vortex strikefire review

[Lloyd Smale]

I just picked up a smith ar22 and wanted a dot sight for it. I own 3 aimpoints and they all work flawlusly but i wanted something a little more resonalbly priced for this one and still didnt want a 30 dollar dot sight on it. I picked up a vortex for a 130 bucks now  keep in mind when i do some critisizing here that a bottom line aimpoint will set you back at least 400. First this thing appears to be very ruggedly built. Will it hold up as well as an aimpoint. I dont know but have to doubt it. you can use an aimpoint to drive nails and it will stil work. This thing is waterproof which is amazing in that price range. Its clear to look through. the mount comes with it and that alone will set you back a 100 bucks or more if your buying an aimpoint. It may not be a fancy lever mount but it seems to be rugged enough and serviceable. Now for the negitives. Obviously id like to see more battery life but i understand that thats a good reason that the aimpoints cost what the do. One thing that could be done though is to switch to a more common battery. I use surefire lights and would like to see the vortex use the same battery so i wouldnt have to stock so many. The automatic shut off is a good feature but it should be made able to either use it or not so the sight isnt turning off on you at inopertune times. lense caps dont snap on very well and tend to pop up all the time. They could save a few bucks by eliminating the ability to switch from red to green. I cant see a need to ever switch it to green. the dot is not crisp but then my aimpoints arent either but this one is slightly worse. It also could really stand to be brighter at the top setting. My aimpoints will blow this away in that respect. Another silly feature is the 2x magnifier. The optics are so poor that its never going to be used. Now if they saved what they spent on the magnifier and the ability to have a green dot and put it into a bypass for the auto shutoff, a change in batterys and a slightly brighter light theyd have a hell of a unit. Id also like to see more battery life but realize i have to compromise to save that much money. Overall its a fine sight and if i didnt allready have so much experience with aimpoints i would have been even more impressed.

[Lloyd Smale]

by the way id be more then willing to make some honest reviews of any optics they wanted to send me

[Lloyd Smale]

dont know about battery life as the battery it came with is kaput allready. Hopefully its just a matter of being supplied with a cheap battery. I put a good duracell in it and we will see how that holds up.

[simplicity]

I bought one last summer and I have nothing but good things to say about it, Mine does use the surefire battery 3v lithium, battery life with the 3v's is around 30,000 hours (I haven't had to change the factory battery out yet) according to the company which granted is 20,000 less then what aimpoint claims theres gets. I do aggree the 2x magnifyer is kinda useless. I've put almost 1000 rnds through my ar with the strike fire on it taken it off and mounted it again and it didn't lose it's 100 yard zero. Bang for buck I don't think this red dot sight can be beat. I know Vortex is bringing out another red dot sight but it only has red instead of both red and green and is going to be a bit smaller supposed to go for about $200.00.  As far as it needing to be brighter I hardley ever have gone above half way on mine even on sunny days. Messing around in my back yard at night the red/ green aka night vision settings work accually quite well while maintaining your natural night vision. All in all if your like me and can't see spending 400 or better on a red dot I'd tottally give this sight a try.  Hope this helps anyone.

[Lloyd Smale]

id love to see something on the line of an aimpoint micro with decent battery life and no auto shut off. Id buy one for 200 bucks in a heartbeat.

[helotaxi]

Don't know about the battery life or the auto-shutoff but the new Vortex SPARC is very similar to the H-1 or T-1 in size and shape.

[Lloyd Smale]

problem i have simplicity is it uses the cr2 battery instead of the 123 which is what my lights use. It would be nice to be able to standardize on one battery. I didnt know they made the sparc. Im going to have to buy one. Just wish it didnt have the auto shut off. I dont mind a auto shut off on something on a 22 but a self defense gun or a hunting gun shouldnt have one. Id hate to have my sight shut off at an inopertune time. I also leave an ar in the bedroom with an aimpoint on it that is left on all the time. Its the same reason i dont care for eotecs. I dont want to have to think to turn a sight on when an intruder is in the house. Its hard enough to think at all when you are woken in the middle of the night. Its to bad that vortex doesnt at least put a switch on it to allow you to disable this feature. Id rather buy batterys then coffins.

[helotaxi]

One more thing, I found with my Strikefire that if I pushed in on the center of the covers when closing them, they stayed closed.

[Lloyd Smale]

does anyone else using them feel the its a bit to dim in the sunshine outside. We have alot of snow here and im sure the suns reflection off of it adds to it but i can barely see the red dot outside and the grean isnt much better.

[simplicity]

I did a three gun competition here in maine (had to run the course with snow shoes)  I didn't have any problems with it not being bright enough.

[helotaxi]

3-gun in snowshoes...I bet that video would be popular YouTube fare.

[simplicity]

it was different but only one person was not origanally from maine and he's the only one who fell back on hi s honchez it was his first time in snow shoes and no one told him that yuh really can't go backwards with them on. Which is what he did. but oh well was a fun shoot.