Optima 1 X 30 Red Dot

First off, I am disappointed that the dovetail mount was $9 more than the same sight with a weaver mount. $9 more? Really? Anyway, the sight works well. I've had it mounted on various guns from a CO2 AirBug pistol to a 17fpe springer...no problems. Far better than many other budget-friendly reddots. Not sure why people couldnt mount it on their Chaser, it works fine on my Chaser and AirBug. Photo shows it on my Crosman 2240XL. BTW: If the dot looks fuzzy, has a corona, or a tail.....you may want to see your eye doctor. Like me, you may have Astigmatism. I have it and my eyes see a 'tail' under the dot. I just ignore the tail and proceed to stack pellets in a ragged hole.

Parallax issues. It is not built with any durability; the insides came apart after 25-35 shots. I tried it on a lark. For 25 dollars I wasn't expecting much. It is not worth the trouble of fixing to your rifle. If I could review it for less than one star I would.

I'm on my third Hatsan Optima 1x30 red dot sights on my Hatsan Mod 25 air pistol. This gun is spring loaded and has considerable multi-direction recoil even though some of that is damped by a sliding barrel mechanism. It has 11mm dovetail mounting rails for which it's hard to find a red dot sight. This Hatsan sight is a good value red dot, nicely made from anodized cast aluminum, with almost no perceptible parallax and a reasonably clear lens. This third one (June 2025) has 11 levels of red dot brightness instead of both a red and a green dot. It comes with a standard 2032 flat battery which should last for hundreds of hours. The sight is to be mounted with the large reticle brightness turret / knob on the top towards the front of the gun. This isn't obvious and there are some confusion factors, so be guided by that basic fact. Which means the windage (left / right) adjustment control will be on your left, as will the rail mounting screws. The tightness of the mounting rail screw / nuts is crucial. I recommend applying blue thread lock compound aka loctite to the screw threads when you're first mounting it. Even with that mine were loosening after every one of the first two dozen pellets. To get the appropriate torque I used a US quarter coin. This will tighten down strongly with little chance of stripping the threads. Here's a good blue threadlock compound at a good price: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8Z81WQL Eventually the sight will loosen less when shooting and you'll only need to check the screws occasionally. Keep the quarter handy. The windage and elevation click-stops on this third one are pretty clean and crisp; and they pretty smoothly adjust the Point Of Impact up / down and left / right. And unlike the first two units I got this one has the POI direction correctly marked on the adjustment screws. I use a dime to adjust them. If the red dot is a starburst or has a tail like a comet, you probably have astigmatism and will just have to use the center of the red dot mass as your aiming point - a more expensive red dot won't be any better. You can mitigate this some via the "6 o'clock" method which means adjusting the red dot to be right below the point of impact, so even if blurry the dot won't obscure the target. Then when shooting you aim the same way. HOWEVER - On all three of these Optima red dots x30 the dot brightness turret on top failed after about 60 shots and in the same way: things came loose internally and the turret would just spin around freely. Others have reported the same problem. With the first two units I didn't know it could be user-repaired so I returned them. But this turret failure can be fixed if you have some small tools. The problem is that four tiny machine screws holding the turret internals to the gun have come loose from recoil vibration, because for some reason the factory hasn't heard about threadlocker compound. For guns without such recoil, such as PCP / CO2 airguns or powder guns, this sight would probably work well with no issues and be a best buy. Besides threadlock compound / loctite you will need tweezers and a very small #00 Phillips-head screwdriver. Unscrew the top turret cover which holds the battery, and remove that. Then use the tip of the tweezers to unscrew the circular metal collar that is thread into the inner surface of the turret. That holds down a printed circuit board disk. BEFORE even allowing the disk to move, mark its orientation with respect to the turret body; maybe with a silver sharpie or even just a pencil. Something you can see later. Take a picture. And of course remember which side of it goes up. Now you'll see the four small phillips-head screws that are coming loose. Remove them one at a time (!), put a small dab of threadlock on the threads, and replace the screw firmly. See my picture attached here. Now put the disk back in. Your mark will help and be aware that it has two small bumps on opposite sides of its outer edge, at around 180 degrees apart. These must fit down into cutouts in the turret inner wall. And this disk presses against some springs so you'll have to hold it down while you get the circular metal collar screwed back in. Then replace the battery etc. Be careful not to cross-thread any of these pieces. If it doesn't work when reassembled, you probably got the disk in 180 degrees out of position; so do that part again. Remember that its smooth side goes up, and the side with components soldered on goes down. I've also found that the windage and elevation adjustment assemblies can come loose too. Each is a cylinder, and the whole cylinder unscrews from the main body of the sight. So I put threadlock on those too. I give this sight 3 stars because it could be great for non-springer guns, it will fall apart on those... but it can be fixed, if you have the tools. And true 11mm dovetail red dots aren't easy to find. Those designed for 3/8" dovetails won't really fit properly (despite the ad copy); see my review of the competing BSA red dot for more explanation of that: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1JSRAQC3V2BSN/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000N8MZOI

Really nice optic, solidly made works really good On my Crossman .177 pellet gun.

Easy to mount. Once zeroed, hitting a dime size target at 10 yards offhand is almost impossible to miss. Bright red or green dot. One star off as the windage adjustment is backwards. Turning the adjuster Left should move the POI Left, but it's the opposite.

Great

Quick service. Great item.

Worked fine for 6 months then the RED/GREEN selector came loose from the unit and it no longer worked.