From time to time, we all come up against things that make us scratch our heads. For my part, I can’t understand why optics companies insist on incorporating coin slots into battery covers and windage/elevation screws. Does the U.S. Mint have a majority stake in every red-dot and riflescope company? Is there a covert social-media platform where numismatists share torture videos of frustrated gun owners chewing up their coin slots with each slip of the quarter? Maybe the answer is too disturbing for us to bear.
On the other hand, some “why” questions have answers rooted in practicality, even if you must dig to find them. For example, a friend recently asked why it suddenly seems like everyone is running around with little red-dot sights mounted on top of low-power, variable optics (LPVO). His exact wording was a bit spicier, but we’ll keep it family-friendly here. In my friend’s defense, mounting a non-magnified red-dot optic on top of a 1-to-something power riflescope does seem odd at first glance.
The whole idea behind the modern LPVO—and I’m saying this as someone who was intimately involved in the development of the first 1-8X and 1-6X optics 20 years ago—was to dial down to 1X for across-the-room targets and zoom up for distances of 600 to 800 yards or meters. That capability was particularly important to a select group of snipers who were continually switching back and forth between fighting in close quarters and placing precision shots at longer ranges.
It took four years to convince someone in the optics industry that the idea was worth pursuing and to get prototypes into snipers’ hands. Today, you can’t swing a skinny possum without knocking over a dozen LPVOs in various sizes, colors and power ranges. So, with that itch well and firmly scratched, why piggyback a non-magnified red dot on top of a riflescope that already works well against close targets? To reach the answer, we must backtrack a bit earlier into the optical quest for dealing with near and far targets.
Back in the early 1990s, when bolt-action longarms still dominated the sniper world, anyone regularly faced with close-quarters and distant work during the same mission was saddled with a manually operated action and fixed optics that were ill-suited for rapid acquisition. Even the variable scopes of the era had low-end magnifications that were too high for planned close-range use.
That left dual-hatted snipers with two basic options: Let go of the slung rifle and transition to a sidearm, or exchange the rifle for the carbine (or SMG) that’s been bouncing around on your back. The former is a poor offensive strategy, and the latter is pure misery. While accurized semi-autos in the M14/M21 family were available to some organizations, those rifles were often fragile, marginally accurate and still hamstrung with the same optical limitations.
As sniper rifles began the slow transition to AR-pattern semi-autos in the mid-1990s, Special Operations snipers were keen to adapt the new rifles for the close-quarters operations they often encountered. This was before reliable QD scope mounts allowing backup-sight (BUS) use, red-dot-optic magnifiers and 45-degree-offset BUS were available. The gun part of the equation was being solved, but sighting systems were stagnant.
In my own unit, we were blessed to have armorer/gunsmith/machinist/craftsmen who could fabricate just about anything. They manufactured high-quality QD adapters that allowed attachment of full-size red-dot optics on top of our riflescopes’ night-vision mounts. The resulting bulky, heavy, ultra-high electro-optics could be quickly snapped into place for close-in work when needed. Most importantly, those piggybacked red-dot optics were an evolutionary step that filled the void better than anything else at that time.
I trained with and carried the QD contraption for several years before finally needing it in combat. During a late 2001 tour, my team unexpectedly had to clear several structures while moving from one desert overwatch position to another. The top-mounted Aimpoint 5000 did the trick. Shortly after returning from that deployment, we received S&B 1-4X “Short Dot” scopes, which served as a temporary bridge between red-dot and high-power sniper optics.
Over the next few years, other U.S. military organizations arrived at similar short-term solutions to the near-to-far problem. ELCAN’s SpecterDR, which uses a novel design to switch between 1X and 4X optics inside the same tube, was developed for SOCOM. Some units cobbled together mounts that allowed the attachment of Docter Optic red dots to 3.5X or 4X Trijicon ACOGs, leading to Trijicon’s eventual incorporation of this setup into its product line.
However, none of those lower-power solutions maintained the sniper’s core need of higher magnification for long-range, precision shots. The advent of low-profile, miniature-red-dot mounts for full-size riflescopes changed that equation. The initial version I tested (in 2008) came from JP Rifles and was a game-changer in my eyes. It wasn’t long before little J-Point, Docter Optic and Trijicon mini-red-dot sights were riding atop long-range competition and fighting riflescopes.
A miniature red dot paired with a high-power optic continues to work well today for the same reasons it did back then. That’s particularly true as precision-rifle effective distances steadily increase and variable power optics grow in stride. But, with today’s high-quality LPVOs in the 1 to 6, 8, 10 and even 12X power ranges, adding a mini red dot seems redundant—and that’s actually the point.
In situations where backup sights aren’t available for some reason—limited rail space, non-QD scope mounts—but are absolutely necessary, having close-range redundancy is important. Precision rifles carried by military or law enforcement snipers and action-shooting competitors often fit this category. Even though most modern riflescopes can handle hard use, their reticles and internal works still fail. I’ve had a broken reticle wire, two dislodged glass reticles and several scopes that suddenly stopped holding zero over the years. If that happens at the wrong time, a red dot allows its user to stay in the near fight.
A mini red dot/LPVO combo also helps when a night-vision optic is mounted in-line with the primary scope. If there’s a need—for any reason—to quickly transition from magnified night vision to a close-in shot, a miniature red dot set at low illumination (or paired with a white light) can be brought to bear very quickly. Conversely, reaching up to dial the LPVO down to 1X, and then reacquiring a close target through a thermal or I² night-vision device, can be cumbersome.
In either scenario, a mini red dot (or back-up iron sights) mounted at 45 degrees can accomplish the same thing. It all comes down to whether you prefer your extras on top or off to the side. I’m sure there are other times that a red dot on top of a low-power optic makes sense, but those are two that I’ve encountered personally.
Now, about those coin slots …
Most Popular
