explain red-dot , holographic and Multi-Reticle Sights to me please .

[DBOdude]

do they work better for rifle eye range or pistol eye range ? whats their pros and cons to each other ? i'm gonna make my DBO carbine into a pistol cause i got a great deal on some wood grips and other nice parts . so i'm gonna keep it as a sweet pistol and get a springer down the road a bit . my eyes won't let me work open sights . if i can see the target the sights are real blurry and vise versa . they seem to have some popular choices for decent prices . your recommendations on what you like and what to look for as well as what to look out for is appreciated . links to good web articles explaining them would be cool too . i'm also thinking about a pistol scope .

  thanks .

[breakfastchef]

I am a big fan of dot sights on pistols. Unlike open sights, they have unlimited eye relief, adjustable dot brightness settings, and may also have two color options for the illuminated dot. Dot sights can be shot with both eyes open or the non-dominant eye closed - similar to scopes. The top pros for dot sights are fast target acquisition, lightweight, dot intensity allows for shooting in varying environmental lighting conditions, and good accuracy out to and slightly beyond the limits of open sights. Con is that these sights use a battery (so remember to turn it off), and accuracy is limited to closer ranges.

The important point in your post warm, "my eyes won't let me work open sights ". This is a clear indication you need to seek out an optometrist. I know, because I went through a similar thing recently. I was using an EyePal aperture to increase my depth of field when using open sights on a few of my pistols. It worked fine, but indoors, the amount of light getting to my eye was greatly reduced leaving a rather dull sight picture. When I would go outside, this situation improved greatly. That said, I had the EyePal on and picked up a gun with a dot sight, and it was the first time the damn dot was crisply defined, perfectly round and just perfect.  Called the optometrist, told the staff what I was trying to do and asked permission to bring in an airgun for the appointment.

Already long story short, I got a prescription that would allow me to have a well-focused sight picture and still have the target in focus. Shopped various options on the Web and found two solutions that cost less than a prescription from the eye glass shop. I now own a pair of Varga glasses for target shooting, and a pair of low power safety glasses for silhouette and plinking.

Just do it. I think you will enjoy shooting more if you do not have to struggle with seeing the important parts of the sight picture you need to see clearly.

[BDS]

Larry noted some important points, especially about corrected vision with glasses. Keep in mind that even with 20-20 vision or better, your brain is trying to process the rear sight, the front sight and the target when you use open sights, and even with a scope or dot sight, the brain is trying to ignore the lens and the frame or back end of the dot sight and see only the dot and the target. This is just mental training and will become nearly automatic once you choose a dot sight or scope that you like and get some practice time in.

The BSA Edge pistol scope is a good one and not very expensive, as to dot sights, you really need to look through them with corrected vision and find the one you like. There are many brands  and the MOA or dot size is important. 2 MOA is a smaller and more precise dot, and 4 MOA is nearly double that. At airgun ranges, 2 MOA is the better choice IMO.

[Colt25]

  Called the optometrist, told the staff what I was trying to do and asked permission to bring in an airgun for the appointment.

I brought in my Anschutz .22 match rifle when I got my Knobloch shooting glasses, got a few looks 

The guy who works there is a family friend and his son shoots competitively so it was cool and he understood.