Product Roundup: Best Red Dot Sights Released in 2024

If you want the best red dot sight for your custom gun, 2024 was a good year. Manufacturers have been working hard to engineer new red dot sights with better accuracy, longer battery lives, and wider compatibility with firearms. That’s good news for gun owners who want more choices when it comes to shooting better. Let’s take a look at some of the hottest optics and manufacturers that have been giving you better sight pictures over the past twelve months.

Red Dot Renaissance

Driven by some of the best red dot sights that have hit the market, reflex optics are easily some of the most popular aftermarket gun parts and accessories on the market. Red dot sights have come a long way in the past few years. Used to, you had a choice: shell out big money for military-contract grade optics or use low-quality models manufactured by sketchy companies and sold at rock bottom prices for a reason. As technology has developed and the market has deepened, that’s all changed.

New red dot sights made for the civilian market use quality materials, reliable engineering, and come with a range of features meant to make them user-friendly, even for beginners. They benefit from the military contracts that drive research on top-of-the-line tactical models, but then the tech is adapted to practical production specifications. After all, if you’re not parachuting into the ocean for insertion, your optic doesn’t have to be rated to be dropped out of a plane into seawater.  

This new focus on pragmatic designs and features has led to a bumper crop of models meant for civilian, security, and law enforcement shooters. This lets manufacturers tailor red dots to the practical needs these optics will face in the field while keeping prices more budget-friendly. The best red dot sight is the one that gives you the features you’ll need in your shooting life for a price that leaves you more money left over for bullets.

Top New Red Dot Sights for 2024

When selecting our recommendations for the best red dot sights of the year, we looked at a few different criteria. First, how well do they perform their primary function: improving your aiming to increase the speed of target acquisition, accuracy, and precision? Next, how well do they stand up to real-world use, and are their manufacturers ready to stand behind their products? Finally, do they provide value equal to or better than the money you’re shelling out? They’re subjective criteria, but they’re also pretty straightforward, so you have clear information with which to make decisions.

Best New Concealed Carry Red Dot

The Granite MOS Carry gives you a new red dot sight that was built from the ground up to be practical, reliable, and concealable. Its small design offers less printing through clothing and minimizes the risk of snagging to foul your draw. The aircraft-aluminum housing is rugged and lightweight, and it’s engineered with power-saving features for a long battery life. The 3 MOA dot gives you the accuracy you can count on with adjustable brightness, elevation, and windage to fine-tune your shooting experience.

Best New Competition Red Dot

A sister optic to the Carry, the Granite MOS Comp was instead built to be one of the best red dot sights on the market for competitive shooting, where a blend of speed and accuracy is needed for higher scores and shorter times. The Comp has Gideon Optics’ largest lens, and centered in it is a large 8 MOA dot reticle that gets you on target fast and onto the next one faster. The shockproof and waterproof design is perfect for work at both indoor and outdoor courses where conditions can be far from optimal, but performance is still mandatory.

Best Renewed All-Purpose Red Dot

The Rock came out last year and was part of the initial product line-up that put Gideon optics on the map. Not content to rest on their laurels, the engineers at Gideon listened to real-world feedback from their customers, who found that the original design didn’t offer a lot of real estate left over around the large 65/3 MOA Circle-Dot reticle when it was pressed forward for aiming. The new model Rock streamlined the reticle to use a simple and effective 3 MOA dot, making aiming with this all-purpose powerhouse friendlier at full press. 

Best Closed-Emitter Red Dot

Another example of taking real-world feedback and applying it to their engineering principles, the Mediator II is a late 2024 optic that offers a larger closed-emitter sight picture for lovers of the “Death Toaster” red dot style. The new design offers a taller, squared-off sight picture that gives you a clear picture while protecting the emitter and reticle it projects from environmental interference. 

Best New Red Dot for Astigmatism

The Advocate 1X Micro Prism rolled out early in 2024 and quickly became a favorite red dot for astigmatism. It uses prisms in an enclosed scope to bend the light from your target image, sharpening the picture and overlaying an illuminated etched-glass reticle. This helps mitigate the effects of astigmatism, a vision condition affecting 1 in 3 adults where the shape of the eye’s lens creates a refraction error in the eye that leaves images blurry and unfocused. Using the advocate can give astigmatic shooters a sharp, clear reticle for precise aiming that makes every shot count.

Our Best Red Dot Manufacturer 

It won’t come as a surprise that Gideon Optics is our pick for the best red dot sight manufacturer of the year. The fact is they make practical sights that offer specs that are competitive with any optic on the civilian market. They just so happen to do it while saving you a couple hundred dollars per red dot in a lot of cases. That checks our boxes for practicality and cost-effectiveness. 

Every optic they make has an aircraft-grade aluminum housing, a shake-to-awake energy-saving setting to extend battery life, and rugged design elements like IPX7 waterproof and MILSTD shockproof ratings. They also offer a lifetime warranty that covers almost everything short of intentional abuse, misuse, and damage with a replacement guarantee. Now that’s standing behind your shooters and the products they invest their hard-earned money in.

Get the Best New Red Dots of 2024 for Your Guns

We’re proud to offer the parts and accessories that help you build a better custom gun. It’s your Second Amendment right, be ready to make it count. Order your red dot optics online from JSD Supply today.