Collimator sight for smooth-bore weapons. Sight for a smoothbore gun Collimator sight for a smoothbore gun

Today, optical sights for rifles are an integral part of the equipment of a hunter or target shooter.

Having this device eliminates the need to combine the target itself, the front sight and the sight (when using an open sight, these 3 objects must be on the same line), just point the crosshair at the target and you can fire a shot.

When you have optics in your arsenal, the process of learning to shoot is greatly simplified, and many of them are capable of magnifying the image several times, which makes it possible to aim more accurately and increases the chances of hitting the target.

Even a person with visual impairments can hunt with such a device. Devices of this modification are produced for both rifled and smooth-bore weapons.

Main settings

Optical sights for hunting shotguns and rifles are not a simple design and have a number of parameters.

It is precisely in these parameters that they differ and have their own specific purpose. The main optics parameters include:

• multiplicity;
• light transmission;
• parallax;
• lenses, their sizes and anti-reflective coating;
• method of fastening.

One of the most important characteristics of any “optics” is multiplicity, this also applies to sights. You should not trust the stereotypes that the higher the magnification, the better the scope. This is not always true.

The magnification varies among different models from 2 to 50, but this does not mean that scopes with low magnification are bad and cheap, and those with high magnification are expensive and good. High magnification systems are installed on weapons if it is necessary to hunt small game or small animals at a distance.

For hunting large animals (elk, wild boar), optics with low magnification or collimator lenses are used. - This is a type of optical, which usually have a constant magnification of -1. Such systems are designed for hunting moving animals; they have excellent light transmission, high strength and are considered the fastest.

The collimator is an LED built into the sight, which can be in laser or conventional (infrared) versions. When the carbine or shotgun is aimed at a target, a red dot appears on the object.

Light transmission is the amount of light transmitted through the scope to the eye. The greater the multiplicity of the device, the smaller this parameter. The most expensive scopes have light transmission of 95-97%.

Parallax is the illusion of deviation from the goal. On “optics” with a magnification of more than 10, when there is a break in aiming or a sudden movement of the head, one gets the feeling that the target has “gone away”.

To prevent this effect from happening on sights for hunting at close range with a magnification of 8 or more, install a parallax adjustment ring. It comes in the form of a drum around the scope body and in the form of an adjustment pin on the side of the body. Each division on such a “device” corresponds to the distance for the shot.

Most manufactured optical sights for a three-line or shotgun have lens diameter from 40 to 45 mm and are waterproof and also protected from internal fogging.

Many optical targeting systems, in addition to the different parameters given above, may differ in method of attachment to weapons. Experts advise mounting all devices on the “native” brackets and mounting rings for each weapon, so that the sight and gun are a single whole mechanism.

Models for professionals

Today you can choose a rifle scope for absolutely any purpose. For hunting wild boar or other large animals, models with a multiple of 3-9 are most often used. There are many systems with these indicators, both domestic (Belarusian) and cheap Chinese-made. The following models are in greatest demand among professionals:

Models for hunting in the steppe

For hunting in the steppe or other open areas, sights on carbines with a magnification of 4-12, 4.5-14 are used. Popular models are:

Nowadays there are a large number of optical sights on the market for various requirements. Every hunter must understand what he pays money for when purchasing a system and which values ​​of the above parameters are important to him and which can be neglected. You can buy optics in almost any hunting store or online.

A device that directs the beam of the aiming mark into the shooter's eye parallel to the rays that form the image of the terrain in the sight lens. Therefore, no matter how the shooter moves his eye relative to the lens, the position of the aiming mark will still correspond to the aiming line. This feature significantly speeds up the search for a target through the sight and the alignment of the aiming mark with the outline of the target.

When choosing such a high-precision device, a red dot sight is usually compared with traditional optics. When selecting a sight for the most common type of hunting weapon - 12-gauge shotguns - the collimator has the following important advantages:

• The range of an accurate shot from a smooth-bore weapon is limited to a distance of 100 - 120 m. At such a distance, the ability to zoom in on the target is not needed, which means that the characteristics of the optical sight are clearly redundant. Or, in other words, the scope is more accurate than the shotgun itself. And since the characteristics of a complex optical sight are redundant, there is no need to overpay for them. The characteristics of the collimator sight are fully consistent with the capabilities of the weapon itself.
• When hunting with a smooth-bore weapon, shooting in most cases is done offhand. The time that can be spent aiming under such conditions is minimal, and hesitation in aiming will almost certainly result in a miss. The aiming speed through a collimator is much higher than the aiming speed with traditional optics, so the choice should be made in favor of a collimator.
• Aiming through a red dot sight does not deprive the shooter of the ability to use both eyes, and the narrow frame of an open red dot sight does not interfere with observing the movement of the target. This allows you to quickly adjust your sight when shooting at a moving target, for example, flying game. An optical sight often does not provide such an opportunity.
• Shooting from a 12-gauge shotgun is usually carried out with shot ammunition, which means that in order to hit, it is not necessary to align the aiming line as accurately as possible. Consequently, aiming through the collimator will be quite effective and fast.

What to look for when choosing a scope?

Today you can find a wide selection of collimators on the shelves of hunting stores. Sights for every taste and budget, built on various designs and made of different materials, domestic and foreign... But how to choose the appropriate option for 12 gauge among this variety?

First of all, you should pay attention to the characteristics of your weapon. 12 gauge has a powerful cartridge, and therefore greater recoil. Shooting from such weapons is usually done offhand, and the weapon itself is quite heavy. Knowing these characteristics, it is clear that when choosing a collimator you should pay attention to the following:

• Sight type. Open collimators with a single lens enclosed in a thin frame are best suited for 12-gauge smoothbore weapons. They provide the fastest aiming and are comfortable when tracking a moving target or quickly carrying the device. But closed collimators are better left for other weapons.
• Mounting type. There is diversity here beyond your wildest expectations. Many scopes are sold complete with mounts, while for others (for example), you will have to purchase a mounting base separately. Before purchasing, you should check which type of mount will fit your weapon. Or bring the gun to the store so you can try on the scope before purchasing and make sure it can be installed.
• Type of aiming mark. Modern sights can have one mark (most often a dot), or several switchable ones - a dot, crosshair, circle and their combinations. The diameter of the reticle dot is expressed in MOA. For a 12 gauge shotgun, sights with large dots (at least 7 MOA) or a circle mark are best.
• Reticle brightness. As a rule, a good scope should have at least 5 reticle brightness levels. But here it is worth starting from a real need: if you plan to hunt at dusk, then such a variety of brightness modes will be really useful. But for hunting during the day, fewer adjustment modes may be sufficient.
• Sight power supply. The batteries must be reliable enough and not run out at low temperatures. It is believed that button batteries are quickly discharged in the cold, so during a winter hunt you can suddenly be left without a scope due to a dead battery. But modern high-quality lithium batteries do not have this drawback.
• Price. Usually the price of a high-quality red dot sight is quite high. There are many options for cheap Chinese-made collimators, but the possibility of their effective use on 12 gauge is extremely doubtful. A powerful 12-gauge cartridge creates high recoil, and low-quality cheap sights are very poorly protected from this. Therefore, such a “high-precision element” may lose its settings after each shot.

Review of 12 gauge red dot sights

• . Very high quality collimator made in Germany. The advantages of the sight are high-quality Zeiss-class optics, automatic adjustment of the brightness of the aiming mark, very compact size and low weight. It is worth considering that Docter sights do not have brackets for attaching to weapons, so the sighting base will have to be purchased separately. This makes the sight more versatile, but forces you to spend extra money on purchasing a sighting base.
• . Inexpensive scope, well suited for hunting in winter conditions. Even in cold weather, the manufacturer guarantees the absence of negative effects such as a decrease in the brightness of the aiming mark or premature battery discharge. The device weighs little and withstands recoil or accidental impact well. This makes the scope popular among outdoor hunting enthusiasts.
• . Another device from SightMark. Its main advantages are its compactness and wide viewing angle. Thanks to its small size and compact mounting base, this scope will not snag on branches or grass. Its lens is enclosed in a narrow body, which practically does not interfere with the sight when carrying it.
• An affordable wide-angle collimator, very convenient for hunting moving game (for example, a hare). The aiming mark can be adjusted in brightness and size. The weight of the sight is small, and the characteristics are quite sufficient for effective hunting. The sight withstands recoil well, so it can be mounted even on 12 gauge.
• The Redring Mark II is a very high quality scope for 12 gauge shooting. This device was developed by the coach of the Swedish skeet shooting team. The aiming mark is made in the form of a ring, the diameter of which very well corresponds to the diameter of the shotgun at a 100-meter distance. The sight holds recoil perfectly and provides greater accuracy of hits on fast-flying game. The only drawback is the high price.

Thus, a properly selected red dot sight will be quite effective when used with 12 gauge hunting weapons. But when choosing a scope, you should carefully study its characteristics and mounting method.

On the trunks (horizontally).

The installation of red dot sights on smoothbore shotguns is gaining momentum. The three main types of guns and the installation of collimators on them are described in the first part of the article. This short part is about horizontal mounts, there are not many options to choose from here, but they still exist.

The design of the gun dictates the conditions and, alas, you have to take them into account. The first smoothbore shotguns with soldered barrels (double-barreled shotguns) made for hunting had horizontal barrels. On such guns, the sighting rib is not ventilated, there are no slots or hooks, and there is no possibility of installing a mount for a collimator on the rib.

Separately, we can say about double-barreled and triple-barreled guns and fittings; such guns have rifled barrels (for different calibers) or combined ones (a combination of rifled and smooth-bore). Such guns use an aiming bar with a base for mounting optics. Such mounts have different shapes and appearances, but this is a topic of a different nature, about brackets for rifled weapons and fittings. Smoothbores do not have this, so the possibilities are limited only by installation on barrels.

The choice of mounting location is limited. The bracket consists of two parts (upper and lower), and is installed on the barrel near the forend, since it cannot be placed closer to the fracture of the gun. Mounts of this type cover the aiming bar and it is not possible to aim without a collimator.

Such mounts include the majority on our market; the weaver base is located on the upper part, and on the lower part there is also a base for installing an under-barrel flashlight or laser target designator. The fastenings are made mainly from light alloys, since the area of ​​contact with the trunks is large, but there is no stopper; instead, gaskets made of special non-slip materials or rubber are used. But some fasteners have a locking screw, what does this mean? This means that you need a hole for this screw, and you will have to drill the sighting bar for it... and if the gun is expensive, then this a priori disappears immediately. Even if you bought an inexpensive horizontal machine, and you don’t mind it... then you’ll get a drill in your hands! The main thing is not to miss.
But there are craftsmen who screw weaver bases directly to the sighting bar.

"Mounting IZH-43" from the company EST Prime Tula.

It consists of two similar parts, on which there is a weaver base. On the top there is a cutout for the rifle sighting bar, and a collimator is installed on it; on the bottom base you can install an under-barrel flashlight or a laser target designator. The mount is made of aluminum alloy and is quite strong and light, weighing about 100 grams. The length of the weaver base, as well as the base of the mount itself, is 7 cm. It is installed close to the forend on the barrels and is clamped with 6 screws. The mount is quite high and the installed collimator should be low-slung.

There is a modification of this mount "IZH-43N".

The difference is the absence of a lower weaver base; the mount is clamped with two dies from below onto the same 6 screws. The mount is lighter in weight. But it is possible to install it closer to the break of the barrels if the gun has a narrow fore-end, such as on old guns in Russia and Europe. Usually, people who have such guns do not put any sights on them, they are still classics, and they are very expensive to experiment with.

Fastening "IZH-43" EST Tula and IZH-58

Fastening "IZH-43" EST Tula and "PKM" and IZH-58

There were fasteners from the Tochpribor company, which, unfortunately, you won’t find during the day, since they were discontinued. Full-circle fastenings. It consisted of a clamping part, a clamp that completely grabbed the gun, and a weaver base with screws screwed to this clamp. The principle that the mount was installed under the forend made its coupling rigid, but at the same time it was necessary to sharpen something somewhere (the forend), and this was problematic. Therefore this principle has died out.

There is one mount that is produced at the Krasnogorsk plant (KMZ named after Zverev), specifically for its PKM collimators. PKM collimator sights are suitable for the army, but for civilian weapons they are too bulky, although the quality of the optics and electronics is good, or install such a collimator on army-type carbines, such as "Vepr", "Tiger" or "Saiga".

So, the engineers and turners of the plant make many types of bases for their invention, and one base is suitable for light open collimators with one locking screw, since the mount has a weaver base with one slot (with one slot). This is perhaps the lowest mount in terms of fit on the barrels, the thickness of the metal is thinner and the cutout for the sighting bar is larger. The mount is made of aluminum alloy and is clamped with 4 screws. The length of the mount is 7 cm, it is installed near the forend. The mount is not universal, and has different calibers, be careful, choose the one for your caliber (20, 16 or 12). It's called weaver base for PCM

The next horizontal mount is from Belarusian designers. For some reason, manufacturers lack imagination and all domestic and Belarusian fasteners do not have separate names or article numbers (like the Germans or Americans), but have a MVZHI with some kind of “space” number, which is why this fastener has no name. Bracket 43-58 weaver. The mount is a weaver base screwed with 2 screws to the barrel guide, if you can call it that. This bracket is hammered onto the barrels and screwed to the sighting bar with a locking screw, but for this you need to make a hole in the sighting bar for the screw, i.e. take a drill....and.... The base is closer to the fracture, this will be the closest location of the collimator to the eyes, but you need to drill.

It’s better to leave the classic gun in its original condition, not install anything, much less drill anything. After all, this is the best gun for running hunting, but that’s just my opinion. And it looks, to put it mildly, not “come il faut,” as they say, everything has its place...

GSS 30-12-2008 03:30

Well, the time has actually come to examine the issue of the actual use of CP on hunting weapons. Is the collimator generally suitable for our hunting and climatic conditions, is it convenient for the average hunter. We will try to address these and other questions below.
First of all, it must be said that the KP, in comparison with other sighting devices, has a number of generally recognized and important advantages. Namely:
1. Simplicity and speed of aiming. When using a CP, the shooter has to align only two points on the axis: the target and the reticle. That is, the aiming mark (Red Dot) is simply aimed at the target. Since the mark itself is a point projected at infinity, the target will be visible to the shooter as clearly (sharply) as possible, since his gaze is completely focused on it. Whereas when aiming at a sighting bar with a front sight, or even more so a front and rear sight, it becomes necessary to focus your gaze on one of these elements. In this case, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to see the target as clearly as possible, because that’s how the accommodative apparatus works: the human eye has a certain depth of field.
This feature of the CP determines its ease of use in sports bullet shooting. Many have already appreciated the advantage of aiming at a sharply defined circle of a target over aiming the front sight at a blurry black circle.
Now let's imagine how this works on a hunt. Actually, you don’t need to imagine anything, just try turning on your home computer and starting any shooting simulator. It looks about the same. You see the aiming mark (in the computer this is the image of the front sight, crosshairs, or the same red dot, in the case of simulating a collimator sight) and see the target. Moreover, both images are visible equally clearly. All that remains is to point the mark at the target. The shooter observes the same thing when hunting. At first, this feeling of the unreality of what was happening did not leave me. Then it gradually became a habit. One more feature should be noted. Since the mark itself is projected to infinity, the aiming line also appears to the shooter as infinitely long. Therefore, when looking through the sight, the shooter has a feeling of confidence that the projectile will reach the target. This is an undoubted advantage when shooting at a distance of 50 m. Although this illusion can cause some problems for novice hunters, since one should not forget that, unlike the aiming line, the flight distance of a projectile in a smooth-bore weapon is very limited.
From my own experience, I would like to note that the use of CP gives the hunter a lot of interesting and beautiful moments. I'll give just one example. At the next autumn paddock, a fox came out to my number. At first, not noticing my presence, she jumped up to me at a distance of about 7 meters. Finally, seeing something towering above the grass, the firefly stopped and froze, looking at the looming obstacle in surprise. I managed to carefully raise the gun so as not to scare the beast. What I saw, many have seen, perhaps, only in a Hollywood movie: the red head of a fox, half rising above the yellowed autumn grass, two wary, surprised red eyes and a red dot clearly between them. So I held the mark on the fox's forehead for three seconds. And then with a movement of his hand he scared her away, since there was no command to shoot the fox, and the “enemy” had already been “conditionally destroyed.”
The next striking example is shooting at a moose from 50 meters away, when all the features of its morphology were visible. It would be simply impossible to achieve such a result with an open sight. Another feature is the subjective feeling of the unreality of what is happening. The shooter observes the target through the sight glass. The body itself, as it were, isolates the shooter from the outside world and separates him from the target. To some extent, this allows you to cope with anxiety and gain the necessary confidence in the shot.

2. Accuracy and convenience when shooting. This feature is determined by the fact that the use of CP allows one to navigate in corrections for exceeding and lowering the average point of impact of the bullet at different distances. Needless to say, in order to use this feature of his sight, the owner must shoot it well at a certain distance and know how much the STP shifts when deviating from the shooting distance. In this case, the elevation and decrease of the STP are easily selected by the shooter, who, out of habit, is guided by the gap between the mark itself and the body of the sight. All this also gives the shooter confidence in the shot and insures him against possible errors in the form of overestimating or underestimating.
The same effect can be achieved when using standard sighting devices, but only at the cost of long training. And the time for remembering and selecting an aiming point during a hunt is very limited.
The same effect allows you to choose the lead wisely. We can say that with no sighting device it is impossible to select the lead into the required number of figures as quickly and accurately. Of course, for a shotgun shot this is not particularly important, since the spread of the shot ensures reliable hit of the target if the direction in which the projectile will be sent is correctly chosen. This is the convenience of aiming uphand along the bar, or as hunters say, “along the trunks.” However, it is quite difficult to call such shooting actually targeted. Rather, it is a technique to “hook” the target with a shower of shot. The method, of course, is time-tested and fast, but... When firing bullets at a moving target, the result of the shot entirely depends on the accuracy of the choice of lead. The CP allows you to shoot at a running animal at a glance with the highest possible (within the allotted time interval) aiming accuracy. This eliminates the factors of nervousness and vagueness of the target, which lead to the “wandering” of the front sight and, as a result, a miss.
This advantage of using a CP allowed the author to completely abandon grapeshot shots while hunting. Whereas many hunters prefer buckshot to a bullet and use a bullet cartridge only if there is a possibility of a very large animal emerging. As a result, there are no permanently disappeared wounded animals hit by one or two buckshots.
Let me give you a small example. During one of the driven hunts for roe deer, the shooter standing in the room next to me shot twice at the animal that came out at him. At the same time, the only thing he was to blame for was the face of the beast. “Full face”, so to speak. The double-barreled shotgun was loaded with large eight-millimeter buckshot. As a result, the buckshot, flying around the muzzle, shot off one of the goat’s ears and the goat, marked by the “good” hunter, serenely galloped away. As a result of the “debriefing”, it was found out that the shooter from that number, instead of taking a little lower, shot at the visible part, since psychologically he could not bring himself to aim the front sight below the head of the roe deer, which he also could not clearly see on grass background. If many errors had been installed on that hunter’s weapon, perhaps it would have been possible to avoid and the long-awaited trophy would have been obtained.

3. Possibility of aiming from awkward positions and constant control of the target. Due to the peculiarities of projecting the mark, the CP allows the shooter to aim from a variety of positions. Including uncomfortable ones. The shooter does not need to rigidly fix his head on the butt. Although it would never hurt to do so. You just need to point the mark at the target. This advantage is clearly manifested when hunting from a concealed position, when you have to open fire from an initially unfavorable and unstable position, and there is no time to properly insert the gun. This advantage of the CP has long been appreciated by athletes from “practical shooting” (IPSC). Therefore, the presence of CP on their weapons has already become a ubiquitous phenomenon. And the collimator itself received well-deserved recognition.
The only negative. Due to the fact that the sight is in any case installed higher than the standard sights, the aiming line will also be raised above the barrel. As a result, the shooter’s head can no longer be fixed to the original stock in a “classical manner”. The head is no longer fixed with the cheek, but with the chin. Which, in principle, can be noticeably manifested in the form of a blow to him. There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is building up the ridge of the butt and installing cheek pads (similar to those used on SVD). The second is to forget about this and get used to fixing your head as is, remembering the experience of WWII snipers armed with three-line rifles with PU sights on the Kochetov bracket, which showed excellent results and without any “excesses” (the sight was mounted high and the head was also fixed on the butt chin). On my own behalf, I’ll add that I took the second path and, after a certain amount of time, I stopped noticing the inconvenience in the tab. In addition, for me, such a “specific” tab turned out to be even more convenient, and, importantly, faster.
As for target control, the CP has a pleasant feature, thanks to which a moving (running, flying) target is constantly in the hunter’s field of vision in any direction of its movement and is not obscured by the body of the weapon. Thus, shooting using a CP is always carried out with precision. Let us remind you that correct aiming through the CP is carried out with two open eyes. This allows the shooter to maximize his vision potential.

4. Possibility of shooting in the dark. Actually, this advantage of CP is obvious. Shooting with it is possible as long as the silhouette of the target is still visible. No fiber optic front sight, of course, can provide such an effect.
In general, it should be noted that the above advantages of using CP open the way for it into the world of amateur and sport hunting. Perhaps soon the “sight” on a hunter’s smoothbore gun will no longer look so unusual.
By the way, as the hunter who marked the roe deer with a shot later admitted to me, the first thing he remembered when he lowered his gun was that same “red dot” that he had seen with me the day before.

Many hunters, having purchased a smoothbore gun, begin to think about how they can tune it. The first thought is to install optics. But it seems to me that installing an optical sight on a smoothbore gun makes no sense, and here’s why.

Firstly, shooting from a smoothbore gun is carried out over relatively short distances (up to 50 m with shot, and up to 100-120 m with a bullet). At such distances, any increase will be unnecessary. Secondly, they most often shoot from a shotgun offhand, and catching a target, especially one moving quickly, will be very difficult.

What does a red dot sight do? Having a special optical design, the collimator allows you to replace the rear sight and front sight with one point. You no longer need to combine three points at different distances from the eye: target, front sight and rear sight.

When is a collimator needed? It is most advisable to use a red dot sight when shooting at short distances up to 100 m, especially if the target is moving quickly. This is bird hunting, driven hunts, picking up wounded animals, etc. Can a red dot sight replace an optical sight? In short, no.

Rather, a red dot sight replaces open sights. From all that has been said, it is clear that the optimal magnification is 1x. In addition, it is extremely advisable to look at the target, as they say, both ways when shooting. We must also not forget that most scopes, even 1.2-4x20 variable sights or analogues, are quite large in size and weight.

So, we can conclude that the most suitable devices for installation on a smoothbore gun are compact devices of small size and weight, which make it possible to shoot with both eyes open. Red dot sights are very close to the described formulation. Let's take a closer look at them.

A common feature of all collimators is the lack of focusing (they simply don’t need it) and the ability to position it at any distance from the shooter’s eye. Collimators can have interchangeable aiming marks, which makes it easier to aim and make corrections for distance or lead (in the case of a moving target). First of all, red dot sights can be divided into closed and open.

CLOSED TYPE COLLIMATORS (KZT)

The KZT is a tube similar to an optical sight, the difference is that the KZT is much lighter and more compact. More recently, it was possible to come across “deaf” devices, looking into which we are surprised to find that nothing is visible at all, except for one luminous point.

It worked as follows: raising the gun, the shooter looked into the collimator with one eye and saw the dot, with the other - at the target. In the shooter's head, the images were combined, and when aimed correctly, a dot was projected onto the target. Such devices quickly disappeared from sale, as they had enormous parallax and “turned off” one of the shooter’s eyes, severely limiting the view. Fortunately, they have been replaced by normal closed collimators.

KZTs are smaller and lighter than optical sights, but still quite bulky. But they have one advantage over open collimator sights: at the same price, a closed collimator sight will be more durable and protected. Also a big plus is the good visibility of the tag in any light, even on a bright sunny day.

OPEN COLLIMATORS (CAT)

CAT is a small device on which the image of the aiming mark is projected onto a small screen or lens. CATs can be both quite massive and ultra-compact (literally the size of a matchbox). Open type collimators are the most compact, practically do not reduce the view and, in my opinion, are more aesthetically pleasing, although, of course, they differ in taste and color...

Disadvantages include less durability (mainly due to the lens) and reduced visibility of the brand in bright sunlight. A very interesting version of the CAT is the holographic sight. Its main difference is the complete absence of parallax, the focusing of the reticle is in the target plane, the reticle itself can be anything, including three-dimensional, the reticle is changed by changing the holographic screen.

A special feature of the holographic sight is that a shot can be fired when the aiming mark and the target are aligned, in an arbitrary position of the shooter or weapon.

Like an optical sight, any collimator must be sighted after installation, for which purpose they have adjustment drums. For most tasks, especially with smooth-bore weapons, it is enough to align the aiming line with the collimator mark using a cold sighting device.

To install a collimator sight, it is necessary that the weapon has seats (“dovetail”, weawer, etc.). It is important to note here that it is highly desirable that the collimator be mounted on a quick-release bracket and that the additional rails and mounts of the bracket do not block the sighting rail of the shotgun. Whatever one may say, no matter how compact the collimator is, it still protrudes greatly beyond the dimensions of the weapon, so it can be knocked down or damaged when moving with a weapon, flooded with water or splashed with mud when hunting waterfowl.

Another weak link in the collimator is the power supply. Most of them are battery-operated, as are open collimators, which are powered by small coin-cell batteries that are very sensitive to low temperatures.

First of all, you need to decide on the type of collimator. For shotguns and large-caliber rifles, in my opinion, closed or open holographic collimators are more suitable. For small-caliber rifles and rifles of caliber up to 7.62x39 (and analogues), open collimators are more suitable. After choosing the type of sight, you need to find out whether the collimator mount will fit the base of your gun.

The fact is that most closed collimators and all open ones have integrated brackets, and it will be almost impossible to change them later. The collimator you choose should have an adjustable reticle brightness, and it is advisable that it be replaceable. Good collimators have from 5 to 9 different marks.

A lot of red dot sights have appeared on our market. There are very cheap models, from 15 USD, which can only be used for toys or light pneumatics.

When choosing a sight, you should remember that a red dot sight is just that: a sight, i.e. quite a complex optical device. In addition, when shooting, it experiences large overloads, so it cannot be cheap.

Finally, I would like to mention Chinese-made collimators. At a fairly low price, they can have very impressive characteristics. It is often difficult to distinguish them “by eye” from the products of branded manufacturers. Unfortunately, they have one very unpleasant drawback - unpredictable quality.

Almost all of them withstand the recoil of small calibers well (.22Lr, 7.62x39, .223, etc.). But not everyone is able to withstand the recoil of a smoothbore gun, especially with magnum cartridges. Sometimes they simply go out, but more often the aiming mark begins to shift, which leads to inexplicable misses. This state of affairs makes you wonder whether it’s worth saving on a collimator and risking the long-awaited hunt.