What optics to put on a cheap AR build ?

[danhr]

The thing is, Eotech was "supposed" to be able to handle the temp differences and it could not. That is one of the reasons the company is offering refunds.

Smh.

Thank you for missing the point of the post entirely and singling out a single comment.

Bravo kind sir, bravo.

[arjohnson]

I don't think anyone would argue that Aimpoint is a tier 1 optic, but the OP did state that he is building a "CHEAP" AR- if you missed the topic title. Maybe he needs affordable options for optics.

I know, got side tracked by someone who doesn't know the value of a good optic vs cheap one. With that said I'd go with irons over a cheap red dot.

[chp1911]

Subjective I guess..... I interpret the word "abuse" by the definition, that something is being misused. So subjecting an optic go temperatures that it is not designed to go to.... well that's misusing it, and is therefore abuse. If you get a 22lr scope on a .338 lapua, well that's abuse. But whatever.

I did not miss the point. You are the one that said that you interpreted the word abuse to mean something is being misused. "subjecting an optic to temperatures it is not designed to go to" . The Eotech was supposed to be able to operate in extreme temps. Eotechs own brochures state that the unit is able to withstand temps from -40 degrees to 150 degrees. Therefore it is not abuse. It is within the operating parameters of the unit.

[danhr]

I did not miss the point. You are the one that said that you interpreted the word abuse to mean something is being misused. "subjecting an optic to temperatures it is not designed to go to" . The Eotech was supposed to be able to operate in extreme temps. Eotechs own brochures state that the unit is able to withstand temps from -40 degrees to 150 degrees. Therefore it is not abuse. It is within the operating parameters of the unit.

Read carefully. Find the post where I said that eotech were being abused. I said subjecting an optic to a temperature where it's not supposed to go is abuse. Did I specify eotech? No. Did I even specify sub 32*F temperatures? No. Does the Eotech even have anything to do with the post? Absolutely not.... the post was concerning abusing optics, and as you mentioned the faulty Eotechs were not abused, because they were used within the specifications that the manufacturer set. So bringing them up is completely moot, which is why you missed the point entirely.

If you are going to put words, or anything, in my mouth, you should at least be classy and buy me a drink first.

[Yellowfin]

Bushnell 1-4's are a decent optic for the money. I've had no complaints about mine so far in 2 years.

[Emptymag]

I just posted in teh "Deals" thread - Bushnell red dot at DSG Arms on sale for $69.00
(may need to be logged in for that price)


Not sure what that mount equates to in regards to "cowitness" heights.

[Fudmottin]

I've been burned by cheap optics in the past. I wear glasses, so a nice optic is really important to me. For an AR, I would always have back up irons. Heck, standard A2 irons are actually quite good. I might go out on a limb and say they are just about as good as M1 Garand iron sights.

I would like to ask a slightly different question that I'm not sure is worth creating an extra thread for. I've got a combination of Trijicon MRO with the co-witness mount and Vortex T3 with the base setup to flip the sight to the right (I'm right eye dominant but don't want to block my left eye). In all the YouTube videos I've seen using 3X magnifiers with red dots, the magnifier is as close to the dot sight as it can be mounted. Because the magnifiers have short eye relief (the dot sights have infinite eye relief), this seems to defeat one of the main points of the dot sight which is having it mounted far from the eye for snap shooting. Why do they do that?

I have noticed that if you mount the dot sight too far away from the magnifier, you do start to see the outline of the dot sight in the magnifier which is annoying. So I can see that point. What I don't see is why you couldn't have, say, a six inch gap between the two optics so that when you are using the magnifier you only see the dot and not the housing and when you flip the magnifier out of the way, you get your snap shot capability for in close. I think that last sentence ran on away from me.

[Fudmottin]

Holosun rep: "We are getting 50 thousand hours on a 2032 battery set at medium brightness"

How long has Holosun company been in business and how long have they been making that model? 50k hours is 5.7 years, 24-7.

I didn't see an answer to this question. I can't answer the first part. I can give a way to determine battery life (approximately). I hope I'm not insulting your intelligence with this. I'll just go to the basics for anyone who happens to read this.

Battery capacity is rated in milliamp hours. Based on their rated output voltage, this gives you the total energy available in the battery. The rating is an average, not absolute. The rate of current draw also affects the ultimate available energy. Electronics will run at some voltage and consume power. As the voltage is in a fixed range, the power is generally given in milliamps or even microamps instead of in watts. The available run time would be obtained by dividing the milliamp hours by the milliamps drawn by the electronics.

As an example, if you have a device that draws 10mA and the battery manages to provide 100mAh, you take the 100mAh / 10mA and get 10 hours.

All the electronics used in these devices has data sheets that rate power consumption in various states like standby, on, etc. It is also simple to measure the energy draw from the fully assembled device. This allows approximating the life time of the battery in the device without actually running the device for that period of time.

Personally, I would knock off 20% of claimed life expectancy right off the bat. If you run brighter settings, you draw more power and shorten life expectancy even more. You don't know how long the battery has been sitting on a shelf somewhere and they do have a shelf life.

[Chief Brody]

I would buy a Bushnell AR optics 3-9x40