The illumination on my Leupold Patrol 6HD isn't crazy-bright either. I am of the opinion that it doesn't matter quite as much as folks make it out to. A red dot needs to be able to scale it's brightness according to conditions, but a scope always has a black reticle, which will likely contrast nicely in bright conditions. It depends on the design of the reticle though, when it comes to it's usability with no illumination.

You see how bright it is here?



Well, it looks like this, on the highest setting, with my hand over the objective:


I am really pissed.

As a last-ditch, you may try a third battery from a different manufacturer and production date. I have seen those button batteries be bad out of the package because they're either old or just plain crap

I did. Looks no different. I'm going to initiate a return with Euro Optic tomorrow. They'll only return for store credit, so I guess I'm getting something else whether I want to or not. Hopefully they don't ding me a 20% restock free for the minor rub marks I put on the brightness knob trying to get the over-cranked cap off.

The version with the red dot is $760, added to cart. I may just put the damn Weaver 3-10X back on this rifle and get an Eotech XPS3-0 for my NV carbine.

Steiner never answered my email about the problem, couldn't get someone on the phone today. Called Euro Optic and had a return label less than five minutes after I heard the first ring tone. Back it goes, and for a full refund.

Between this, the lack of response, and the QC issues Steiner is known for with their IR lasers, I think I'm gonna steer clear of them. This left a bad taste in my mouth.

Back to the drawing board, I guess. I think I'm gonna back burner this project for now. The 3-10X isn't optimal, but I have it, so it's going back on. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

Wow that’s pretty shitty, for the price I saw posted here I almost got one! I had read mostly good stuff about the optic, but like you said back to the drawing board. One to look at is the Leupold Mk3HD 1.5-4, light weight (i believe it’s a little over 13oz vs Steiner little over 17oz) and the dot is supposedly near red dot bright. There’s a couple reticle options, too.

quote:

Originally posted by SigSauerP226:
Wow that’s pretty shitty, for the price I saw posted here I almost got one!

I forgot to mention that the box the scope came in had two set of QC stickers sealing it shut, one layer atop the other. They were both unsigned. I have the feeling that this scope went back to Steiner, they decided it was fine, and it made it back out onto the market. Between that, and them giving me a form letter reply with nothing but a support ticket number several days after I emailed them, I don't have a great feeling about Steiner. Their IR lasers are the only game in town for US made stuff that isn't $2-5k, but they're known for QC issues, stuff breaking, intermittent firing issues, and really, really slow to repair stuff that goes back to the factory. It paints a picture.

Anyway, I shipped it out today.

quote:

Originally posted by SigSauerP226:
I had read mostly good stuff about the optic, but like you said back to the drawing board. One to look at is the Leupold Mk3HD 1.5-4, light weight (i believe it’s a little over 13oz vs Steiner little over 17oz) and the dot is supposedly near red dot bright. There’s a couple reticle options, too.

I'll give it a look, thanks. I'm still gonna put this project on the back burner for now, but when I start looking again, I'll keep Leupold in mind.

Thanks for the feedback on EuroOptic! I have a scope coming in today. I hope not to have to return it, but honoring their return policy is a good sign.

The scope coming in is made in the USA.

Bill

P220 Smudge's story sounds vaguely familiar to me. To wit:

My experience with Eurooptic.

You'll want to read that before you do business with them.

In this case, it sounds like they sold that Steiner, had it returned to them. In turn, they may have sent it back to Steiner, and Eurooptic sold it again, when it still was not functioning properly. Check it before selling it again? Bahh! The peasants will never notice. I could be wrong, but my experience with them tells me all I need to know.

Caveat emptor

…

Ok, so Steiner let a turd out of the factory twice and Euro Optic has a history of selling refurbs as new? I’m adding Euro Optic to my shit list.

Yes, the battery was already installed in the scope from the last guy who decided it was toast. Lot number on the back of that battery and the spare in the baggie matched, so it probably shipped with both in that bag.

Having purchased from Europtic several times including a known open-box open-box item.
Buying something on that list is one thing but substituting it for a new one is unacceptable.
I am surprised to hear this as all my transactions have been satisfactory.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Ok, so Steiner let a turd out of the factory twice and Euro Optic has a history of selling refurbs as new?

Not exactly. What they did in my case is to take a scope that had been returned to them for an obvious issue, and instead of returning it to Trijicon for the issue to be corrected, they sold it to me because I was asking for a whole 15 dollars off their asking price.

Clearly, that was unethical. And if Eurooptic doesn't like me making sure that members and readers of this forum know about what they did, tough. It's the truth. If they had done the right thing- either ship a truly new scope to me, or tell me that they were unwilling to honor the price I had paid two weeks before. Either way, you wouldn't be reading about this right now.

Well, if they bought refurbs from Steiner and they're merely selling them "on clearance" as new, then I find that unethical also. You and I both paid for scopes we expected to be NIB because that's what they were advertised as. What they did to you was overt, and if they'd selling refurbished P4Xi's as new, then that's something they can play off as merely a mistake. Different degrees of the same shady behavior.

Frustrating to hear this stuff. I have multiple purchases from Euro with the last two being Steiners.
All have been great.

As I said before, they deal in very expensive optics, and the guys who buy 500 dollar scopes from them are probably just a nuisance.

I mean, what do they make on the sale of inexpensive scopes? It's pocket change to them. A Porsche dealership selling Mopeds; the salesmen wouldn't like it.

I've bought a number of items from EuroOptic and to date haven't had any issues with their service or the products I've received. They had become my secondary source for B&T parts whenever B&T USA was out of stock, and they fulfilled that role pretty well. I've also purchase a couple of Trijicon optics as well; luckily no issues with those either. With the ever-growing strangling guns laws of WA, I will confess that it's been a while since I've ordered anything from EuroOptic.

Having said all of that, we did have a customer who bought his AI 338LM bolt gun, Schmidt & Bender scope and AI scope mount from them. He told us that he couldn't get the rifle sighted properly and had us try to diagnose what was going on with it. With our meager skill set we ended up surmising that the mount was probably at fault since we were having trouble trying to do a cursory sight-in. We substituted in a US-made Vortex mount (Seekins I think is the actual manufacturer) and relatively easily got the scope set up with a rough sight-in. He went ahead and bought the mount and successfully got the rifle sighted in at 200 meters. We don't know who did the original scope mount; the customer didn't offer that info but did say that it wasn't done by him but was done by a "gun guy", most likely by a friend of his is what we guessed.

He later on told us that he contacted EuroOptic about the AI mount. They did give him a return authorization for it and subsequently sent a replacement mount of the same make. However he noticed that the second mount arrived in different packaging that made him think that the first mount might have been a prior return that EO then repackaged, turned around and resold to him. He didn't wind up using the mount, instead selling it and buying a Spuhr that one of our guys put on his rifle, replacing the Vortex/Seekins mount that we earlier had installed.

As for the Steiner P4Xi; I have one of those and it glows fairly bright in low light and is decent in bright sunlight. However it's element is red and not green. I like the optic well enough; it's resided on my PWS Mk114 for several years now and hasn't given me a lick of heartache although my ever aging eyes would now appreciate some magnification a bit more stout that 4x power these days. That said (again), our shop sells Steiner binos and we have had some QC issues with their consumer-grade units. Steiner is a Beretta brand and, at least with many of the US-market products, is closely linked with the Italian make's other optics subsidiary, Burris. And Burris isn't exactly known for selling stupendously great stuff.

Well, whatever the case, the carbine I was going to put it on has the 3-10 on it again. I re-zeroed it a few days ago, then stuck the upper back in the case.

That range trip was more about trying out my newly approved SBR's, so it got no real attention, but I want to finish it up and devote a trip purely to some longer range stuff. It'll be cool enough soon to shoot from prone without getting 3rd degree burns, so I'll figure out something for a bipod and settle in to see what I can pull off with a pencil barrel at 200 yards. The friend I go shooting with has an AR500 silhouette, so that'll come in handy. I've got a small selection of ammo, and I plan to order something loaded with Hornady Vmax 60gr to see what kind of groups I can get.

Oh, and I need to finally make the jump to a quality trigger. My 60's Colt whateveritis that the friend who gave me the lower harvested it out of was showing it's limits.

It blows 'lightweight' out of the water because it's a heavy pig. But I have never been more satisfied with a rifle scope than with my Razor 1-6s with the JM1 reticle.

Fantastic glass, bombproof, fantastic illumination.

I have been chucking my 3 gun rifle into dump barrels for years and banging it against props and barricades. Even fell HARD on my back onto the slung rifle when I slipped on a wet wooden floor during a stage, and it has never lost zero. Smashed a throw lever off the scope going into a dump barrel and Vortex just sent me a new one, no questions asked. I've had the first one for, if I recall correctly, 10+ years. Bought a second for another rifle because the first was so good.


I will shave weight from other places, to make up for the weight in the optic, if weight is a hard criteria. Smoke composites and Brigand Arms make good carbon fiber furniture, and Proof Research has their carbon fiber wrapped barrels. Spendy, but good and light.

Ugh. That sucks. Is there a reason you went with a LPVO rather than an Aimpoint or EOTECH w/magnifier?

Indiana Boy, I have a carbon fiber handguard, and plan on getting a Lancer carbon fiber stock, so I’m definitely shaving weight. I dunno, I’m not totally opposed to a heavier optic, I just like how light and handy it is.

Loswsmith, I want to get away from red dots. My astigmatism is to the point now where I don’t see a dot, I see a star, with a smaller star at about 5:00 off that main star. I picked up a Primary Arms 1X Microprosm I haven’t gotten to try out yet, but it’s really promising so far. I kind of want to try out a 3X on this carbine - my eye with the diopter correctly adjusted on the 1X is unusable with my magnifier. May need to try an another magnifier, this one is kind of junk and I’m not sure the diopter adjustment is actually doing anything on it. I will end up trying an Eotech at some point on my NV carbine, so that’s going to happen. I just wonder what kind of overall weight I’d be looking at with an Eotech plus a 3X. I dunno.

I think early next year, I’ll pick this one back up and finish it up.