Review of the Aimpoint Pro Patrol Rifle Optic

I’ve been on the market to get a red dot sight for my homeland defense rifle for some time now. I tried some of the very low-cost offerings to much disappointment, especially around the mount loosening up following a half of a magazine. It is difficult to suck up spending hundreds of dollars to get a tiny glowing dot, but if you would like to place an Red Dot Sight on your carbine, it is the price you have got to pay.

Why add a Red Dot Sight at all? Try one out, and you will know why. The two eyes open target acquisition becomes much faster and instinctive, from short-term to long range. It can make a big difference in most around shootability, which is the reason red dots became a standard problem on the carbines of armed professionals everywhere. If you are serious about setting up your TEOTWAWKI rifle to the best performance in battle conditions, a pro-grade red dot optic is a worthy investment. My prior experience with red dots has been with a $40 Bushnell sight, and a Primary Arms micro dot, each of which had difficulties falling lose under recoil.

The PRO is my very first ceremony grade red dot purchase, although I’ve expertise with magnified scopes at a comparable range of prices and played around with the majority of the other major optics. The Aimpoint Patrol Rifle Optic came out last year as an entry-level offering targeted to the law enforcement community. It is based on Aimpoint‘s legendary CompM2 and includes the top-of-the-line qualities you’d expect from an Aimpoint optics. For a little while, the PRO was only available to law enforcement or military, but Aimpoint opened sales to civilians earlier this season. The PRO hits the $400 price tag, which includes the excellent QRP2 mount.

Aimpoint’s micro red dots are tens of thousands of dollars more and come without a mount; you are looking at $600 to $700 to get into one of these. The competition around $400 comes from EOTech’s holo sights, and usually, you are looking at their older models like the 512 for the $400 mark – the XPS models are closer to $500. I am not a massive fan of the EOTech’s fiddly controls, at least when compared to the Aimpoint’s set-it and forget-it three years constant on battery lifetime. The EOTech has to be turned on, and when I recall right, is dialed to the desired brightness each time. If I need my carbine in a hurry, I don’t wish to be messing with my mind.

Also, reports of significantly less than stellar credibility and a complex grid took EOTech out from the running for me.

During first unboxing, the PRO impresses. The Aimpoint PRO has a sound, rugged sense in hand. It feels like it may have no problemo standing up to whatever you throw at it. But if you need to, you can go SCUBA diving with the PRO – it is watertight down to 150 feet. The added documentation goes through a record of extreme weather conditions, extreme heat, extreme cold, salt air, and so forth, and no special processes required come up over anything else. Threads on the battery compartment and adjustment turrets operate smoothly. The comprised scope covers work well – they slip on easily, but firmly, and the front cover is spring loaded and pops open rapidly for immediate usage.

The QRP2 rail grabber bracket comes attached to the optics; also it is quite easy to mount on a standard Picatinny rail. Pop-in the added battery and you may get the PRO mounted in a few minutes. A good feature of the QRP2 bracket is that it is designed not to let you over tighten the bracket on the railway – once you have reached the desired tightness, a spring pops in and will not let you tighten it more. The QRP2 mounts securely.There is not wobble or play in any way, which is precisely what you want. While the QRP2 isn’t a quick release bracket, it is only going to be slightly slower in the event you need to remove the optics due to damage/malfunction in a firefight, twist the know a few turns and it is off.

The red dot of the PRO is two MOA in size, that is a good size for fast acquisition while still allowing for a few more precise aiming. There are six light configurations and four-night vision configurations, placing seven is what Aimpoint urges leaving the optic on as a way to attain the 30,000-hour battery life. Placing seven is pretty good for indoor, lower light or cloudy day uses.If it is bright and sunny out, you’ll probably need to dial it up a notch or two to get an excellent visibility of the point. The below image makes the point look just a little bit bigger than it is.

Once I zeroed in the PRO, it was a bight, sunny day in the desert, so I clicked up to placing nine to get a reliable visibility from the point. When I was in the newspaper, typing a point into the bullseye was a simple enough task. The adjustment turrets are simple to access, unscrew the protective caps on the side and top of the optics. The turrets are regulated by a coin or comparably sized tool. Adjustment is in 1/2 MOA increases, and the turrets have a great positive click on them, which is useful when dialing in. Once correctly soaks in, I was getting classes of around an inch at 50 yards with M193.

And yes, you must spend some time and get the optic sighted in correctly. Do not just slap the Red Dot Sight on your weapon and line it up with your irons and call it done. I did that before to the range excursion, and my initial shots were not even on target.anywhere. Please, spend the effort and time to get the optic properly sighted in, dead center of the target. Shooting with an optic such as this is different, improved encounter. It is a heck of a whole lot simpler to shoot with two eyes open, and the field of view is much less obstructed by iron sights.

This has two positive consequences, one, you can see more of what is happening around you, and 2, it can make it simpler To see where your shots are affecting, at least for me personally. The point is fast and intuitive – just place the red dot of doom in which you desire the rounds to go, versus lining up iron sights. What surprised me was the amount of long-range accuracy I was able to achieve. After sighting in and going through a magazine or two, I moved outside to steel targets in the 200 and after that 300-yard line.

My hit percent increased dramatically, and I was hitting torso sized gongs at those scales with gratifying regularity and rate. When there was amiss, the better field-of-view gave PRO has allowed me to do better monitor where the shot hit and adjust from there. I have got about 200 rounds down range with the PRO so far, and I am delighted with it, despite initial reluctance to drop $400 on a red LED dot. If you’ve obtained a carbine needing a red dot and also have spending budget constraints, the Aimpoint PRO the best buy on the market.