I keep hearing that there are only two good candidates for a red dot sight bolted to a 9mm pistol slide - the Leupold Delta point and the Trijicon RMR. Can the less expensive brands hold up to the battering ?

Check out some of the videos from Sage Dynamics. Aaron has been testing alot of the red dot sights. He recently reviewed one of the Vortex sights, and gave it ok marks, which is better than alot of other sights have fared in his reviews. It did finally shatter the lens the third time he dropped it on concrete from shoulder height.

Sage Dynamics did a 4 year study on mini red dots. Here it is.

http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/...903192fa603fce6f.pdf

Remember...buy once, cry once.

All of them will fail eventually. Pick one with a good warranty.

quote:

Originally posted by tha1000:
All of them will fail eventually. Pick one with a good warranty.

I have to agree with this.

I run an RMR currently and it is an excellent sight. I've heard the DPP is good but very big for carry. My understanding purely from reading is the Sig is likely to get the buttons bumped in a holster or during carry due to where the buttons sit. Look into Shield Sights as well as I've heard good things if you are looking to mount it on a slide thats too slim for an RMR or DPP.

First, second, and third choices - RMR, RMR, and RMR.

I have a Vortex Venom, it’s basically a Burris Fastfire 3 or SIG Romeo 1 - they all have the same DNA from the same factory with button location, battery location, and general construction being identical.

I haven’t used it on a centerfire pistol, just a 22LR pistol and as an offset centerfire rifle optic. While it’s been fine for those, the button locations would worry me on a CCW pistol and honestly, it doens’t seem like it has the durability of a RMR. And it certainly doens’t have the battery life of an RMR either, which I see as a show stopper for serious CCW use.

I know its not statistically meaningful. But I've now been running a very large group of RMR's across thousands of rounds and lots of platforms. I've had one Type 1 go intermittent and it went back and has run fine since. In thousands of rounds on Type 2's I've not had any issues. I've seen 4 romeo1's go down in our local pistol match. Almost everyone I know that started with a DPP has since switched to an RMR (sample size of 5). Slide mounted is a very tough environment and based on everything I know the RMR is what you want in a serious gun. For fun anything is fine, and in that case the Vortex seems pretty well recommended.

Thanks for all of the information. It looks like a RMR is the way to go.

I have 3 RMR’s, 2 Burris FF’s, 1 vortex. I haven’t had an issue with any of them. I also have a Sig Romeo that came in my 226RX but I haven’t shot it much.

RMR type 2.