BARSKA 40-mm Dual-Color Rifle Scope

This is a red dot sight. The description says it is a scope. It is not. There is no magnification. However, it is a decent red dot sight. Construction is aluminum. It mounts on both Weaver and Dovetail rails. The 40-mm openings are BIG. You can see your target and everything around it. Has both red and green dots and each have five intensity levels. It works well on a rifle, but it is probably too big for a pistol.

Sadly, I think I got a dud with this one, which is a shame because I'm very impressed with other Barska products, it just seems that, at least with battery powered optics, you really get what you pay for. The operation of this reticle is much more frustrating than it should be. Trying to figure out where to put the battery took me a couple of minutes as the manual is not very clear where exactly you have to actually plug the battery in. The fit and finish of the adjusting caps, as well as the battery compartment do not feel well made at all. They have a thin soft aluminium feel that really makes me wonder whether they would hold their threads after serious shooting or lots of dust.

It also wasn't clear exactly how to turn the scope on, or even switch colors like it advertised. Once I managed to get it turned on, the dot was pathetically refracted and blurry, it looked more like I was looking into a washed out laser pointer than a red dot. I guess I was expecting too much...Read more

I liked the idea of a red dot on my AR-15 .223 rifle, but sadly, this little guy doesn't fit the bill. The dot itself is very wide and does not center nicely in the glass. Even at a perfect eye relief (which is fairly close, inside 2 inches), any slight motion to the side causes the dot to drift exponentially from center. This is an artifact of non-level glass, and makes rapid acquisition of a target nearly impossible.

The wide 40mm objective lens makes for a wide field of view, but most of this is lost to adjustment in trying to find dead-center on an uneven glass dot.

Pros:
Decent construction
Holds zero fairly well once centered
Low glare
Flexible mounting options

Cons:
Poor quality glass optics
Tendency to fog up easily
Large dot, nearly covers a 2" target at a meager 30 yards
Dot is asymmetric, hard to find dead-center
Short eye-relief; makes mounting as a pre-zoom tool impossible...Read more