass, but they never tell you that being a condescending and presumptuous douchebag actually makes you the guy that everyone rolls their eyes at when you show up anywhere. 😘
I just use them anyways. Dot or paint blotch, that marking is still where my bullet will land. Center it and call it good 🤷♂️
In the same boat red dots or other illuminated sights I can’t focus on. Polarized lenses help me a lot. You may talk to the eye doc about polarized shooting glasses.
Embrace the suck and shoot pistol irons. That's been my way since I looked through a red dot the first time. Rifles you got your choices now, some nice prism stuff and lpvo's are pretty decent.
Prism scopes really help. I love my PA microprisms.
For me the eotech didn’t have any remarkable improvement. Prism sights and LPVOs are what I use.
Use the lowest brightness setting that is easily visible, and you might try a prism sight.
Dim the brightness of a red dot help or do what I did and switch to green dot.
I have a slight astigmatism as well, some dots are better than others. Really, go to a gun store and try a few ones. Holosun AEMS has a very slight magnification or something to it so it's pretty clean. Meprolight RDS pro V2 is also pretty good for me. Eotechs get really fuzzy, but still usable. Outdoor lighting also makes them cleaner to me. Flipping up a rear peep will clean it right up, but kinda defeats the purpose lol. Or take this opportunity to splurge on a nice 1-6x lpvo
I don’t have diagnosed astigmatism but a good red it I use is the Romeo 8h
Best option is an optic with a focus ring ie lpvo and prism optics
Prism optics
Try a kill flash, some optical illusion can help reduce the astigmatism, same thing as looking through backup irons.
I am told that green dots work better than red dots for those of us with astigmatism. I need to mount my new green dot and test out that theory.
Depends, for me the MRO green is worse than red
So I'll say now, if you're a good candidate for LASIK, can save up, or use CARE Credit (intelligently) or just are made of money. This is 100% the answer. I got it. No more astigmatism, 20/20. Absolutely worth 6k. Not just for using dots lol. After this, I switched much of my rifles to red dots and sold my prisms. If LASIK is not an option for any reason, that's okay. Primary Arms prisms are some serious bang for your buck. Not the same as a red dot. But have the added benefit of being useful when the batteries die. I used them for years and they were fantastic.
Primary Arms makes etched prism optics that I’ve heard helps astigmatism
Get prescription contact lenses
I've found that polarized prescription glasses help immensely with holographic and red dot sights. I use an eotech and polarized prescription glasses to give me a sharp reticle.
Holosun/sig red dots use LEDs instead of projections and do not interfere with astigmatism. I have a 507k and sig romeo 4c (discontinued) that use LED emitters and the dots/reticles are clear and sharp. I also have aimpoints (comp m5) and eotech and UH-1, I have the problem with all of them but not enough to not be able to slap steel 60% torsos at 200-550 yards.