OK, I confess, initially I just wanted to hang a good-looking enclosed dot sight on my Mini-Thirty but then, as a practical matter, the Weaver Red/Green Dot sight turned out to be an excellent choice. The gun already had a Burris FastFire II on a bridged Picatinny mount in place of the factory ghost sight, but the unshielded Burris unit tended to lose dot contrast in bright sunlight and/or against certain types of backdrop. The Weaver unit, with or without the included sunshield, provides a clear unmagnified image and bright dot, regardless ambient light conditions and it offered more shooter control over projected reticle images.
Key features…
Mounting: The base of the Weaver Dot Sight is compatible with Weaver and Picatinny type bases. In this case a Warne Weaver type mount that attaches to the Ruger’s integral mounts. The rear cross bolt passes through the sight’s slotted base, providing lots of latitude for adjustment and cross slot placement.
I was able to move the Weaver sight from the Mini-Thirty to both my flat top AR-15 and AR-10 guns within a minute or two and the sight stayed put on all of them with many shots fired.
The sight does not require the use of the sun shade. The shade is threaded so removal is quick, however, use of the sunshade enhanced image contrast and apparent brightness of the dot reticle. The sight is powered by a long lasting 3V wafer type battery. Life of the battery is extended when less than full bright reticle selections are made and the unit is switched off when not in use. The battery compartment cap also contains a well to hold a spare battery – handy.
Windage and elevation adjustments function as they do with virtually every other sight, however, increment of adjustment is a relatively coarse 1 MOA, or approximately half inch per click at fifty yards. Parallax is set at fifty yards and there is no eye relief restriction. No focusing is required, objective or ocular.
Bore sighting is accomplished as it is with any other optical sights, however, the grid on most collimator type bore sighting equipment may not work in the absence of magnification. A laser bore sight works like a champ.
The adjuster that wraps about the battery selects color of reticle, red or green, as well as intensity of illumination. Clockwise rotation moves through the red reticle scale, counterclockwise moves through green selections. There are five levels of reticle illumination intensity for each.
Dot Reticle selection is from a choice of four: 3 MOA Dot, 6 MOA Dot, 25 MOA Circle, and 25 MOA Circle with 3 MOA Dot. They projected image is actually quite sharp in the eyepiece. The slightly soft edges were caused by digital camera exposure, not reticle image quality.Application
I am not a big fan of metallic sights when shooting at extended ranges… defined as any shot taken beyond twenty five yards… since I’ve matured into Mr. Magoo. It’s not like I don’t like classic semi buckhorn sights, or buckhorn sights, or ghost sights, or peep sights, or even sights for sore eyes. It’s just that I have a hard time seeing them, particularly a plain front sight against a dark and low contrast backdrop. Subsequently, I have converted my handguns to fiber light pipe types, and a couple of shotguns to the same, but rifles are a bit too long-legged for this simple solution as fiber optic enhanced open sights tend to look huge against a target out at fifty yards.
I’ve tried dot sights in the past, but I never could shoot well with them. The LED projected “Dot” always seems multifaceted, out of focus and distracting. Some models had dots so large that they would obscure a deer at fifty yards – just a big red dot with deer legs and antlers sticking out. A little too Fellini for me.I did get a bit closer to something useful with a Burris FastFire II set up on a Ruger Mini-Thirty, but the unit was unshielded and lost much of its small dot, low intensity usefulness. The Weaver Red/Green Dot sight appeared to have been engineered to avoid this problem.
As noted earlier, the sight mounted easily and a laser bore sight was used to get to initial settings. This particular combination of Warne Weaver adapter, purchased from Brownells # 947-010-000 $33.99, and Weaver Red/Green Dot Sight, the spacing between bore and optical centerline is approximately 2″. I think this is pretty typical with sights of this type and it is ideal for natural eye alignment. While there was an increase in the line of fire and line of sight angle of incidence, in comparison to a conventional sporting rifle, sight windage and elevation adjustment were not amplified.
And then it got cold and I got grouchy…
With a thermos tucked under my arm, goopaline pulled over my ears and rifle I headed out to the range… which is outside. The start of winter is here and the temperature was 21°F with gusts to 1,000 knots. What was once a large puddle across a clearing path had become a large frozen lake. So I ended up “Daffy Ducking” my way to the firing line.I never kicked a turkey before, but this one had it coming. It found a place to park on the range, it didn’t care if it got in the way and it paid little attention to gun fire. It wasn’t a field goal as much as a punt. Yeah, gobble, gobble to you too you flea bitten buzzard wannabe.
The 1 1/2″ three shot group on this fifty yard target is typical of what the combination was able to produce out of a box of 135 grain 7.62×39 handloads. The same ammo shot about half that size with a scope and about twice that size with open sights. I think that put this into context.
It is a fast sight in use. No bobbing around looking for proper eye relief. No eyepiece to focus and no dim images. The best reticle selection was the smallest dot, 3 MOA red. No problem shooting both eyes open. The red/green Dot was unaffected by low temperature and it remained secure under recoil. At approximately $225 through discount retailers, the Weaver Red/Green Sight is an excellent value.
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