the red dot is not a complete circle …has a bit of a twlinkling star shape to it. is that normal?
when i first took the sight out of the box, inspected it, i noticed the lens on the viewing side (end close to the eye) had two decent sized white spots right in the middle of it. so i tried to clean it with kodak lens paper, the dots started to smudge…the lens seemed to get more dirty from what appeared to be grease of some sort around the edges of the lens as i wiped it. is the viewing lens coated with some sort of grease? is a camera lens cleaning solution safe to use? can’t seem to get rid of the smudging with just the lens paper…
the brightness adjustment knob appears to have some play to it. the knob will rotate a fair amount before the knob even “clicks” to the next setting. normal?
In regards to the first point- it’s very common with people who are using their first quality red dots or other optics with adjustable brightness to turn the brightness up a bit too high.
One thing I always did with my Eotechs or Aimpoints was if I was taking the time to aim and attempting to be accurate and precise, I’d only turn the reticle up enough to just barely see it. If I had the time to concentrate on each shot, I’d have time to be able to pick up the dimmer reticle. The dimmer settings are always more “crisp” providing of course they are turned up enough to see- especially with the Eotech.
However if I would try for speed and wanted to be able to pick it up quickly when moving fast, I’d turn them up pretty bright. When really bright, they aren’t as crisp and sharp but when you’re moving fast and not going for pure accuracy, just a hit, brighter is where it’s at.
The dot should be a dot. If it flares to a star-like shape, you probably have it turned up too bright. Also, you may be focusing your eyes too much on the dot and not on the target. That will sometimes make it appear more like a blob than a dot.
The brightness knob is designed to move that way so that it can withstand a mild impact and not get knocked from one setting to another. It is normal and nothing to worry about.
As far as the stuff on the lens goes, I can’t really say. My M4S didn’t have anything like that on it. They are very durable scopes, so I can’t imagine that camera lens cleaning solution would hurt it.
forget the solution and lens paper. try a lenspen. i think you’ll like it. (not that i’d use a lenspen on grease…not quite sure what that is all about)
the play in the knob is a feature. (never mind tigerseven already mentioned it)