Best optics for astigmatism?

[Paolung]

A small smeared dot is unlikely to obstruct a target at realistic non-magnified red dot ranges. And as I said, most folks find that the dot will sharpen when magnified. A smeared dot is no more obstructive to a target than a wide front sight post, and can be dimmed to allow translucency/visual aid.

Another member stated that magnifiers make the dot worse... I find that hard to believe since there's diopter adjustment on magnifiers. It's possible that their dots just didn't play nicely with the magnifier (I've experienced the issue with a Mepro RDS Pro and Juliet 4).

I run dots on most of my modern handguns and have piggybacked RMR and magnified dots. I also have cross dominance, astigmatism, nearsightedness, oscillopsia, and floaters yet I have no issue with blurry dots and obtaining qualifying scores. YMMV.

If you get your vision issues corrected (including astigmatism) and see a crisp dot as compared to the starburst, you'll see what I mean.

Why settle for "good enough to hit it" when you can do better with the precision of a 1
MOA dot?

I have astigmatism but it's been corrected for, and I can definitely see a big difference.

But like you said, YMMV

 

[clanhanson]

If you get your vision issues corrected (including astigmatism) and see a crisp dot as compared to the starburst, you'll see what I mean.

Why settle for "good enough to hit it" when you can do better with the precision of a 1
MOA dot?

I have astigmatism but it's been corrected for, and I can definitely see a big difference.

But like you said, YMMV

Fair points, but due to my astigmatism I cannot be fully corrected. I'm 20/20 with contact lenses but still cannot see a sharp dot, but with magnifiers I'm able to dial in a perfect sphere. ACOGs and other prisms are nearly perfect, but the lack of diopter adjustment on an acog does create issues at times.

My pistol accuracy threshold is a pie plate at typical engagement distances firing rapidly, I've never felt the need to exceed that requirement. Blurry pistol dots are of no issue for my needs. I chase absolute precision with my bolt guns, good glass can make bad eyes irrelevant these days. With semiautos I'm a "minute of man" kind of fella and once again have no need for a perfect dot.

 

[Paolung]

Fair points, but due to my astigmatism I cannot be fully corrected. I'm 20/20 with contact lenses but still cannot see a sharp dot, but with magnifiers I'm able to dial in a perfect sphere. ACOGs and other prisms are nearly perfect, but the lack of diopter adjustment on an acog does create issues at times.

My pistol accuracy threshold is a pie plate at typical engagement distances firing rapidly, I've never felt the need to exceed that requirement. Blurry pistol dots are of no issue for my needs. I chase absolute precision with my bolt guns, good glass can make bad eyes irrelevant these days. With semiautos I'm a "minute of man" kind of fella and once again have no need for a perfect dot.

Have you looked into LASIK? That's how I got mine permanently corrected. Corrected my farsightedness too, though I still can't see much up close (closer than arm's length) without glasses… I can barely read my phone without them… but that's due to a common age problem rather than a visual deficiency.

 

[clanhanson]

Have you looked into LASIK? That's how I got mine permanently corrected.

I've considered it but a family member suffered irreversible dry eye post Lasik surgery so I'm hesitant. With my luck, or lack thereof, anything that can go wrong will go wrong!

My father was an Army precision rifleman with perfect vision and my grandfather could spot a German helmet from a click away. Sometimes we're dealt crappy cards...

 

[Paolung]

I've considered it but a family member suffered irreversible dry eye post Lasik surgery so I'm hesitant. With my luck, or lack thereof, anything that can go wrong will go wrong!

My father was an Army precision rifleman with perfect vision and my grandfather could spot a German helmet from a click away. Sometimes we're dealt crappy cards...

Well that stinks. I had dry eyes for a few months but they're fine now for the most part. My night vision isn't what it used to be, but it's tolerable… and to be fair, it was already going down hill before anyhow.

 

[Misternt]

I have astigmatism and wear glasses for correction. I use a 5 MOA Trijicon SRO on my center fire pistols, an ultra dot on my 22 pistol and an Sig Sauer Romeo 5 2 MOA on my 10/22 rifle. All look pretty good to my flavor of astigmatism but I understand it's different for everyone. The best option may be for you to go to a local gun shop or sporting goods store and look through a bunch of red dots. Some also say green or orange dots work better for them.

I don't have any issue with LVPO or higher powered scopes.

 

[asiparks]

Everyones astigmatism is going to be a bit different- for non magnified optics, I've found Eotechs the worse, Aimpoints so-so, red Holosuns better than green ones and the best, at least for rifles, to be the primary arms 1X prisms, with the illuminated etched reticles.
For 3X sights the Primary Arms, Sig Bravo and Steiner prisms work better than Acog, I'm guessing, because of the adjustable diopter.
For pistols red 507s. I have the SCS320 on my Sig, it's available only in green, and for me, it's not as sharp.

 

[Kcee]

The way to test to see if you have an astigmatism, before you spend any money on a red dot sight, is to simply look at a red LED across the room, closing one eye at a time to test each eye.

A red indicator LED on your television will work.

If you see more than one red dot from either eye, you have an astigmatism in that eye.

I have an astigmatism in my right eye, so I only use scopes with red dots on my rifles, such as the Steiner 1X4 scope.

For my pistols I only use iron sights and green lasers.

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

I've found Eotechs the worse,

Everytime I look through an Eotech I want to listen to Pink Floyd


If any of ya'll didn't get that I'm betting you never went to a planetarium as a teen

 

[Pete F]

I didn't jump on the red dot bandwagon for quite a while. I have astigmatism and it has gotten worse as I age.

I never had much problem with starbursts or seeing many dots. I switched back to wearing glasses from hard contacts.

About 8 years ago, I got prismatic lenses for a balance problem. I can see all dots clearly. It may be a cure for those with astigmatism having problems seeing red dots clearly.