What is the difference between parallax corrected and parallax free?

Question

I recently bought a sightmark auto shot red dot sight for my ak 47. Does anyone have any experience with these sight or opinions i payed 50 dollars for it. Its no eotech lol. It is stated as parallax corrected is that just another term for parallax free or is it entirely different I'm in the dark on this one please help. Will the sight work worth a d**n i have not shot it yet but I'm wondering if i have wasted my money. the only real cool thing is that i dont have to adjust the brightness settings it automatically adjusts to the lighting conditions which is a plus. Any information would be greatly appreciated thank you very much

Answer 1

Firstly I will explain Parallax for you.

Parallax is the difference in focus between the crosshair and the object you are viewing. Scopes without parallax adjustment "normally" come preset to 100yards. This means that when you view a target at 100 yards the cross hair and the object are in perfect focus.

When you have an adjustable parallax scope (either Adjustable Objective AO, or Saddle focus like the Nikko Platnium scopes) you can adjust this focus from 10 Yards to Infinity depending on the distance your target is away from you. It is also a handy little range finding tool, although quite inaccurate when compared to a rangefinder.

Your scope:

Parallax free when referring to a red dot scope is exactly that it will be set to 100 yards and will be fine for all the work you would use a red dot scope for.

Cheers matey, Witty.

Answer 2

Lots of science behind parallax - it is basically the apparent movement of the sights dot/cross hairs as the shooter moves their head in relation to the target they are aiming at.  Most shooters will not notice this until they spend 5-10 minutes in the scope watching a target and waiting to take a shot - or - are involved in competition shooting where you are shooting for a long time in one position.

Parallex corrected simply means they have adjusted the unit to work great in the 10 yard to 200 yard tactical range  Since nobody in their right mind uses a dot sight at 200 to 1,000 yards....... it's should work just fine for you.

For what you are doing - consider it $50 well spent.  Unless you are a police officer or need to carry a duty rifle - you do not need the Eotech.

Hope this helps