Aimpoint Micro S-1 Shotgun Sight

Red dot sights are very useful pieces of equipment because they significantly speed up target acquisition and are low magnification, making them easy to use for close-range shooting. Aimpoint is a legendary Swedish manufacturer that produces some of the best, if not the best, red dot sights in the world and the prices reflect this.

This Micro S-1 model is designed for use on a shotgun, eliminating the need to centre the eye, as the red dot follows the movement of the user’s eye whilst remaining fixed on the target. Thus, it is incredibly fast to use and gives an unobstructed view of the game/target in sight.

Spec

The S-1 is a very compact sight, as you would expect. It measures only 63x43x41mm and weighs in at 100-grams. It offers infinite eye relief and is designed to fit onto the rib of your shotgun, not the action, which is quite novel and as such offers a very long eye relief sighting system.

It attaches using a clever clamping system that uses 4x fixing plates and 4x different adjustable clamping plates, thus allowing you to fit it to any width or thickness of rib. Just measure your rib and use the helpful chart to determine the size you need. The Aselkon 12-gauge semi-auto test gun was between 8 and 10mm wide and between 0.31 and 0.39 thick, so I used clamping part D and base plate 3. You usually fit the Micro S-1 about 4” in front of the forend, which is about right.

Once fitted, you need to zero in the sight on a pattern board using the elevation and windage thumb wheels. 1 click is 13mm at 100m (½” at 100 yards) with a total adjustment range of +/- 1m at 100m (+/- 1yards at 100 yards).

Powered by a single CR2032 battery, it has 12 intensity settings that are controlled using the large side wheel. On the 7th setting, the battery lasts 5 years! Once activated, a large 6 MOA dot (6” at 100 yards) is illuminated, with a red signature that importantly cannot be seen 10m in front of the sight.

Conclusions

You would think having a sight on the rib would obscure your view but your brain ignores the sight and just centres the red dot on the game or clay. Just a short test proved this sight was really easy and accurate to use. Being a rifle shooter, I actually found this way of shooting a shotgun much easier and will be using a wider variety of guns and Aimpoint sights in a future article.