Red dots with good auto brightness

[SquarePizza]

I’m considering a RMRcc for my Glock 26, but after running this Holosun 407k with manual brightness only, I’m starting to think about the importance of auto adjusting.

This is for my daily CC and it’s also my idpa gun. I’m a middle of the pack shooter with draw to first round hit around 1.5 seconds.

The reason I bring that up is, does the adjustment actually keep up with a shooter’s draw stroke. Or is auto brightness just a sales gimmick?

 

[LA260]

I’m considering a RMRcc for my Glock 26, but after running this Holosun 407k with manual brightness only, I’m starting to think about the importance of auto adjusting.

This is for my daily CC and it’s also my idpa gun. I’m a middle of the pack shooter with draw to first round hit around 1.5 seconds.

The reason I bring that up is, does the adjustment actually keep up with a shooter’s draw stroke. Or is auto brightness just a sales gimmick?

I got couple of RMR HD's. 85-90% of the time auto-brightness is spot on. Much better compared to regular RMR auto setting.

 

[clcustom1911]

I have a couple RMRcc amd RMR's. I have them on pistols and rifles. I'm about your same shot timing (concealment to 2 shots on target in about 1.5). It works fine and dandy. I'll not go into "point" shooting or any of that jazz.

They'll work well and they have helped my 25-50y accuracy quite well.

 

[ToddM]

They work pretty well most of the time. It's a trade off really, you can run a manual brightness optic really bright to make sure the dot is always there, but in some situations it's going to be too bright, or you can run the auto brightness but I've found they can be too dim in some scenarios.

The two scenarios I've seen that confuse auto brightness setting optics, some do better than others: 1) if you are shooting at a covered range outdoors and you're in the shade but it's super bright/desert etc. the optic can select too dim of a setting. 2) If you are shooting at an indoor range that has a darker target area, but brighter lights around/above the shooter the optic can select a setting that's far too bright. Basically anytime the shooter/target lighting are significantly different the auto brightness optics seem to struggle. Usually you can still see the dot, it's just not ideal. Most seem to adjust extremely fast and I've never had one when drawing or even shooting on the move did not adjust more than fast enough.

 

[drglock]

Shooting at night and illuminating your target with a white light the dot is almost impossible to see. Or at least it was on mine.

 

[LA260]

You guys need to check out RMR HD with the forward facing light sensor. Works much better than regular sensors

 

[ToddM]

The forward facing definitely helps, esp. compared to the original RMR's. That said I'd like something larger than a 3 MOA dot on a combat handgun, and for competition I'd rather run something like and SRO etc. with a larger window, so the HD's don't really fill a use case for me. Plus I kinda soured on Trijicon in general after the MRO fiasco, but they make some nice products no doubt.

I could see where the HD's would really shine as a secondary offset mount though, or if you preferred a smaller dot on a carry gun etc.

 

[jbastings]

I’ve been running a Versasight red dot sight on my carry setup for about six months, and the auto brightness works surprisingly well. It adjusts fast enough during a draw, even going from dark indoor lighting to full sun. It’s definitely more than a sales gimmick.

 

[koshkin]

I think Shield got the auto adjust pretty much worked out with both RMS and AMS models.

ILya

 

[CK1.0]

The forward facing definitely helps, esp. compared to the original RMR's. That said I'd like something larger than a 3 MOA dot on a combat handgun, and for competition I'd rather run something like and SRO etc. with a larger window, so the HD's don't really fill a use case for me. Plus I kinda soured on Trijicon in general after the MRO fiasco, but they make some nice products no doubt.

I could see where the HD's would really shine as a secondary offset mount though, or if you preferred a smaller dot on a carry gun etc.

I think you nailed it when talking about use cases where you and the target are under different lighting (including with flashlights/weapon lights). I’ve found none that are great at that no matter who made it or where their sensors are facing.

An SRO’s isn’t terrible, and is actually fine when outside running around in the sunlight, but introduce shadows and certain things and it gets lousy quick and usually decides to get annoyingly dim.

I think most of us would rather they leaned towards going a little brighter on an auto setting but it doesn’t seem like any of the players are willing to just do it (probably tied to eroding that battery-life they all love to brag about).

I also don’t quite trust Trijicon’s new enclosed setup just yet (IMO Aimpoint’s COA looks more interesting)… I’ll never forget them shilling those fisheye MROs for years lol.

 

[hunterx77]

Have had good things with the Holosun eps carry, it has top notch auto brightness.

 

[CK1.0]

I was thinking on this a bit, and IDK if there’s an established “best practice” already, but I think at this point it’s probably best for most guys to just decide on a brightness level for the gun’s intended job that they’re comfortable with and plan on changing batteries now and again. I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that any of the dot makers have the auto-brightness thing quite figured out.

IDK if there’s any dots out there that check all the boxes for me personally right now… I run SROs and RMRs, largest dot size in each (5.0/6.5 IIRC), and they’re solid and reliable, but they’re not enclosed and could be better.

I played with a Glock COA like 2 days before they announced they’re pulling them for contract shit and I should have bought it, the ACRO sucked, but that COA made me wonder if Aimpoint finally figured it out…