Yesterday took my AR out with some other stuff to take my visiting relatives shooting. All I can say is thank God for BUIS.

I've had my Holosun HS510C for a few years. I soon found out that, despite what Holosun claims about battery life: Every time I took the AR out to check the optic, the battery would be dead. (Holosun claims "up to 50,000 hours, depending upon settings." One would think inactive, sitting in a safe, would mean a good deal more than the 8800 hours in a year.) "Fine," I said to myself, "I'll just shut the damn thing off."

Little good that did. It took me a while to figure out why manual brightness mode didn't appear to be working: The battery was dead. Again

I'm certain I last replaced the battery, again, about a year ago.

Is there an optic I can buy where I won't have to be replacing the battery every year?

I like the HS510C in every other respect, but this just doesn't cut it.

Please don't recommend $1,000 optics. That's just not gonna cut it.

Definitely want a circle-dot reticle.

(To add insult-to-injury: Replacing the battery in the HS510C is a PITA. You need a small torx driver to remove the tiny little screws, the screws aren't captured, so you have to be very careful not to lose them, and the battery holder fits so tightly you need to pry it out with a screw driver. It just sux.)

On the low end there's the SIG Romeo 5 and the Primary Arms MD-25 red dot and at the higher end there's the Trijicon MRO HD. What size are you looking for?

If you are not up for another Holosun, Eotech would be the next option price wise. I am looking at getting a C-More sight, although it is not a circle-dot configuration, they are not bad. I like an open sight with a good size picture and the one I had prior, seemed to hold up well. Each sight will have it's pros and cons.

I have 2 EoTechs and I have to replace the battery every year also. These are the EXPS2. Maybe the EXPS3 has better battery life? I don't know.
Holographic sights just seem to eat batteries more.
Here's an interesting video on Eotechs and their like.

https://youtu.be/EaIRjrSt8vw

Trijicon MRO HD

quote:

Originally posted by joatmonv:
I have 2 EoTechs and I have to replace the battery every year also. These are the EXPS2. Maybe the EXPS3 has better battery life? I don't know.

Besides water resistance, the only difference between the EXPS2 and 3 is the 3 has night vision settings. There is a Green reticle option on the EXPS2 but it will do a little worse on battery life.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Trijicon MRO HD

Hahahahahaha!

No.

(Thanks for the suggestion, though )

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Trijicon MRO HD

Hahahahahaha!

No.

(Thanks for the suggestion, though )

Curious why you don’t like them?

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Trijicon MRO HD

Hahahahahaha!

No.

(Thanks for the suggestion, though )

Curious why you don’t like them?

Ok, I take back the "Hahaha..." part. That was based on their MSRP, which is $1,000 without a mount. Looks like, retail, "only" a bit more than double the HS510C with a QD mount.

Beyond that, though, Trijicon has kind of annoyed me by finally adding a circle/dot reticle, then nearly doubling the price of the MRO to get it. Plus I have mild astigmatism or cataracts (ophthalmologist says cataracts) that result in RDS' starring. For some reason that was worse with the MRO than other RDS' I looked at.

All that aside: Reviews suggest only about one year of battery life. Might as well stick with the Holosun.

I guess I'll just add a calendar event to remind me to replace the Holosuns battery every year.

They're $658 at EuroOptic with a lower 1/3 mount:

https://www.eurooptic.com/Trij...ness-AC32069-MR.aspx

quote:

I guess I'll just add a calendar event to remind me to replace the Holosuns battery every year.

If you're happy with the optic otherwise, this might be best course of action. Even if you're changing them every 6 months, the Optic will likely be depricated long before you see the return on investment on a different optic. Batteries are cheap, calendar reminders are free.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

I guess I'll just add a calendar event to remind me to replace the Holosuns battery every year.

If you're happy with the optic otherwise, this might be best course of action. Even if you're changing them every 6 months, the Optic will likely be deprecated long before you see the return on investment on a different optic. Batteries are cheap, calendar reminders are free.

I am otherwise quite pleased with the optic, so I guess that's the best course of action. I'm just really disappointed the battery life isn't even remotely close to what Holosun claims it should be. Then again: I'm seeing some of the same complaints about the Trijicon MRO HD, so there's that.

Warranty service? I sent in a 507k with similar issues and received a new one. Could be that the wirings gone bad, etc.

I played with an AEMS yesterday and liked it. Black Friday is around the corner...just a thought.

I guess I am just so used to changing batteries once a year it’s no big thing.
August 1st ritual I guess!

1) Consider a warranty claim. Holosun will most likely replace your optic. You might have to pay to ship it to them. Note: Holosun's 50k hour battery life is on a lower setting and likely dot only.

2) Consider that the cost of a quality CR2032 battery is less than $2 and replace it annually. Buy good batteries (Duracell) to help ensure maximum life. Good batteries make a difference.

3) If all else fails and you like the 510C, buy another one. Your mileage with the second one may vary. You would likely easily and quickly move your old one in the classifieds here a clear conscience by pricing appropriately and disclosing your experience with battery life.

That is a good point.
What brand battery are you using? I stick to Panasonic for my button style batteries.

I've considered reaching out to Holosun and asking them if it was normal for an HS510C in shake-to-wake mode, sitting on a rifle in a safe, the safe of which is accessed at most once every few days, should have battery-after-battery go dead w/in a year or less.

And, yeah: CR2032 batteries are not expensive. It's more the principle of the thing and the concern that, even if the thing isn't dead when I take it out of the safe, how much run time can I expect from it?

Black92LX: The last battery was a Sony. One of the more highly-rated CR2032's at the time I bought them. Looks like I bought Energizer's, last time. Those are rated even better. I'll make sure that's what goes in there.

The battery that's in there now was given to me by the guy shooting next to us at the range. He had no idea how long he'd had them. So I should probably replace it, again, anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
That is a good point.
What brand battery are you using? I stick to Panasonic for my button style batteries.

Duracell.

Purchased in quantity from Battery Junction to ensure I'm not getting counterfeits.

I followed a thread on another forum where a guy put brand new batteries in five T1s and maxed the brightness. The Duracells significantly outperformed the others.

Duracell is also specifically recommended by a couple of bigger names in the training ring that certainly are not being endorsed by a battery company.

Energizer button cells are brittle trash. They come with every Trijicon optic.

I like the Holosun AEMS a lot. I run a bunch of Holosun HS503GUs and have never found one dead when I get the gun out of the safe. However, I always disable the shake awake feature. I always manually turn it on and off.

I was having trouble with my Steiner MRS batteries going dead when I first got it … it was also the first of the automatic types of sights eventually I discovered my problem was a combination of my own making. First was cheap batteries then good batteries but inexpensive because they were “old-ish”. Secondly I relied on the shake-awake feature to preserve battery life.

To remedy the situation I now only use Energizer 2032 & 1632 batteries and have yet to have problems, but I keep extras in the truck. I also started shutting the sight off when I’m done shooting it for the day.

In the last 60-90 days I’ve also bought the Holosun 407, 507, 510 & 512, all of which have the solar backup so I hope that helps significantly too.