Not sure if I'll ever be able to use a red dot sight on my Sport. Here's what I've tried so far...
1. Vortex Strikefire 2 w/5 MOA dot. Nothing but squiggles for the dot. Sent it back.
2. Aimpoint Pro w/2 MOA dot. The dot looked like an < sign with lines that would occasionally run through it. The oddly shaped < sign would cover a 10 inch target at 50 yards. Not good. Sent that back also.
I have looked through a EoTech with a 65 MOA circle and 1 MOA dot. The circle looks like a coil spring bent into a circle and the 1 MOA dot looks like a < but at least there's no lines running through it.
I even went as far as going to an optometrist to have my eyes checked. While I do wear contact lenses, I do not have an astigmatism. Anyone else have these problems? Any solutions? Or should I just resign myself to sticking with a regular scope. BTW. Age 67, and before you young guys make fun, remember we all get old.

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It's Alive !!

Sure. Without my distance corrective glasses all red dot optics look horrible. With the glasses they look just fine. With reading glasses the dot also looks horrible.

Been using red dot optics on a lot of my recreational guns for the last ten years. It turns a struggle with iron sights into a pleasure to shoot with the red dot.

Hell, I have a hard enough time focusing on the front post of an iron sight without distance lenses, let alone a red dot.

*raises hand*

I have an astigmatism. I have issues perceiving LED dots. I hit 40 years old this year, and needed bi-focals. With my contacts, the dot is still a little fuzzy. With my glasses, I have to cock my head back to look through the bifocal then look through the dot.

What I do now is I wear my contacts. On my shooting glasses, I stick an OPTX bi-focal lens. I stick one to the top 1/2 the safety lens on my dominant eye. It's helped. It also helps when I'm shooting iron sights.

Amazon.com: OPTX 20/20 Stick-On Bifocals, 2.00: Health & Personal Care@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41jw-7h6cbL.@@AMEPARAM@@41jw-7h6cbL

2 to a pack. That means I can modify two sets of shooting safety glasses.

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-John

I already have distance correcting contact lenses. I can see fine with them. Just can't see the dot properly.

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It's Alive !!

Aren't those for reading distances?

I got my Primary Arms 2.5x compact red dot scope with the jazzed up reticle last Tuesday and I've run 250-300 rounds thru my Sport with it this week. All I can say is "awesome", and that is with poor eyes that turned 60 Friday.

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Bob | KM4DEO
Sport | Glock 22

Mydogmax,
I'm 62, red dot shooter, wear contacts for distance, but have some uncorrected stigmatism. Yes, the red dot looks aspherical to me too, although not as bad as you described. Not really a fix but a slight help is shorten the time between blinks. After a blink to rewet my contacts I find the red dot to be more uniform. The longer I stare at it the more asymmetrical it looks.

Also play with the dot brightness adjustment, generally making it less bright so it appears smaller, and that also helps a little some times. The other thing I do if it is partially like < you described is to pick a specific part of the < to use to aim consistently. I've used both the Burris Fastfire III and Trijicon RMR 06 to equal effectiveness adapting with these crutches.

In spite of these vision limitations, I still shoot better with a red dot than open sights. Yes, 50 yds and beyond, even with a 3 MOA dot, it is starting to obscure the target, and I need larger and larger targets. Rather than the dot just being in the center, I find I like an all black target and I am looking at the distance from the edge of the red dot to the edge of the black is uniform as the visual way to center on target.

Just watched a Jerry Mikulek video of him shooting an AR. He commented that he could no longer use irons, and was using a Vortex Strikefire. Looked like he was using some pretty strong eyeglasses, too...not that any of it seemed to affect his shooting.

I run a little Bushnell TRS-25 on a 15-22 with distance glasses, from contact distance out to 200 yards. I use the same glasses with conventional scopes and ACOGs. No issues whatsoever.

I wore contacts in my younger years, but got tired of sand, dust and dirt in my eyes, especially when working under cars. One day I had enough of all that and tossed the contacts in the trash. Never missed them.

Cannot STAND bifocals for anything; use readers inside, distance glasses with a spot for pistol, distance glasses only for rifle with the above optics.

Thank God for the optics available today.

I have muilti focus contact lenses for both distance and reading. The lenses consist of a series of circles that while you're reading your eyes will focus on the inner circle and give you close up distance. When not reading, your eyes focus on distance. They work like bi-focal glasses. When at the optometrist (and I took the sight with me) I tried regular contact lenses (strictly for distance) still horrible results with the dot. The optometrist also said that any astigmatism that I had was so small that it was not correctable.

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It's Alive !!

I wish I knew more about how the eye works. Have you tried just distance glasses rather than the contacts?

I'M 73 YO, BLIND IN ONE EYE (HENCE MY HANDLE), GLAUCOMA AND A CATARACT IN MY "GOOD EYE". I SHOT A RUGER MK II W/ AN AIMPOINT IN BULLSEYE JOR 30 YRS, AND MAINTAINED AN AVERAGE IN THE 290s FOR A LONG TIME. I NO LONGER SHOOT COMPETITIVELY. NOW I'M SHOOTING A 8 3/8' MODEL 617, WITH A 30MM ULTRA DOT SIGHT ON IT---JUST FOR FUN. YESTERDAY, I EMPTIED A BOX OF 50 CCI MINI MAGS INTO AN NRA SLOWFIRE 50' TARGET, OBLITERATING THE X RING INTO ONE RAGGED HOLE. I DO THAT REGULARLY, SOMETIMES WITH AN OCCASIONAL FLIER IN THE NINE RING. I WEAR A BI FOCAL LENS IN MY GLASSES, AND I'M SHOOTING OUT OF A WHEELCHAIR OFF THE BENCH WITH MY LEFT HAND. I'M A RIGHT HANDER NATURALLY, BUT I'M PARALYZED AND BLIND ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF MY BODY DUE TO MY EXPOSURE TO AGENT ORANGE IN VIETNAM. I HAD TO TEACH MYSELF TO SHOOT LEFT HANDED, AND SELL OFF MY SEMI-AUTOS AND RIFLES. I CAN STILL MANIPULATE THE CONTROLS OF AN S&W REVOLVER WITH ONE HAND. I CAN'T REALLY HOLD THIS HEAVY GUN UP AND SHOOT IT WITH ONE HAND, SO I SHOOT IT OFF THE BENCH. I SHOOT THE REST OF MY GUNS W/ IRON SIGHTS, INCLUDING AN 8 3/8" MODEL 686, THAT BELIEVES ITS A RIFLE. NATURALLY, I CANT SHOOT THEM AS WELL AS THIS. I CAN STILL KEEP MOST OF MY SHOTS IN THE BLACK. I FIND THE BIG HOLES OF THE CENTERFIRES MORE FORGIVING THAN THE SMALL .22s, AND THE LIGHTER TRIGGERS THAN THE 617, EASIER TO SHOOT AS WELL.…..

MY POINT IS, WE ALL HAVE TO ADAPT TO LIFE'S CHANGES, IF WE WANT TO STAY IN THE GAME. DON'T GIVE UP. THE RED DOT IS A GODSEND FOR OLDER EYES, AND WILL MAKE YOUR SHOOTING MUCH MORE PLEASURABLE. TRY THE 30 MM ULTRA DOT. IT HAS A 4 MOA DOT, THAT IS A PINPOINT ON A 50' TARGET INDOORS AT ITS SMALLEST SETTING. THE CLICK ADJUSTMENTS MOVE THE SIGHTS ONE MOA. THE SIGHT WILL HOLD FRACTION OF A CLICK SETTINGS WITH THE RECOIL OF A .22LR. I WAS ABLE TO WALK MY 3 SHOT GROUPS AROUND THE INSIDE OF THE X RING, USING THE SLIGHTEST OF CHANGES IN BETWEEN CLICKS. NOW THEY LAND DEAD CENTER, WHEN I DO MY PART. THIS SIGHT COST LESS THAN $200. WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM OPTICS PLANET. I HOPE THIS HELPS YOU OUT…………..

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'Nam 1968-69.DAV,VFW,NRA Inst.

Have you tried co-witnessing your rear sight with the red dot, and look through the rear sight? When I look at my red dot by itself, it isn't round, but when I look at it through my rear aperture, nice clear, round dot.

Getting old isn't for sissy's! I had a stroke in my right eye about a year and a half ago, kinda messed up my shooting some. Like ole one eye said, adapt, over come and never give up. I'm teaching myself to shoot pistols and revolvers from my left (used to be bad) eye and still holding the rifle in my left is strange but working on it. never thought I would be doing this at 64 .

ATTABOY, curt1950. YOUR RIGHT, OLD AGE AIN'T FOR SISSIES, BROTHER. WE NEVER KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING. WE HAVE TO PLAY THE CARDS WE ARE DEALT AS BEST WE CAN. AT LEAST, YOU AND I ARE STILL IN THE GAME…….

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'Nam 1968-69.DAV,VFW,NRA Inst.

Bless you and thank you for your service. You must enjoy your life if you are able to overcome all your concerns. Keep it up, you are an inspiration to all of us.

I'm 50 something (the lower end of 50) and use a 1.00 reading glasses. I can see the red dot in my $19.95 FIELDSPORT red dot the best on #6-7. Anything higher and it gets too fuzzy. Anything lower and I strain to see the dot. But, I never use my glasses.
My cousin has an AIMPOINT red dot on his Sport II. I can see my $19.95 red dot much better than his $200-$300? AIMPOINT! Go figure.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND WORDS, len917, AND BEST WISHES, FROM one eye joe.......

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'Nam 1968-69.DAV,VFW,NRA Inst.

This is your problem. This kind of multi-focus lens will mess with the dot. It is refracting the light from the dot.

I've never heard of this kind of contact lens before.

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Freedom isn't free.

Playing around with my cheap red dot I found a spot on the rail where my no line bi-focal's got the clearest looking dot .. moving either in or out from my eye made a difference as to how it looked through my glasses .. I moved it several times before finding where it looked the best thru my glasses then mounted it there .. only a inch or so made a difference so move in small amounts ..

You might try moving it back and forth to see if there is a difference in the way it looks .. Can't hurt to try !!

Try changing the color of the dot.

When I started needing glasses I noticed that the red led on my clock was getting fuzzy, but I got a blue led clock and I could read it.
The same thing happened with my red dot sight.
I got a cheap one that has a red or green dot and immediately noticed the green dot was sharper.
I even got a scope with blue cross hairs and they are sharp too.

OP, I have astigmatism, but never had a problem with red dots until recently when my floaters got a bit worse, and the dots all started to look like stars or grape clusters. I have 5 or 6 handgun red dots I use regularly, 3 are Bushnell sub-$100 trophy dots on my bullseye guns, as I prefer the 3 MOA dot.
In my case, I solved the problem with a Merit aperture optical aid. It has a phenomenal depth of field and makes my red dots sharp. It cuts the light down somewhat when closed down, so I usually have to bump the dot a click brighter. With open sights, both front and rear sights are in focus.

Attached Images

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As a substitute for a red dot you might want to try a scope with a lighted reticle. I sometimes have trouble with a red dot too, depending on which one. Some are fine, others can be a little fuzzy.
I recently sent back my EOTech for a refund and was looking for something to replace it. I finally decided to get a 1-6x24 Vortex Strike Eagle rifle scope.
It is somewhat like a red dot in that it has a lighted reticle that can be used for close quarters, but it is also a variable powered scope with 1-6 magnification. You can shoot without the reticle lit if you want. The reticle will appear black until you power it up and then it turns to red and can be adjusted to several brightness settings.
I have to admit, I like it! Set it on 1x with the reticle lit and it is very much like a red dot. Crank up the magnification and it's like any other variable power scope, and it's crystal clear.
Like someone said, we all get old. But a variable power scope like the Strike Eagle can make shooting easy again, and on longer shots the magnification makes it much easier to accurately make those shots.
I don't miss the EOTech at all.

The red dots all look like hour glasses to me. I solved that by installing MBUIS that give me an absolute co-witness with the red dot. Now I see a 2 MOA red dot right on top of the front sight.

I don't know why it works, but it does.