Holosun red-dot sight review

My friend Joe Chambers has been testing one of these on one of his hot-rod .45s on a slide mount.  I've never known Joe to ever give his blessing to any product that was of sketchy quality.  This product would be a good value for less than $200.

The only downside is you don't turn them off.  They run all the time, 24-7-365 until the battery dies years later.  Knowing my luck, that would occur at Camp Perry after slowfire....

http://www.practacsys.com/range-time/used-abused-optics-holosun-red-dot-sight/

This from the article:
The true test of its durability came when Joe mounted the optic to one of his beautifully hand crafted 1911 pistols in a custom slide mount set up for Bull’s-eye shooting. Joe’s statement on how the optic performed is as follows:
“On the Bull’s-eye pistol it was mounted directly to the top rib which is mounted on the slide. I fired several hundred rounds through the gun with the scope attached. Not one time did it lose zero or malfunction while firing the gun. I found it very comfortable to shoot from 25 to 50 yards.”


Joe Chambers builds custom 1911s for Bullseye and he shoots them at Bullseye distances on Bullseye targets.  He is also the team armorer for the USCG team at Camp Perry.  Even though the review doesn't get that specific, Joe is a bullseye pistolsmith, and that should not be understated.

The purpose of this post is to bring awareness about this new product.  We will need more shooters to use the product before we know if it's good or bad.

Nice to hear comments from a real shooter (pistolsmith being a bonus). Had I just come across the website on my own, I would have probably dismissed the product based on the less than stellar translation into English. Not that it is necessary to know English to design and build an optic but there is plenty of low quality stuff on the market and most comes with poorly translated documentation. Not sure that I want to be first but .... we do need to testers to determine how good the product is. The automatic shutdown after 8 hours concerns me on principle because it is combined with automatic 'wake up' and I see that as two places where something could go wrong and have it shut down at 'the wrong time'. From the article I was expecting some rare battery (like the unobtainable PX/RM 640 that sidelined my InterAims Mark V red dot) but 2032 are pretty standard and easy to come by. I'd probably prefer to turn it on myself and take my chances at remembering to turn it off since it should run for 5.7 years anyway. So .... who will be the guinea pig to test these?

Bruce

editted: went back and saw that this model uses easy to get 2032 batteries.

I didn't find the poorly translated parts of the website...This was the page I found:
http://www.holosun.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=78

Ive been a close friend of Joe's for many years, he has found his calling as a pistol smith but I bet even he would tell you  Several hundred rounds is not really any kind of longevity test, we all do more than that in just a few match's. Several thousand would be more impressive to me but would only show it can stand up to the abuse, a parallax test of the optics would be of more interest . Plenty of cheap dots out there but the price point of this one is basically the same as a 1'' ultradot which is time tested and high master approved.

Guess I was looking at other products on the site when I thought there was some poor translation.

"Special design for shotgun, you don't need change or add any mount or rail to your shotgun, Simply remove your shotgun magazine cap. and use our cap laser instead, This laser is red or green with 3 pcs botton battery LR44, Battery life can last one hour by continue work for green laser and works 3 hours for red laser."

English is certainly not a requirement to design and build a good optic. I just tend to equate less than stellar translation to a company that isn't all that concerned with quality. Doesn't mean that I am right about it.

I hope to hear more good reports about the product, a quality optic at that price point would be a pretty good thing for many of us.

Bruce

Poor english me bugs, causes much bother, no matter how I slice cake.

That sight looks something like the Aimpoint Micros that i have mounted on my 2- FA 454 Casulls for about 5 years or so now, no problems so far .

DavidR wrote:Ive been a close friend of Joe's for many years, he has found his calling as a pistol smith but I bet even he would tell you  Several hundred rounds is not really any kind of longevity test, we all do more than that in just a few match's. Several thousand would be more impressive to me but would only show it can stand up to the abuse, a parallax test of the optics would be of more interest . Plenty of cheap dots out there but the price point of this one is basically the same as a 1'' ultradot which is time tested and high master approved.

I was wondering about the price. people told me about that ultradot, and its a little under 200 bucks... reading this review I assume it was going to be much lower cost then it is. Ive been thinking about moving to a dot sight, but at this point the budget is too tight for a serviceable one.

they might look like a aimpoint but they are not. You can buy exact replica's of the aimpoints on ebay for 50 bucks but its not how something looks, its whats inside where the difference in a 600.00 dot and a cheap one is found.

Any follow up on the holosun? Two of my old ultra dots have gotten dim, and I am looking for a 2 MOA replacement.

I have 2 of the HS403D models on my backup guns. The one on the .45 is on the slide. The only problem was screws coming loose. I broke a cross-bolt screw that holds the sight to the slide and the company sent me 2 to replace it very quickly at no charge.

Other than that, no problems. They do take a bit of getting used to. This version, now manufacturer discontinued, turns off after 8 hours of no movement. The time is adjustable. You can also shut it off manually. Just rap it with a knuckle to turn it on.

The HS403G has raised adjustment turrets. I think I would buy that one for bullseye guns.

So far I've only fired about 300 rounds of wadcutter through the .45. The other one is on a Nelson conversion.

The company told me that if my HS403D sights had problems, they would replace them.

I like my Aimpoints, but these seem to be a decent buy for the money.

Ric Cammer

I have a couple Primary Arms scopes and while I do not shoot enough long line to make comment, the Pimary Arms which are made in the same production lines and offer the same features are good. Hold Zero on my 45acp over 1000 rounds. 

The only issue I have is on the lowest settings, 1,2,3 the brightness of the dot is inconsistent and shimmers fades in and out. I thought it needed a new Battery. 

However on the higher settings 4+ no issues. 

RT