Red dot vs bead for turkey hunting: what a dot changes, and what it costs

The verdict

This is the question everybody asks once they have a choke picked out, and it belongs with the rest of our guns, chokes and loads guides. The short version: a bead is not broken, and a red dot is not magic. A dot changes what your eye does in the last second before the shot. That is worth something, and it is not free.

Bead vs dot, side by side

What a dot actually changes

A bead is an alignment tool. It only tells you where the barrel points when your eye is sitting in the right place behind the rib, so your cheek on the stock is doing half the aiming. When a bird is at 35 yards with his head snaking around and you are trying not to move, that is a lot to get right in a hurry. The NWTF's Anatomy of a Miss is blunt about where misses come from: “A lack of concentration or sloppy form can easily make you miss.”

A red dot replaces that alignment job with one thing to put on the bird. Makers sell it exactly that way. Burris opens the FastFire 4 page with “instant on-target accuracy for any firearm from handguns to shotguns” and credits a “larger sight window for faster target acquisition.” Bushnell describes the Trophy TRS-25 as “a compact, sturdy, reliable 3 MOA red dot sight with unlimited eye relief for handguns and shotguns.” Vortex says its Viper Shotgun sight was “purpose-built for the fast pace of turkey hunting and wingshooting.”

It matters more than it used to because the target is small and the distances have grown. Federal's JJ Reich, writing for the NWTF on the age-old pattern rule, puts the target at “about 4 square inches” for a turkey's head and the spinal column in its neck, and says that “today's enhanced turkey guns, optics, chokes and shotshell loads can achieve that standard at greater sight-in distances, such as 40 yards.” Optics are in that list on purpose. Where that 4 square inches sits on a live bird is covered in where to aim on a turkey.

Choke makers agree, for their own reasons. Indian Creek's tips and tactics page says its Black Diamond Strike turkey chokes “achieve optimal performance when used with a turkey scope/red dot sight or other optic.” The tighter your choke, the smaller your margin, and the more a precise aiming point is worth.

First light, and the brightness dial you do not have on a bead

Most turkeys get shot early, in light that is not really light yet. A bead is whatever color the sky makes it. Every sight here gives you a dial instead: Bushnell publishes 11 brightness settings for the TRS-25, Sightmark publishes 10 on its Mini Shot, and Burris pairs an automatic brightness sensor with manual settings on the FastFire line. On the FastFire 4 reticle page, Burris says of the big reticle option that “the larger dot is easier to see under any lighting condition” and calls it “a good choice for turkey or slug gun hunting at closer ranges.”

Brightness cuts both ways. A dot left on a high setting in genuine dark blooms into a starburst, and that is a setting problem, not a sight problem. Set the brightness before the birds fly down, not while one is walking in.

Glasses, and the part we cannot tell you

If you wear glasses, a bead asks your lenses to do something awkward: hold a small brass ball at arm's length and a turkey head at 35 yards in focus at the same time. Bifocals and progressives make that worse, because the part of the lens you are looking through changes as you drop your head to the stock.

Plenty of hunters who wear glasses say a dot solves this for them. We are not going to promise it will solve it for you, because nothing in the sources we read measures it, and we have not mounted or shot any of these sights ourselves. Treat it as a good reason to try a dot at a range before the season, not as a guarantee. What the makers will commit to in writing is more modest: Bushnell's “unlimited eye relief” claim for the TRS-25 is the closest any of them comes.

What a dot costs you

Four things, and only one of them is the sight.

1. A way to mount it. Shotguns are the hard case. The Vortex Viper Shotgun publishes its footprint as “Integrated. For Drilled and Tapped Shotguns” and ships a Compatible Shotguns list with thread pitches of 8-40, 6-48 or M4x.7 by model, plus notes like “Pre ’97 Mossbergs will use 6-48 screws.” The FastFire 4 and the TRS-25 mount to a Picatinny rail your gun may not have. If it does not, Burris's SpeedBead Vent Rib Mount clamps to the rib with “no drilling and tapping required” and “rib adapters included to fit multiple rib widths” — and it is a separate purchase, because “FastFire optics sold separately.”
2. A battery, and the right spare. The Viper Shotgun and the TRS-25 take a CR2032; the FastFire 4 takes a CR1632. Two different cells across three sights, so check yours before you buy a blister pack. Run times are published a long way apart too: 50,000 hours at setting 6 for the Vortex with auto-shutoff disabled, up to 26,000 hours on medium for the Burris, and up to 5,000 hours for the Bushnell, which also publishes “Auto Shutoff: No.” That last one will flatten itself in the safe if you leave the dot burning.
3. A new zero and a new pattern. Covered below. This is the cost people forget, and it is the one that decides whether the dot helps or hurts.
4. Weight and one more thing to snag. Burris publishes 1.6 oz for the FastFire 4 and Vortex 2.14 oz with the battery, which is nothing. Bushnell's tube sight is 3.7 oz. Add a mount and screws, then remember it is now sticking up off your receiver when you slide the gun across your lap against a tree.

Three dots, side by side

These three are on this page because they cover the three ways a sight gets onto a shotgun: a rib clamp, a drilled receiver, and a rail. All six sights we rank, with the full scoring, are in the roundup linked above. Scores follow the red dot rubric on our methodology page.

Either way, the gun has to be patterned

A bead and a dot have exactly one thing in common: neither tells you where your shot column lands. Only paper does that. Mississippi State University Extension's patterning publication gives the standard session — 40 yards, off a stable rest, then “lay the target down and draw a 10-inch circle around the heaviest part of the pattern” and count the holes, with 100 as the accepted number. Our step-by-step is how to pattern a turkey gun.

If you add a dot, you do that session twice: once to zero the sight, and once more to confirm the pattern with the load you will hunt. The NWTF's five ways to evaluate your turkey pattern spells out why: change “your choke tube, shotshell brand” or “sighting system” and “the pattern will most certainly change,” so “adjust your sights if the center of the pattern's mass is off.” A dot you never zeroed is worse than the bead you took off the job. And whatever the sight, the honest limit on your range is what your paper shows, not a number from a catalog — that argument is in how far you can shoot a turkey.

Check your state before you build the gun

Which should you buy?

Stay with the bead if

• You have not patterned your gun yet. Spend the money on shells and paper and find out what you already own.
• Your receiver has no rail and is not drilled and tapped, and you do not want a rib clamp or a gunsmith visit this spring.
• Your shots will be close. The NWTF notes that “with today's ultra-tight chokes, shooting a turkey closer than 20 steps can be tough,” and recommends taking birds at 20 to 40 yards. Inside that range, pattern size is a bigger problem than aiming.
• You are still working out the gun itself. Start with choosing your first turkey gun.

Add a dot if

• Your receiver is drilled and tapped and your model is on Vortex's compatibility list — that is the cleanest install on this page, with nothing extra to buy.
• Your gun already wears a rail, in which case any of these three drops straight on.
• Your gun has neither and you would rather clamp than drill: the FastFire 4 plus Burris's SpeedBead rib mount is the path, and the mount is the part to confirm fits your rib width.
• You wear glasses and the bead has never felt right. Try one at a range first; we cannot promise it fixes the problem.

Whichever you choose

• Pattern the gun at 40 yards with the load you plan to hunt, and count the holes in a 10-inch circle.
• If you added a dot, zero it first, then pattern, then leave the settings alone.
• Carry the right spare battery, and know which of the two coin cells your sight takes.