I really like the BOM3 Vomz Russian Red dot sights I have purchased from Martin at Corwin Arms. But I saw a very similar product at the last gun show I went to and it was obviously a chinese knockoff. The price was about the same, $100.
Investigating further, there are a number of similar sights on ebay, from $30 - $80. I also was intrigued by the green dot version (Russians only come in red). Well, dhgate.com had a 50% off deal on them so I bought one for about $40 CAN to compare to the Russian I got from Martin. So here is a side by side comparison.
Sorry about the crappy iphone photos.
So here they are:
nice box with the chinese one. Yes, it was the exact same box that I saw at the gunshow, so these are being sold for around $100 by some. They went to alot of trouble to make it look like the Russian. Except for "Made in Russia".
to my eyes, there is a coating on the chinese lense. The image is pretty good. The Russian sights has an obvious blue tint to the lense.
build quality looks about the same, but the chinese uses socket heads while the Russian uses flat head slotted screws.
Ok, off to a good start. Lets check out the view through the sights.
It's important to note that I did not move the sights at all for the next series of photos. Distance from camera to lense was about 22 inches. Distance to subject, about 25 yards. Any aiming point variations are due to parallax.
Both sights are centered on the left edge of the screen (as close as I could get them). The Russian dot is centered perfectly here.
Chinese is centered almost perfectly here.
moving my eye to the right, the Russian one stays on target, the Chinese moves left.
similar story moving eye up, Russian one stays on, Chinese moves down.
Conclusions:
1. Russian 3 moa red dot is a brighter, larger circle that shows up better than the green dot Chinese.
2. Parallax is very well controlled with the Russian, not well controlled at all with the Chinese. I estimate that the aiming point varies inside a 20" diameter circle at 25 yards.
3. I don't really like the blue tinge on the Russian. Brightness is about the same, with the advantage going to the Chinese.The Chinese is nicer to look through.
To be fair to the Chinese, if you are only shooting shot and more open chokes, you likely won't notice a difference with the chinese. With slugs and chamber adapters, you will.
Due to the extreme parallax error of the Chinese version, I will stick with the Russian version for future purchases. The red dot/circle works really well, the green, not that great.
Investigating further, there are a number of similar sights on ebay, from $30 - $80. I also was intrigued by the green dot version (Russians only come in red). Well, dhgate.com had a 50% off deal on them so I bought one for about $40 CAN to compare to the Russian I got from Martin. So here is a side by side comparison.
Sorry about the crappy iphone photos.
So here they are:
nice box with the chinese one. Yes, it was the exact same box that I saw at the gunshow, so these are being sold for around $100 by some. They went to alot of trouble to make it look like the Russian. Except for "Made in Russia".
to my eyes, there is a coating on the chinese lense. The image is pretty good. The Russian sights has an obvious blue tint to the lense.
build quality looks about the same, but the chinese uses socket heads while the Russian uses flat head slotted screws.
Ok, off to a good start. Lets check out the view through the sights.
It's important to note that I did not move the sights at all for the next series of photos. Distance from camera to lense was about 22 inches. Distance to subject, about 25 yards. Any aiming point variations are due to parallax.
Both sights are centered on the left edge of the screen (as close as I could get them). The Russian dot is centered perfectly here.
Chinese is centered almost perfectly here.
moving my eye to the right, the Russian one stays on target, the Chinese moves left.
similar story moving eye up, Russian one stays on, Chinese moves down.
Conclusions:
1. Russian 3 moa red dot is a brighter, larger circle that shows up better than the green dot Chinese.
2. Parallax is very well controlled with the Russian, not well controlled at all with the Chinese. I estimate that the aiming point varies inside a 20" diameter circle at 25 yards.
3. I don't really like the blue tinge on the Russian. Brightness is about the same, with the advantage going to the Chinese.The Chinese is nicer to look through.
To be fair to the Chinese, if you are only shooting shot and more open chokes, you likely won't notice a difference with the chinese. With slugs and chamber adapters, you will.
Due to the extreme parallax error of the Chinese version, I will stick with the Russian version for future purchases. The red dot/circle works really well, the green, not that great.
