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A warm welcome in the leading norwegian hunting magazine
6/24/2010
This is a translation of the original norwegian article, published June 2010 in the magazine JEGER. Download the article here (PDF, 4,8mb)
GLOBAL LAUNCH:
REDRING
New sight for shotguns
Our tests leave us suitably impressed!
The Swedes blazed a trail deep into virgin territory when they developed the Aimpoint red dot sight for rifled firearms, and now it looks as though they’ve broken new ground again with the production of Redring – a sight for shotguns.
I have often thought that ordinary shotgun shooters might need some kind of sight, or rather a direction indicator, on their shotguns. Some of you maybe remember that I went so far as to force our editor-in-chief (who can only be described as an extremely proficient clay pigeon butcher) to take part in an experiment during which he had to spend an entire day shooting with various types of red dot sights mounted on shotguns that were entirely new to him. He used his own shotgun as a reference. The sights we used were intended primarily for rifled firearms, as there were quite simply none available for shotguns.
Allow me to summarize the day as follows: come the evening the results were remarkable!
I must admit that after the test my self confidence took a bit of a beating in the form of various sarcastic comments from the local self-appointed master marksmen. Oh boy, this was really sullying the noble art of clay shooting. But then we discover that no less than Swedish wildfowling and clay pigeon shooting guru P-O Östergren has been thinking along the same lines. Apart from competing at high level he also works as a shooting instructor for young and old, beginners and wily old foxes alike. During his many years as an instructor for thousands of pupils he came to understand the need for a sight that shows the shooter exactly where the shot pattern will hit, regardless of how the shotgun is held.
But it is a long and arduous road from concept to finished product. P-O put a number of capable, motivated and experienced men to work, and for an entire year they worked on developing Redring without a single journalist getting a sniff of it right up until the launch at the annual IWA trade fair.
So it was extraordinarily exciting to be one among the very first to take part in a test shoot.
Shocking experience.
At first the Redring sight seems unnecessarily wide, but it was not by chance that it was designed this way. The aim was to design the sight to be as low as possible, and so the battery and other technology was located along the sides. The result is a sight that is only raised five millimetres above the shotgun’s sight rail, and for most people this means that the gun’s stock will work as it is.
The sight is fitted to the rail with a world-patented, recoil-absorbing attachment. Three different attachments are included that can handle rails with widths of between five and eleven and a half millimetres.
A red ring is projected on the lens and marks the shot pattern. The ring is 60 cm at a distance of 20 metres and shows the shot hit pattern at 1/4 choke. At greater distances the ring expands in the same way as the shot pattern. In this way the sight is also an aid to improving the judgment of distance. In other words it’s easier to be aware when not to shoot if the entire roe deer can be seen inside the circle.
Another solution the company has taken out a global patent on is for light metering. Light is not measured in the entire picture, which is usually the case with other sights, but it is the light conditions within the ring and the area which it covers at any given time that forms the basis for automatic contrast setting for the red ring. And this takes place faster than the human eye can notice. It is also possible to change the intensity of the ring to suit personal preferences by selecting from different scales within which the light function works.
High-tech gadgets are always interesting, but the big question is whether they are of any real use. P-O Östergren hopes that Redring will reduce the number of non-fatal shots by helping the hunter more easily gain a feel for the whole shot sequence from initial image to the shot set-up and the final image. It should provide greater self confidence and help the hunter relax. It will be easier to refrain from taking doubtful shots, and when all is said and done this will result in more good hits. A lot more fun in fact!
A lot more fun indeed. I began carefully with a few shots at some stationary clays in a sandbank. Child’s play, you say? Well of course. But ask yourself this: would you be prepared to bet a month’s wages on hitting clays like this every time with your shotgun? Me neither. But the instant I took a look through the Redring sight I would have dared to make such a bet.
And then it was time to shoot some clays on a normal range. With muscles tense from performance anxiety I hit the first clay. And the second. And the third. It worked like magic; my anxiety faded away and my muscles relaxed after a while. I had missed but one of 28 clays and I thought it was time to call it a day. With a score like that it just felt like the proper thing to do.
As usual I am not making a big deal out of this. I can only note that I have never previously come even close to results like this.
We tested a prototype, so the appearance of the final product may differ somewhat. If you would like further information about the sight you can read more at:
www.redringsight.com
Text and photo: Alf Martin Bråten
Source: Jeger No. 4 2010. Norway’s biggest, most read hunting magazine!