That's Not A Red Dot...

[Darrell]

This is. Well, not a red DOT per se, but a sort of red target crosshair. I have a LaserMax TLC-202 holographic collimator, used in aligning telescope optics. I don't think they make them anymore, I bought mine back in the '90s IIRC. Some gun related site had an article recently about a laser projector for shotguns, I think, that produced a series of laser dots around the gun's aim point. I mentioned the LaserMax collimator at that time, and thought I'd mention it here--been meaning to do this for years. Here are a couple of small images, stolen from the web:

lasermaxholo1.jpg

lasermaxholo2.jpg

The pics' source is here:
http://www.cloudynights.com/classifieds ... all&page=1
For a sense of scale, from across a room the circle in the projected image is a little less than the width of a door, about 26". The LaserMax unit is quite large--the small end in the pic is 1.25" in diameter (the red at the end is just a plastic cap), the next step up is 2" (standard telescope focuser inside diameters). It's also heavy. Keep in mind this is '90s tech. I wonder if such a holographic projector was made to fit modern gun lasers you could get a much smaller/handier device. I always thought if I were a bad guy and got painted with such a crosshair, I'd wet my pants. Think it would make a worthwhile aiming device? Maybe for a shotgun? I'm a bit surprised somebody hasn't already done it, I bet they'd sell like hotcakes.

[Highspeed]

I saw a tactical light\aiming unit that did just that when I was dealing in electro-optics. It could project various geometric symbols depending on which 'reticle' it was fitted with.

The rationale behind it ( I think ) was that each 'operator' would have their own symbol and the 'team' would know which member was targeting which bad guy. I've got no comment to make about that, whether it's a good idea or tits on a nun - I'm "Q" not James Bond

I would probably have converted it to collimate telescopes

[Aglifter]

I think it would make the divergence issue even worse - a series of rings would be a great idea - there's some company marketing very expensive red dots for shotguns with a similar idea...

But, I don't know how you would mount it, and get it to work - I would be worried about idiots thinking that the rings are "exact" and would try those "fringing" shots some idiots were pushing.