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johncanfield wrote:Roger on the magnifier, noticed they are available. I guess I'm still not making my dilemma clear. What I think I know so far is:

The red dot is like any other shooting optic
If you sight it in at what ever distance, the bullet will obey the trajectory table
There is no magic in the red dot optic that compensates for drop

The question remains how do most people use their red dot scope? Sight it in at 50 yards and call it good enough for anything between 25-100 yards since there is no reticle and you can't calculate holdovers?

You're trying to figure out holdover and we're trying to eliminate it from the equation.

Personally, if I have mine sighted in as everyone explained, I can point and shoot from point blank to over 200 yds. and hit within a 4" circle. Anything over that and I have the wrong firearm/optics combination. That's the method I use, YMMV.

I think most will agree that a red dot is not ideal for long range shooting. The only method you could use would be to estimate the holdover distance on the target but you would have no means to do so precisely without a reticle. Either way it still requires that you know the ballistic profile of the chosen ammo.

Kind of the teach a man to fish thought process...

Strelok is a free ballistics calculator that can be used to make a determination of how you would like to sight in your optics, or red dot in your case. Plug in the numbers and see for yourself. If you don't have an Android phone there are online calculators also. Obviously it helps if you have velocity numbers for the ammo you're shooting but it's available for many common commercial loads.

After finally getting my hand loads where I want them I find that out of my 18" AR if I sight it in at 50 yds., it's good to ± 2" from 0-220 yds. Point and shoot.

Larry