There are three common considerations for uprating your sights on a handgun (or rifle).  The halographic sight, a variation of the red dot sight, and the optical sight.  The best source for comparison is found on www.opticsplanet.com.  They have the best collection of these sights to look at that I know.  What you need to do is to look things over and come up with some that appeal to you.  Then, when you've go a shopping list of ideas, we can go from there with specifics.

 

Before we do though, let's look at what a red dot or halographic sight does in comparison to a conventional optical sight.

 

The conventional optical sight (aka "telescopic sight") is really a telescope with some kind sight reticle in it.  The optical sight usually has external windage and elevation knobs for adjustment, as well as a focus ring to adjust the optics for individual shooter's eyes.  The red dot and halographic sights also have w/e knobs.  The difference in them is they do not magnify the target and employ a different principal of operation than a conventional optical sight.

 

Magnifiying optical sights depend upon their accuracy by getting the shooter to get his/her eye directly behind the scope in the same place from shot to shot.  This sight also has an "eye relief" requirement that means there has to be about 3-1/2 inches to space behind the scope to the shooter's eye to prevent getting hit by the scope in recoil (on rifles).  Eye relief is also critical to focus of the scope.  Some scopes are long eye relief and designed to be mounted on the barrel of pistols and rifles and fired at arm's length from the eye; the short eye relieve models on rifles (and some shotguns) are the most popular and common. 

 

The optical sight, by its nature, is not a quick reaction sight and needs a lot of practice to use well.  Optical sights are also subject to parallax problems: that is, misalignment between the firearm line of bore, scope line of sight, and shooter's line of sight.   Assuming that the line of bore and line of optical sight are OK, then misalignment of the shooter's eye to the scope is the biggest inducement to errors in shooting the scope.

 

When you look though a properly aligned scope you should see a very distinct, bright circle formed by the scope tube with the crosshairs more or less centered.  You should not see any kind of fuzzy area at any point -- sides, top, or bottom.  If you do, this indicates that you eye is not centered in the scope and it is offset slightly.  If the fuzzy edge is at the top, you'll shoot low; if the fuzzy edge is at the bottom, you'll shoot high; if the fuzzy edge is at either side, your bullet strike will be opposite to the fuzzy edge.

 

The red dot sight or halographic sight is a non-magnifying, quick-reaction sight that is not affected by parallax.  It works by fooling the brain.  When you look through the sight there is a red dot (the reticle) that the eye sees and sends to your brain.  The brain combines the image with the background and you see the reticle floating in space over the target.  I'm not exactly sure why this transposition doesn't produce parallax error, but it does not.  Once your sight is zeroed where you hare hitting consitently at a given range, all you have to do with this sight is to put the reticle on target and you will hit that target.  It doesn't matter where you eye is relative to the sight.  If you can paint the target with the dot through the sight, you'll hit it.

 

There are many kinds of red dot sights or halographic sights on the market.  Your choice would be a function of the firearm that you want to mount your sight on and what your budget can absorb.  I've got an ATN Ultra Sight on my CAR-15 and Romy SAR-3 rifles in .223 and 5.45x39 (about $170).  Both of these guns get double taps in the head on man-size targets at 100 yards with ease.  I plan to add an Eotech 512A65 to my Brit L1A1 in .308.

 

Rifle and shotgun sights can vary in size and shape, but pistol sights should be compact as possible.  A pistol sight souldn't be large and bulky.  There are some very good, small halosights for pistols that are really nice and dramatically improve your ability to hit the target fast.

 

Rifle and shotgun sights are much more diverse due to the employement platforms.  The basic criteria for all sights must be (and in no particular order):

 

1.  The sight must be rugged.  Waterproof or water resistant at minimum.

2.  The sight must project a reticle than can be seen in brightest daylight or compelte darkness; it has to be adjustable for intensity.

3.  The sight must have a reticle that you like.  Red dots come in different sizes that cover more or less of the target at a given range.  For close-in targets, a larger dot is preferred; for longer ranges, a smaller dot is preferred.  On the ATN Ultra Sight, the reticle is projected on a piece of optical glass and can be changed to suit the shooter's wishes: (1) red dot, (2) red circle with crosshair, (3) crosshair, and (4) red dot in red circle (like a jet fighter sight).

4.  The sight must take batteries that you can buy anywhere.  The quarter-size Lithium batteries last a long time.  Some sights take AA or AAA batteries.  All of these are good.  Beware of any sights that use specialist photographic batteries.  If you can't buy the battery at the local grocery, home improvement, or hardware store, you should avoid a sight with this kind of battery.

5.  The sight must be compact and have easily adjusted controls.  The windage and elevation should be easy to do.  Without tools is good or adjustment with a coin is OK.

6.  The sight must lock securely to your firearm.  A quick attach/detach capability is a plus.  The QAD type sight also returns to its original zero when reinstalled after removal.

7.  Some sights, like Trijicon use the radioactive element Tritium to eliminate batteries.  This is a good thing because batteries usually decide to die at inopportune moments.  Tritium elements last a minim of 10 years before requiring replacement.

8.  If the sight batteries die, the sight should still allow the use of the iron sights and not block them.  If it blocks the iron sights, it should have QAD ability so it can be removed and the iron sights used.

 

OK.  That's the short course.  It's time to go to opticsplanet and start looking at the various sights for inspiration.