Aimpoint Micro on a Tanfoglio Open gun

[BritinUSA]

Today was my first match with the Aimpoint Micro on my Tanfoglio Open gun.

The mount is from Millenium Custom Guns and was modified by a local gunsmith to fit onto the Tanfoglio, the original mount being for a SVI/STI format. The bottom screw holes for the mount were cut off which lowered the mount and allowed new holes to be drilled that lined up with the existing frame holes.

The modified mount sits low to the slide, about 0.100" to be precise (kind of).

The Aimpoint Micro is available in three models, the H-1 and R-1 are essentially the same scope but in either black or silver respectively, the third and most expensive model is the T-1 which has compatibility with night-vision devices.

The scope is TINY, and has a 4moa dot that is very bright and weighs about 3oz. The weaver base is removed (it is held in place by four screws) and this allows the scope to be attached to the mount which has four holes pre-drilled for this purpose. The supplied lens covers are rubber and do not fit easily onto the scope when attached to the mount, they do work but are prone to coming off, so I will be looking around for a ScopeCoat type arrangement in the future.

There are zero issues with the dot brightness. Today was mostly cloudy and I used settings 10-11 depending on whether the sun was out or not. Level 12 (the highest level) is super bright and was not needed even when the sun cleared the clouds.

The viewing window is approximately 0.800" diameter which seems small but is comparable to the Docter scope. I did not notice the size of the lens while shooting. I was conscious of some vibration from the single-side mount which is a common problem with single-sided mounts. I may move to a double-sided setup later if one becomes available. There are no issues with ejection as the port is past the mount during the ejection of spent cases.

[EZ Bagger]

How does the brightness of these compare to the C-More?

These any better/worse in the rain?

[BritinUSA]

I don't have a C-More to compare it to... I'll grab someone at the next match and do a side by side comparison. Not sure about the rain either, we have a few drops at Aurora today, not enough to draw an impression from.

[EZ Bagger]

I don't have a C-More to compare it to... I'll grab someone at the next match and do a side by side comparison. Not sure about the rain either, we have a few drops at Aurora today, not enough to draw an impression from.

I'd be interested in comparing. You going to Pueblo?

And, you got out of there before I did. Shot the classifier and the speed shoot in heavy rain and hail. There were rivers flowing into the berms!

[larry cazes]

I have played with the micro and the dot is siginifcantly brighter and sharper than a CMore and will be much more resistant to the brightness and incident angle of the sun. Like ALL tube scopes it is not prone to washout from the sun since the surface that the dot is projected onto is shielded inside the tube. The micro is similiar to the bigger aimpoint comps but the dot is a bit small for my taste. I will stick with my COMP XDs until they grow the dot in the micro to at least 7 MOA. I have no direct data to back it up but I do not trust the longevity of the switch on the micro also. The micro uses a switch setup similiar to the TASCO PDP3s which were notoriously unreliable. I went through a lot of PDP3s before I switched to the Aimpoint COMP model and they ALL died due to the switch going intermittent. Keep us posted on how it holds up over time. If it uses the same mount as an Aimpoint COMP, Weigand made a great double sided mount which was discontinued but is still available for cheap on their website.

[BritinUSA]

And, you got out of there before I did. Shot the classifier and the speed shoot in heavy rain and hail. There were rivers flowing into the berms!

Oh man !!! That sucks... They need to address the squad size issue at these matches so we don't have people sitting around for 90 minutes waiting to shoot.

I hope to be at Pueblo, assuming that I don't get paged out. There were no changes going on at work this weekend so I had a peaceful couple of days.

I have no direct data to back it up but I do not trust the longevity of the switch on the micro...

If it uses the same mount as an Aimpoint COMP, Weigand made a great double sided mount which was discontinued but is still available for cheap on their website.

I just left the scope on all day. Battery is supposed to last for 5000 hours or something crazy like that, so I only need to switch it on/off once a day at the match. Aimpoint has a pretty good warranty program so I if it goes wacky then I suspect it won't cost much to fix it. I also plan on having a spare. The scope is totally different from the Aimpoint Comp so the mount is a different design unless you go for a weaver mount which would sit a little too high for me.

[Chuck Anderson]

The battery life is actually 50,000 hours. But that is at one of the intermediate setting, not 10 or 11. I haven't been able to get an answer from Aimpoint on longevity at the highest settings. Definitely get the ScopeCoat. They are available for the Micro. The other problem I had with the rubber lens covers is that it leaves a greasy film on the lens.

[jenlu]

Also recently shifted from a c-more to aimpoint micro on my STI 9mm open gun and using the right sided mounts from

Double-Alpha (Saul K).

My thoughts on Micro compared with C-more is

+ Scope is really a scope and not a piece of plastic,

- but field of view is more limited

+/- dot is great, I had a 6 MOA on my C-more and now 4 MOA on Micro and I can not tell any difference,

+ and the mount is really really low (I had problems with c-more being to high)

+ less chance of loosing the dit in really really bright sun from the back

One thing worth sharing (so anyone mounting this type of scope on an STI can do it correct directly compared to what I ended up doing - is how far back/front you mount the scope. As it sits so low there is a significant amount of powder/gun smoke residue that can end up at the back lense (trust me...) if you do not think before mounting (again, been there)...

I started out by trying getting the holes drilled as far up front as possible - to clear the ejection port for sure but this gave me lots of 'gunsmoke' on the back lense.... :-( So then I moved the scope 'one step' back on by only using two holes - this way I do not get any gunsmoke anymore on the lense.

You can actually see the smoke on the marks, ad added the stick to show how far back the powder marks are when looking at the scope/mount from left side (sorry for the bad quality). So if you move the scope to cover these marks - but not any further, that would be how I would do it if I where to drill these holes again and mount it...

Then from the right side you can see that I initially had mounted the scope using all three holes, but now when moving it

back I ended up only using two holes - and having to carve out some for the (not sure of the name - thing you extract when

pulling of barrel) under the mount.

So if I ever where to mount an Aimpoint micro again - I would use all three holes and have the scope reach just a few mm further up front then what I ended up with here.... Sort of drill the holes in between with what I ended up with here...

Still - great scope and shoots well. If the pics are too bad - send me an PM and I can get better ones on where the mount should be...

/ Jens

Edited August 18, 2010 by jenlu

[WDB]

Aimpoint has a pretty good warranty program so I if it goes wacky then I suspect it won't cost much to fix it.

I had one go south on me during a local match about a year ago. Called them up for a RA # and overnight mailed it to them on Tues. Friday when I got home from work I had a UPS package waiting on me. Sent me a brand new one. Can't beat that.