The Best M4 Scopes and Optics in 2023 – Top Picks & Guide

Factors to Consider when Buying M4 Scopes/Optics

The M4 carbine weapon is the next level compact and improvised version of the M16A2. The compact and lightweight design of these M4 scopes do not affect the performance and accuracy. 

The M4 carbine has a powerful but short-range like just 500 yards above 600 yards of M16, but it is still an effective rifle. These are the major reasons why the Military force replaced M16 with M4 rifles.

Though the M4 does not have a long-range, it is more than enough to work as a sniper rifle. When you add high-quality accessories like optics or medium range weapon sight, these M4 carbine rifles become more accurate. 

It is not easy to hit the targets that are 500 yards away from you only with iron sights; that is why the high-quality medium-range optics are needed to use with rifles.

If you are not happy with the choices we made above, here is the detailed buying guide that will educate you on the features and factors that must be considered while buying the M4 optic.

License

Do you get a license to own and use an M4 rifle? It is necessary to have a Federal Firearms License from the government to legally use an authentic and automatic M4 carbine rifle. 

This Federal Firearms License is typically given to people who would like to own and run a gun store. If you don’t have FFL yet and are looking to know interesting optics that could enhance M4 rifles’ performance, you can continue the article and educate yourself.

Intended use

Have you decided on the use of the M4 carbine rifle? Where are you going to use it? What will be the main purpose of using it? Because the M4 rifle is suitable for sport shooting, home defense, and law enforcement. 

You can’t find a scope or a sight that will do anything and everything. So you must first think of what will be the primary job the M4 rifle has to do for you. 

For example, if you own the M4 carbine rifle for a long shooting range, you probably need a powerful high-end scope. A sight or scope that can help you reach the target up to 500 yards is a good choice.

Optic Type

There are three different types of optics that can be used with M4 carbine rifles.

ACOG: ACOG scopes are truly a performer that has multiple applications in the world hunting and shooting. ACOG scopes come with fixed magnification, Bindon Aiming Concept (BAC), and Tritium light transmission with illumination. 

The fixed 4x magnification of ACOG offers a clear sight of the target for a few hundred yards. The illuminated reticle style in the scope allows you to hit the target in close range. 

The illuminated reticle does the same job that the red dot does. You can change the settings of the scope for long-range and close-range by not altering anything else. 

With both eyes open, aiming, and hitting the target with ACOG is a great experience. The downside of the ACOG is its cost.

Red Dot: It is a common optic that most shooters prefer for their M4. The great benefit of using a red dot is the ease of use. Using the red dot, one can quickly engage more than one target in the short and medium range. 

The price of the red dot increases as the battery life. You can find red dots with a few thousand hours of battery life to 50, 000 hours. 

Traditional: Any other military-grade and high-end scopes can’t degrade the value of the traditional scope. 

Magnification

While choosing the rifle scope or optic not only for M4 Carbine but for all types of rifles, you should have a point in your mind that you can’t choose the magnification of scope that magnified above the effective range of the weapon’s caliber. 

The M4 carbine rifles have an extended range just above 500 yards, so the weapon does not boasts much bullet drop compensator at a given distance. The medium-range rifle scope with variable magnification of 5x to 20x is just fine.

Even a red dot sight with 1x magnification will work fine with any rifle in the indoor range. With these range red dot sights on the indoor range rifles, you can hit targets between 50 and 100 yards. For just above 100 yards, you could use an ACOG scope or even magnifier. 

In the free-range, you can use whatever range is comfortable, like a 4x fixed magnification ACOG scope, a red dot sight with magnifier, or a traditional fixed or variable rifle scope. If you are using a traditional riflescope, it could give you magnification close to 3x to 9x.

For the long-range shooting weapons, you can choose a scope with magnification above 9x. But remember, the scopes with a magnification above 32x will not be the right choice for you.

If you have already used a rifle scope, you may know that the higher the magnification, the larger the objective lens. Thus, a large objective lens will surely add extra weight to the unit and the rifle.

Weatherproofing

Anyone who owned an M4 rifle will not just use it for self-defense. Most of the M4 buyers use the rifles for hunting and shooting. 

If you use the rifle in at worst weather conditions and changing environments or in tactical situations, you won’t know what Mother Nature will throw at you. So, you have to be prepared for everything you supposed to face in the hunting field.

For these reasons, a scope you choose for your rifle should be weatherproof, waterproof, shockproof, fog-proof, and scratch proof. 

The scopes become the waterproof and fog proof scope after being purged with nitrogen or argon. Likewise, to make the scope waterproof, the manufacturer adds special O-rings that will seal the unit to protect it. If you want your scopes to work fine in harsh conditions, make sure it can handle bumps and dings.

Lens Coating

The objective lens of the scope with multiple layers of coating using anti-reflective materials increases the unit’s performance. This anti-reflective coating of the lens minimizes the glass glare that the hunter gets and what the unwanted light that lenses reflect.

The size of the objective lens decides the amount of light transmission. The glare-free objective lens eases your rifle’s aiming by avoiding the excess light that affects your eyes and divert you.

The anti-reflective coating of the objective lens of the scope is needed because the small light glare from the scope lens will keep you away from your target and cause false hitting.

Light Transmission

While hunting in the deep and dark wild or in the limited shooting range, you need a clear vision of your targets regardless of the lighting conditions of the place. 

You should get enough light transmission to hit the target with accurate aiming. To get the target acquisition and stalk the prey for a while, you need a decent picture for everything you do while hunting or shooting.

The light transmission of the scope depends on the quality and size of the objective lens. If the objective lens is wide, then it allows a high amount of light particles to enter the optic and to get illuminated. But, the size of an objective lens also affects the weight of the scope. 

The higher the objective lens, the higher the scope weighs. So, you need to get the scope that has a good balance between light transmission of lens and weight.

Reticle/Crosshair Style

The reticle is also known as “Crosshair.” The reticle of the scope helps the shooters aim their targets and hit it every time. There are many crosshair styles available in different rifle scopes. Each style has its benefits. But, sometimes, these crosshairs may make the job harder than before.

The traditional reticle style is “Duplex,” which is mostly available type. It has two thinner lines in the center, and other lines close to the edge are thicker.

Another crosshair style you may already know is “Mil-dot.” In this crosshair, there are dots in the center place, so the shooter can easily measure the elevation and windage. This type of crosshair also helps to calculate the distance of the target.

The next style is the Bullet Drop Compensator. It helps the hunters to make accurate shots on the targets even from long distances without changing the elevation. 

As we already saw, the most effective shooting range of the M4 carbine rifles is not above 500 yards. For these ranges of rifles, a scope with standard ballistic reticle or the low profile red dot sight is far better. With the 500 yards of bullet drop, you won’t need a Bullet drop compensation or BDC reticle types.

Mounting

M4 carbine rifles are authentic and fully automatic weapons. So, before anything, you have to be sure that the scope has mounted on a base of the rifle that is secure and solid. 

The right mounting of scope on a base is required to keep the zero when you alter the magnification settings. The scope mount has to be one piece, which means the scope rings and base are designed from one piece of aluminum billet or the steel.

Eye Relief

You may see most of the riflescope is limited while others have unlimited eye relief. The eye relief of the scope is the distance between the eyepiece and the user’s eye with which you get a clear picture of your target. 

An ideal riflescope should have an eye relief of 4-inches and above as the M4 carbine rifles get the strong recoil when it fires. When the eye relief is less, your face will be closer to the eyepiece; thus, it will hurt your eyes sometimes cause serious injuries also.

To keep your eyes and brows safe while using the strong recoil cartridges and while shooting in uncommon angles, large eye relief is needed. 

Maximum 4 to 6-inches eye relief is enough for rifles that impact a lot of recoils.

Range

Mostly you will need the scope with a shooting range for your rifle. Every range of scopes differs in many ways. Most of the shooters use the rifle scopes to shoot the stationary targets. 

However, almost no shooter will exceed the 200 yards of distance to shoot the targets at the given range. If you are using the mid-range high caliber rifles, then either ACOG or red dot sights are good. With this range of scopes, you will surely get the right hits on the targets, and you can engage with your target.

Price and Durability

Dealing between price and durability of the product is always a difficult task. Only spending 50$ on the scope and expecting it to range long and work for a long time is not fair. 

Be it is scope or anything, you have to pay for what you receive. Moreover, M4 carbine rifles are not the easy-to-get type of guns, whether it is a 14.5-inch barrel or a 16-inch barrel version. 

If you own one for you, you have spent. In that case, it is sensible only if you could afford the high-quality optics for it.

Before selecting a scope for an expensive high-end military M4 carbine rifle, check the unit’s durability by examining the materials used, weather-resistant features, warranty, and other things that should be given for the price.

Weight

For compact shooting rifles, the scopes that weigh less than 16 ounces are a good option. Because these scopes prevent adding unmanageable weight on the rifle. 

There are lightweight scopes that weigh even under 9 ounces also. But, know that these models will have fewer features and lifespan. It will be hard for you to make it in a stable position.

As the features of the scope increases, the weight of the unit also gets increased. But an ideal scope for M4 rifles should be lightweight to provide high portability. 

Size

Although these M4 carbine rifles have advanced features and served in military forces, these rifles are intended for short-range use only. So, while choosing the M4 rifle’s scope, you have to consider scopes in the short-range size. 

You cannot expect very high magnification ranges from short-range size scopes. But these scopes work great if you need it to match the performance of the tactical weapons.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Red Dot Sight or Scope?

A red dot sight is also known as Reflex Sight, one of the types of Non-magnifying reflector sight used for firearms. These reflex sights provide a red dot for a reticle to the shooter. 

Mostly, the red dot scopes used for fixed magnification power scopes, so the target acquisition is faster when using a reflex sight. As the magnification is fixed, the scope has little or no parallax adjustments that help the shooter while shooting in a long-range.

How Holographic and Red dot reticles differ from each other?

Apart from the design and how the reticle is illuminated onto the objective lens of the weapon sight, there are a lot of differences between red dot scopes and holographic sights. 

Holographic sights have a wider field of view than red dots. 

The rectangular window of the holographic sight is larger than the circular eyepiece of the red dot scopes.

The next major difference between the red dot reticle and the holographic reticle is the size of the scope. The holographic scope for M4 carbine rifles is bigger with a larger objective lens and more internal parts, whereas the red dot M4 scopes are low profile units that only have lenses and a LED projector.

The other way these reticles differ is that the holographic sight’s reticle will not change its size due to magnification and zooming. In contrast, the reticle of red dot sights gets bigger when the magnification is applied or zoomed in.

What are the optics the Military uses for M4 rifles?

The United States Military uses specially designed rifle scopes for their M4 carbine rifles and M16A4 rifles. The scope is called ACOG (Advanced Combat Optics Gunsight). 

These series of ACOG telescopic scopes for M4 rifles are exclusive collection, which is manufactured by Trijicon based on a legal contract with Government. 

Initially, these ACOG telescopic rifle scopes are manufactured for the Picatinny rail systems of the real M16 rifles. Now, these advanced military-grade scopes are improvised to fit in M4 rifles also.

There are many models of ACOG telescopic military scopes for M4 rifles available with various fixed magnifications range from 1.5x to 6x. 

The ACOG scopes offer many choices for reticles. Some of ACOG scopes have night vision illumination using an internal phosphor; on the other hand, there are ACOG scopes that have both day and night vision reticle illumination by using a fiber-optic illuminated reticle or an LED.

The first ACOG scope model name is TA01, which was introduced in 1987. The special technique used in most of the ACOG military scopes is the Bindon Aiming Concept. 

This is an aiming technique developed by Glyn Bindon, the founder and optics design head of Trijicon. So, they name it after him. The principle of this technique is that it uses the focusing eyepiece and illuminated reticle as a collimator sight.

The meaning is the shooter who is using this scope doesn’t need to see through the scope. With the dominant eye, the shooter can keep the collimated image of the scope’s reticle in focus while the other eye is open and get the full field of view; thus, you get the faster and easier target acquisition.

Using this BAC technique, our brain will superimpose the reticle image on the target. While giving the wider field of view, this BAC technique helps to shift the focus to the dominant eye. 

So, when you use the ACOG scope with the BAC technique, it is easy for you to get a clear sight picture of fast-moving targets, which is not possible with other telescopic scopes.

How to install a scope, red dot, or holographic on M4 carbine rifles?

First of all, you have to select the right type of scope for your rifle or firearm and then choose an appropriate mounting base for it. 

You will not just place the scope on the M4, but you need to make sure the scope fits perfectly. For the M4 firearm, the scope base and rings should be derived from a single piece of metal, which is the most important part of the mounting process. Using the single piece base and rings is more secure than using the separate base and ring designs.

Now you have collected all the necessary parts so you can start the mounting process. As a safety measure, you should check if the M4 rifle is unloaded and there is no cartridge chambered inside. 

It should be the first thing you did when you started the mounting process because it is always better to be safe and secure than being sorry, especially when you are working with firearms.

After you safely render the M4 rifle, keep it on a workbench. You should provide the good padding to the rifle to avoid the scratches on the surface. 

Check the level of the rifle before you tighten the vise. You have to do this task while setting the small level on the rifle’s rail system.

After you are sure that the rifle is secured on the vise, take a small rag and some mineral oil. Dig the rag into the oil and wipe it on all areas of the rail. 

Continue the process for the bottom part of the scope mount also. The mineral oil will prevent rust from forming on the surfaces.

Fix the scope base on the rifle rail and make sure it in the right position. Once you are sure about the placement, the mounting bolts at the sides of the scope base have to be tightened to the level that they would not get jogged loose when the rifle is fired.

Once the scope base is tightly locked, remove the tops of the scope rings and fix the cradle’s scope. Now, put the tops of the rings without tightening the screws fully. Check if the scope can able to slide inside the scope rings still. It has to be.

Take off the rifle from the vise and start adjusting it for good eye relief. To get a better and comfortable eye relief, close your eyes then hold the rifle. 

After opening the eyes, check if you can see a clear picture of the target from the scope. Calculate the distance from the eyepiece to your dominant eye if you can. You have to be sure that you are away, so your eyes and eyebrows would not get hurt when the M4 rifle recoils.

When you are comfortable with the eye relief, but the rifle on the vise again, and make sure it is in the level. Now, align the reticle to get the horizontal and vertical crosshairs perfectly concerning the rifle.

Now, you have to complete all the needed adjustments with the scope and rifle. This is the time to take off screws one-by-one gently. Put blue Loctite in each hole and then replace the screws. 

Yes, now you have installed your scope M4 rifle successfully. Next, you have to range and zero in the scope.

Final Words

If you can legally own an M4 carbine rifle, surely you are a lucky person as there only a few who got FFL and using these warfighting guns. Now, you need to get the best out of it for that you need the high-quality optics that bring out the best performance of the rifle. Remember, firearm optics can able to make the weapon more useful.

M4 rifles are the warfighting firearms that have masterpiece technology that improves the accuracy and acquisition when used with the right optical system. You don’t need only to use the M4 rifles to hit long-range targets. Instead, you can make the target acquisition quicker, and you can accurately aim the targets using the best M4 scope and optic. 

Now that we have selected and reviewed 13 best m4 scopes and optics for your needs, we also discussed the essential factors that a hunter should consider while choosing a scope or optic for a firearm. 

Now, it is your time to buy the best scope or optic that provides great performance when used with an M4 rifle.