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Which one is the most reliable red optic these days? for Carry Optic


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Which Optic for Carry Optics Division?  

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I have had I guess a blessed optic life, DPP for three years, NP, this winter got SRO and after about 1,000 rounds things are not an issue. I have the DPP still on my backup so if one goes out I just swap slides that are both zeroed for both guns. DPP has been good (2.5) but the SRO is just that little bit better and faster (5)

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On 2/6/2020 at 10:00 PM, Rich406 said:

I broke 12 DPP in one season. Supposedly they have implemented some fixes, but You couldn’t pay me to use them. 

How much shooting do you do to kill 12 sights in a year?  

 I would like to have that much time and ammo

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It's important to note that CO and Open wear these dots drastically different.  I see a lot of people here say they had "50k" rounds on a dot and no problem.  I want to know if that is a CO gun or an Open gun, which I suspect is more likely an Open gun.   Open gun data is largely irrelevant for CO discussion. 

 

It's also important to note that how your put the dot on your slide affects the longevity of your dot in a significant way.  That includes: the screw/washer used, torque, whether any kind of plate/shim used, if so, what material are the plates/shim made of.  

 

I have shot a lot of rounds on my CO gun for the past 18 months.  60k rounds or so.  I started with FF3, and quickly realized the emitter lens is the weak spot of its design, because it's merely glued to the frame on the outside, and every 1-5k or so rounds, the emitter lens would fly off due to recoil.  FF3 still does work after the emitter lens fly off, but the dot becomes much bigger after that - 6MOA dot becomes 20MOA.  I also believe this has something to do with no plate or shim used between the FF3 and my Stock 2 steel slide, and the excessive torque I applied on the screws (20lbs usually).  I burned 8 FF3s in short order and switched to Venom, because they share the same footprint, and my Stock 2 slides are permanently cut to that footprint.  My avg round count on FF3s is about 1.5-2k. 

 

Venoms last much longer than FF3, but I also paid more attention to the torque I used, strictly below 15lbs.  Also I put a plastic shim between the aluminum dot and the steel slide.  I believe this contributes to a longer life time of the dot as well, although I don't have any explanable scientific data to support that.  Unfortunately, with the thin bezels of Venoms, there is a distinct structural design weak spot, that's the right side frame/overhang junction.  For the past 4 Venoms I sent back to Vortext, they all cracked at that exact same spot.  Once the crack shows up, the zero starts shifting around.  You can easily use your finger nail to move along the smooth metal surface on the right side of the dot and feel the crack, even though sometimes your eyes don't see them yet.  My avg round count on Venoms is about 7-8k. 

 

I also tried SRO (2 of them) for a couple months, probably 5-6k rounds on them.  My feeling is that SRO can be a solid choice in terms of reliability.   However, there are some things with SRO that I cannot tolerate personally, the thick bezels, ghost dot when facing the sun, etc.  and I decided to stick with Venoms over SRO for now.  At this point, replacing the Venom every 8k has becomes a routine maintenance for me. 

 

I am currently looking to try the R3 Max.  From what I heard and tried on a club member's gun, it's user interface is slight better than SRO.  Reliability of the R3 Max is less known at this point, because I don't think its supply has caught up with demand yet at this point, resulting in very few people shooting it.   Judging from antidotes from few people shooting it, avg count >10k is common.  

 

 

 

Edited by Dazhi
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8 hours ago, Dazhi said:

It's important to note that CO and Open wear these dots drastically different.  I see a lot of people here say they had "50k" rounds on a dot and no problem.  I want to know if that is a CO gun or an Open gun, which I suspect is more likely an Open gun.   Open gun data is largely irrelevant for CO discussion. 

 

It's also important to note that how your put the dot on your slide affects the longevity of your dot in a significant way.  That includes: the screw/washer used, torque, whether any kind of plate/shim used, if so, what material are the plates/shim made of.  

 

I have shot a lot of rounds on my CO gun for the past 18 months.  60k rounds or so.  I started with FF3, and quickly realized the emitter lens is the weak spot of its design, because it's merely glued to the frame on the outside, and every 1-5k or so rounds, the emitter lens would fly off due to recoil.  FF3 still does work after the emitter lens fly off, but the dot becomes much bigger after that - 6MOA dot becomes 20MOA.  I also believe this has something to do with no plate or shim used between the FF3 and my Stock 2 steel slide, and the excessive torque I applied on the screws (20lbs usually).  I burned 8 FF3s in short order and switched to Venom, because they share the same footprint, and my Stock 2 slides are permanently cut to that footprint.  My avg round count on FF3s is about 1.5-2k. 

 

Venoms last much longer than FF3, but I also paid more attention to the torque I used, strictly below 15lbs.  Also I put a plastic shim between the aluminum dot and the steel slide.  I believe this contributes to a longer life time of the dot as well, although I don't have any explanable scientific data to support that.  Unfortunately, with the thin bezels of Venoms, there is a distinct structural design weak spot, that's the right side frame/overhang junction.  For the past 4 Venoms I sent back to Vortext, they all cracked at that exact same spot.  Once the crack shows up, the zero starts shifting around.  You can easily use your finger nail to move along the smooth metal surface on the right side of the dot and feel the crack, even though sometimes your eyes don't see them yet.  My avg round count on Venoms is about 7-8k. 

 

I also tried SRO (2 of them) for a couple months, probably 5-6k rounds on them.  My feeling is that SRO can be a solid choice in terms of reliability.   However, there are some things with SRO that I cannot tolerate personally, the thick bezels, ghost dot when facing the sun, etc.  and I decided to stick with Venoms over SRO for now.  At this point, replacing the Venom every 8k has becomes a routine maintenance for me. 

 

I am currently looking to try the R3 Max.  From what I heard and tried on a club member's gun, it's user interface is slight better than SRO.  Reliability of the R3 Max is less known at this point, because I don't think its supply has caught up with demand yet at this point, resulting in very few people shooting it.   Judging from antidotes from few people shooting it, avg count >10k is common.  

 

 

 

Have you looked into the Holosun sights at all?

 

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I think a good question to ask when discussing RD’s is how long does it take for a company to warranty their product. Seems every dot breaks at some point. Which company gets it back fastest might be a deciding factor for some. 

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