I have never really followed them, but remember reading a few years ago that there was some issues. From looking around at older posts it looks like some people were upset about some CS issue as well.
I have been using Aimpoint T2’s for a while, however I looked through a friend’s EXPS 3-0 and the reticle was slightly clearer for me. Not enough to get rid of my T2’s, but I have a rifle that I wanted to pair up with a magnifier and from what I hear Eotechs pair well with magnifiers.
I do have some astigmatism that should be getting addressed with Lasik soon. The T2 is still workable for me, but if there is no reason to not get an EXPS 3-0 I’d pick one up.
So far the big things I’ve seen are weight (not an issue for this rifle), and battery life. How often are you guys changing batteries on them? I know it says 1000 hours, but that usually comes with a caveat.
Does anyone still prefer Eotechs over other options?
Are whatever past issues they have sorted out now? I don’t see them mentioned much anymore.
They are fine, however, there are other holographic optics that are more clear unless Eotech has made recent changes that I’ve missed. Vortex Optics “Huey” is noticeably clearer to my eye, and the new Holosun is even more so. If it helps any, I have an astigmatism as well.
I’ve always preferred EOTechs. I have two 3-2s and an older XPS 2 from pre-2014. They’re insanely easy to shoot and I don’t remember seeing any issues for quite some time, definitely have not had any issues with mine. I’ve picked up my guns with a dead Eotech fewer times than a dead Aimpoint. That’s not apples to apples since the Aimpoints were left on but I track the battery consumption on all of my RDS now, minus the EOTs because they’ve never seemed to need frequent replacement. IIRC, you’re mil, if so, they have a solid discount if you order straight from them.
Also, the 3-2 reticle is hugely underrated. The extra dot is great for CQB and distance with a 50m zero but not overly cluttered like the 3-4 IMO.
To add to this, my friend got the 3-4 to really stretch the distance, but dots 3&4 are almost useless in realistic conditions since theres no windage references. 2 dots is the sweet spot (3 would be good too, but 4 is too many).
Eotechs are fine. The old inline models like the 512 are the ones that gave them a bad reputation for failing due fatigue with the connectors over time losing contact with the batteries during usage. Once they switched the battery position to transverse the probem went away.
Holosun has a holographic sight? I thought that the EOTechs and the Vortex UH1s were the only ones on the market (not sure if the ELCAN HCO is available even to institutional users).
FWIW, my EOTech EXPS3-2 is actually worse to my eyes than my T-2 and CompM5, and is noticeable particularly under a magnifier (using the Aimpoint 3XMag-1), where the dots are more like diagonal streaks, while my Aimpoints are basically perfectly round. I use it specifically on my NODs-oriented gun. I probably still have a bit of mild astigmatism, even after my PRK.
I just replace the battery every 12 weeks as part of maintenance.
I’ll note that it’s my understanding that the whole magnifier thing with EOTechs is basically an optical trick; the actual dots are actually much smaller than 1 MOA, but the human eye will resolve it to be about 1 MOA, so under no magnification, we see it as a 1 MOA dot, while when you throw up the magnifier, the dot appears to be the exact same size pre-magnification despite the rest of the sight picture being 3 times bigger (so like 1/3rd MOA with a 3× magnifier). Still a useful trick, but it’s not true that they don’t magnify. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/VortexAnswers/comments/ehns4c/false_magnifiers_make_your_red_dot_bigger_but_not/
It is my understanding that holographics sights will generally be more susceptible to thermal shift simply due to the complexity of the optics inside, as there’s far more optical elements that are involved to get an HWS working, compared to just an RDS, see:
L-3 made a big effort to reduce this issue, so they’re much better about it now than they were a decade ago, they’re allegedly comparable to typical quality RDSes in terms of thermal drift now, when previously they could easily be double (assuming that EOTech has kept these improvements).
They inadvertently do. The hash marks are of significant width to make eyeballing a 2mil wind hold half as far from any reference. Maybe others are better but once I get so far from a reference my accuracy degrades fast.
I will try to take a look through those. I’ll admit I haven’t really considered Holosun much just because of how many different sights they have, and not knowing which are the good ones vs which are the hobby grade stuff. I’m usually pretty averse to “Made in China” (I know, I know, I’m typing this from a phone made in China). But I’ll take a look.
I will say the EOTECH I looked through was very sharp. If the Vortex and Holosun are even better then I will be impressed.
Yeah I made an account with them and it’s a bigger discount than I was expecting. I was going to go with the single dot inside the ring, but you have me considering the two dots.
The EO reticles are always fuzzy if you really focus on the reticle itself. I didn’t think any of the Holosuns were holographic but their reticles definitely are sharper. Its one of those things I don’t notice in actual use though. I’ve never looked through the Huey, the form factor just kills it for me.
I have been very pleased with my EXPS 3-0 and EXPS 3-2. Reticles are “Atari” like pixel reticles, but work well enough for me. The idea is to look at the target and lay the reticle over it when shooting. The reticle sharpens a bit for me when I do that.
I have the Vortex Huey (UH-1) Gen 2 with their 3x magnifiers on one of my rifles after having a 512 and an XPS2 fail on me. The 512 was most likely the inline battery issue that was prevalent years ago, the XPS2 was used and EOTech basically told me to buy new or kick rocks so I went to Vortex. I would agree with Stick that the reticle with the Vortex is more crisp, but the glass isn’t the same quality, this could be the fact that I notice the flaws most with the 3x magnifier but I really liked the glass on the EOTech XPS2, the only other thing that it had in its favor was that the battery life on the XPS2 was definitely noticeably better, but compared to a regular red dot its horrid.
A ‘shake awake’ feature could do it. I have leupold scopes with it and it’s works. I don’t know if I’d trust it like an aimpoint left on, but it hasn’t failed me yet.
This was the primary reason I eventually bought one. I think they are the best option, at least what I like the best. And yes that huge window is no doubt a large part of that.
This was the primary reason I steered clear of them for as long as I did much preferring the long battery life of my Aimpoints, leave them 24/7 for years at time. My primary HD gun wears an AP, but my NV gun has an EoTech, it is just part of the “prefight” check list to turn it on along with my laser and illuminator and fresh batteries in my NODs.
