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Best Budget Red Dots (Under $200)
Updated
10 months ago
Good morning, everyone this is John with gun.deals, today we're taking a look at some of the best budget red dots on the market. This is going to kind of be a top five list, but not really because there's going to be a lot of red dots sharing the same spot, some of them from same manufacturers, some of them from different manufacturers, but ask somebody who has used most of the budget red dots on the market, I feel like this is a pretty good review to make.
This being a budget list, absolute monsters like the Sig Romeo 8T, which has an MSRP of like 700 to 800 dollars. They're not going to make the list, this is going to be focusing on red dots that are under 200 dollars usually or most of the time, prices will fluctuate a little bit, but sub 200 dollars is going to be the price category for these red dots.
Getting into number 5, we have a couple decent budget red dots that are under 200 dollars, anywhere from about 120 to 150 dollars usually, a couple of them fairly new to the market as well, the first one is going to be the AT3 Alpha. The AT3 Alpha is a T1/T2 style red dot, which means 20-millimeter objectives, takes standard AimPoint mounts that you can find basically anywhere online, top mounted battery and rheostat adjustment, on top of that, it is a 2 MOA dot, 50,000 hours of battery, and comes with Auto on/ Auto off technology.
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From the factory it comes with a couple kind of mediocre mounts, they're using very small crossbolts in. The drop testing that I've done on them on my personal channel, the body of the dot held up fairly well, but the mounts in question are not particularly good, so it's going to be one of those dots that it's about 120 to 150 bucks and you're going to need to buy an additional mount, an additional AimPoint T1/T2 style mount, to get the most out of it. As far as budget dots go, it's decent, it has all the features that you want, Auto on/Auto off, good dot, good glass quality, for the most part, we're talking about sub 200-dollar red dots. Overall, it's just not as exciting as some of the other options on the list.
Getting into the shared number 5 spot, this is actually a very interesting dot, this is the UTG Accusync. You might be able to tell, but the mount on here is pretty interesting, this is using a mini ACOG style mount, which is as far as I know the only red dot, true red dot using a mini ACOG style mount, which is fairly interesting, comes with a nice QD lever, good adjustments on it. As far as the red dot itself goes, this is a 3 MOA red dot using a 2032 for 50,000hours of battery life. It has top mounted adjustments for controlling you brightness, I believe you have 10 daylight/2 night vision, I haven't tested the night vision settings on any of these red dot. The turrets themselves are recessed and I believe they're half MOA increments, perfectly fine there.
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The reason why this isn't a little bit higher on the list just because I haven't tested it extensively yet, though we will be doing a review on it in the future, it's also the fact that it's missing Auto on, it has Auto off, which is going to save your battery life, I think it's eight hours it will automatically turn off. However, not having Auto on is a bit of a bummer considering it's about 150 bucks, and almost every other red dot on this list has Auto off and Auto on, meaning that when you pick it up it's already on, however, with this one it is currently off because it's been sitting for a couple days. Definitely an interesting newcomer to the dot market, if they do update it with Auto on and Auto off I think it could move up a few spots and we'll see how testing goes on it.
Coming in at number 4 we have basically the entire Northtac lineup. The strongest selling point of the Northtac red dots is that they have all of the features, not quite all of the performance, but all of the features, for usually under 100 bucks, sometimes you can pick them up for about eighty dollars, which makes them some of the cheapest full featured red dots on the market.
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The lineup goes, you have the P10, which has an integrated low mount, you have the P11, which has the integrated high mount, this is just one piece of aluminum, and then you have the P12, this is your standard red dot where it has a T1/T2 style mount, and then the body that can accept any other mount that's on the market.
Fortunately, the mount that they come with is fairly good, you have a decent sized crossbolt, not the biggest one on the market, you also have an integrated recoil lug, and there's plenty of material on the mount itself, you don't really need to swap it out, on top of that, you do have a 2 MOA dot, 50,000-hour battery, Auto on and Auto off, and it's still working, I've had this one for probably a little bit over a year and a half so far and it's been working perfectly and I don't really use it all that much just because I have other dots. I have reviewed all the dots and they've all worked fairly well, this one here has been dropped several times, no issue.
The main problem with it is that the execution just isn't quite there, so they use some sort of emitter refresh rate to control the brightness, so the lower you get in the brightness range the more stutter the dot becomes and it is very, very noticeable on the lower brightness settings, it looks down right bad on the lower brightness settings. However, when you're outdoors in the sun it has a very good, very laser-like refresh rate, looks like a very good constant beam, but if you ever need to go down in the brightness it starts to look really bad, really fast and on top of that, the glass quality just isn't great, and the main selling point of this is that it does have all the features, 2 MOA dot, Auto on/Auto off, 50,000-hour battery, AimPoint T1/T2 mount compatibility. Coming in at 80 to 100 bucks, it's one of the cheapest full featured red dot that just needs a couple little tweaks in terms of its execution to move up the list.
Moving up the list to number 3 we have the Primary Arms MD 20 and kind of the MD 25 Gen 2. The MD 25, which is the larger 25-millimeter objective lens, comes with either a 2 MOA dot or the ACSS CQB reticle. The ACSS CQB reticle is good in intent, in the fact that it has your chevron in the center, holds for four, five, and six, and then the outer horseshoe. However, it doesn't really look that great under magnification, so it can definitely help, especially if you're using like a 4X or 6X magnifier, to get the most out of that, it's just not the cleanest looking reticle on the market, but if you are using it for CQB applications, I think that the chevron and outer circle does work well. The Gen 2 specifically now comes with Auto on/Auto off.
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Another bad thing about the ACSS reticle is that it cuts your battery real life from like 50,000 down to like 13,000 hours and at a higher brightness level, nine, ten, eleven, something like that, it's probably gonna be all the way down at like 5,000 hours. Battery life on the ACSS reticles isn't great, and the Gen 2, they did add Auto on and Auto off to the MB 25, they're also bigger and heavier and you don't really get that much benefit from the extra size and weight. For me personally, they're decent but not necessarily the best.
The MD 20, on the other hand, is cheaper, it's usually anywhere from 120 to 150 dollars, has all of the features, AimPoint T1/T2 compatible, 50,000-hour battery life, 2032 on the side I believe, 2 MOA dot, very good refresh rate throughout the entire brightness level. Really the only thing holding it back is that it just does everything very well and the price isn't particularly exciting, and anywhere from 120 to 150 dollars there are going to be a few cheaper red dots on this list that do everything to the same level, which does make them a little bit better.
Moving on to number 2, which will be a lot of people's number 1, I'm sure, is going to be the Holosun 403 R, B, and G, and not necessarily in that order. The 403 series is Holosun's basic T1/T2 style red dot, so you usually get a 2 MOA dot, 50,000-hour battery, Auto on/Auto off. The 403 B has top mounted rubber buttons, the 403 R has a side mounted rheostat that has the 2032 in it, and the 403 G has the ACSS CQB reticle.
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The prices are going to vary on them a little bit, anywhere from 99 dollars on the low end up to probably 170- 180 for the 403 G with the ACSS reticle, if you like the ACSS reticle and you like the rest of the Holosun features that marries together really well, if you like the top mounted batteries and the cheaper 403 B that's fine. For me personally, the 403 R is probably the best, I do like it aesthetically the most, it doesn't have any of the other are gimmicky features of the 500 series, side mounted battery looks good, you can get it in red and gold I believe, I have used a 403 R in gold, I ended up not liking it so I never did a review on it, but I did use the gold version. The dot looked fine, it just had that glare issue that some Holosuns do.
Overall, the Holosun 400 series rifle dots are perfectly fine, they do everything that you want them to do, especially at the price point. They're not going to do some of the things that much more expensive dots do, but you got to keep in mind the price category that we're in, and for a lot of people I'm sure they were the first red dots that they bought, getting them on sale anywhere from like 100-120 bucks, they're going to perform very well at their price category.
However, my number 1 pick is going to be, probably to know and surprise, is going to be the Sig Romeo 5, the Sig Romeo 5x, the Sig Romeo 5x DR, the Sig Romeo 7 and the Sig Romeo 7s, and not to mention the Sig Romeo MSR. I've used all of these dots extensively, in fact I have my original Sig Romeo 5 here, this one here has been dropped about 30 times and it is still working perfectly fine. The reason that it's in a low mount right now is I usually use it as an offset dot on my rifles as I think it works really well in that application.
And my number 2 pick probably from Sig, at least in their budget red dots, is going to be the Sig Romeo 7, which is a big AimPoint comp M4 clone, has most of the features, though not quite there in terms of performance, glass, so on and so forth, 50,000-hour battery side loaded triple A battery I want to say, 30-millimeter objective, 2 MOA dot, Auto on/Auto off, can be found on sale under 150 bucks. As you see it here it is on a SKD 193 riser, which puts it above the Streamlight Pro Tac 2.0 rail mount, which is a huge light.
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The reason why I have it mounted on the top with the Aero M4 E1 handguards, the thick chunky handguards, you can fit a suppressor under them, but you can't fit a suppressor and M-LOK on the rail, so it has to be top mounted and it works quite well so that when I I'm using the Romeo 7 with the bigger 30-millimeter window on a tall riser it doesn't occlude any of my vision, putting a big light up front.
For the rest of the Sig lineup on the lowest end you have the MSR, which can be found for like 80 bucks, it's a little bit less feature rich, it doesn't have Auto on/Auto off, it has a top mounted 1632 battery, 20,000 hours of battery life, but AimPoint T1/T2 compatible at about 80 dollars, full lifetime warranty, all that sort of stuff.
The Sig Romeo 5, which is probably going to be my overall best pick in terms of value, these can often be found for 100 bucks, they have Auto on/Auto off, 50,000 hours of battery life, they're very, very durable. This is my original dot that's been dropped probably about 30 times at this point, many, many, many thousands of rounds and right at 100 bucks with all of the features. That for me puts it a little bit below Holosun in terms of price and at least on par in terms of performance, so for me, there's no reason to not recommend them Romeo 5.
The Romeo 5 also has the X and the XDR versions, The XDR is probably one of my favorites overall, it is going to be a little bit more expensive, starting at around 150 bucks on sales, and it'll probably work up to around 200$. Totally different mounting design, it does have a battery mounted in the mount itself, so no battery compartment of the body itself, on top of that, it usually has a 2 MOA dot and a 65 MOA outer circle, which is my personal favorite and then it also has a predator reticle, which is more for like shotguns and hunting applications, I don't particularly like that, some people do, and if it's your GM go for it, but for me, the Sig Romeo 5 is undoubtedly the best value to performance. On sale, 100 bucks is very hard to beat with all the features, performance, durability, so on and so forth. The only thing it's not going to do is night vision and you're going to be spending more money on those dots anyways, and this is a budget list.
The Romeo 5, 5x, 5x Dr, 7, and 7s, 7s is probably my least favorite in that bunch just because it does have a little bit of a, not an emitter refresh rate issue, but when you get into the higher brightness settings it starts to bloom out a lot faster than it should, even for red dot, so it doesn't look quite as clean, but it is going to be quite a bit smaller than the 7 and use the same AAA style battery.
For me personally, I will probably always have Sig Romeo fives and sevens laying around of different varieties, as they perform so well, not just for the money but in general, even a cheap Sig red dot is going to perform just a little bit underneath some of the more expensive red dots on the market, and if we're in that budget space we're looking for how much performance can we get for the least amount of money, and I think the Sig lineup almost entirely fits that bill.
