I would love to hear your opinions. I have astigmatism, so not a fan of red dot sights.

I have two of them. They are great! I also have astigmatism but not to bad. I can still use dots but it's more like putting the star cluster on the target.
Prisms have been a boon for me. Not to mention the ACSS reticle. They also make the same thing in a 3x. (which I also have).

What kind of co-witness do you get with the standard mount? I have fixed iron sights on my rifles and don't really want to change that.

You will not be able to cowitness iron sights with a prismatic optic. Even an unmagnified one. It's not like a red dot. That's one of the drawbacks of prismatic optics.

Collimator sights (red dots and holographic sights with parallel lenses where the reticle is projected into your field of view) can be cowitnessed.

But prismatic sights work differently, using lenses to bend and focus light, and therefore cannot be cowitnessed.

Your prismatic optic has a permanent etched sight that is usable even without power. That's your "backup sight".

If you're unwilling to alter your fixed iron sights, you'll need to find a mount that puts the optic above the line of the fixed iron sights (like a Lower 1/3rd mount, or even taller), so you're looking over top of the irons to see through the prismatic optic.

Additional thoughts:

Since you have a rifle with fixed iron sights, but state that you are not a fan of red dots, have you tried looking at a cowitnessed red dot reticle through your fixed iron sights? Viewing a red dot through the rear aperture generally resolves any astigmatism-related distortion or blooming that may be present when the red dot is simply viewed on its own.

Also, make sure that you're focusing on the target, and not on the reticle, when deciding whether the red dot is distorted or not. That's something else that commonly resolves astigmatism-related distortion. I have minor astigmatism, and a red dot reticle looks like a red comma when I stare intently at the reticle, but like a dot when I use the proper target focus as intended.

If you haven't already, I'd give those two a try.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK,

Hi Rogue, thank you for all the information. I have tried a red dot with iron sights (on a 9mm carbine) it does work for my astigmatism. I've since sold that particular gun and installed the red dot on a rife for my daughter.

On my rifles I have fixed front sights (gas block) and removable Daniel Defense rear sights. Do you think the prism scope will work with only the front sight? If not, I'll probably go without an optic. The thing that was attracting me to the Cyclops sight were all the features baked into the reticle.