Eotech or Aimpoint?

Well, this is gonna start a war...

My opinion, and I point out that this is my opinion only, I prefer the Eotech for three reasons.

1. The Eotech has a better field of veiw. When I used an Aimpoint I felt like I was looking down a tube at my target, there was very little room for peripheral vision.

2. The Eotech does not produce any visible light from the muzzle end of the optic. That means if I am in a dark room and am aiming at you, you cant see any light from my optic. With the Aimpoint, due to the manner in which the dot is projected, you can see a low red light coming from the optic.

3. The Eotech has an integral mount for a picatinny rail. You will need to purchase a seperate mount for most Aimpoint models, which compounds cost, and the usual problems in finding a mount you like, getting past export regulations, etc.

However, the Aimpoint has better battery life and comes with lens covers.

YMMV, but they are both fantasic optics in my opinion.
 
remington700 said:
Well, this is gonna start a war...

My opinion, and I point out that this is my opinion only, I prefer the Eotech for three reasons.

1. The Eotech has a better field of veiw. When I used an Aimpoint I felt like I was looking down a tube at my target, there was very little room for peripheral vision.

2. The Eotech does not produce any visible light from the muzzle end of the optic. That means if I am in a dark room and am aiming at you, you cant see any light from my optic. With the Aimpoint, due to the manner in which the dot is projected, you can see a low red light coming from the optic.

3. The Eotech has an integral mount for a picatinny rail. You will need to purchase a seperate mount for most Aimpoint models, which compounds cost, and the usual problems in finding a mount you like, getting past export regulations, etc.

However, the Aimpoint has better battery life and comes with lens covers.

YMMV, but they are both fantasic optics in my opinion.
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I will disagree with some of these points.

First off, with both the EOTech and the Aimpoint, Field of View is a non issue, since they are BOTH "both eyes open" optics.

Since your non dominant eye is seeing what is in front of the optic, your brain will seamlessly stitch the image together, and you will be able to see "through" the optic housing so it would appear.

Take ANY 1x non prism sight (EOTech, Aimpoint or any cheap POS red-dot) and with your weak eye closed, put the optic housing over something that it will completely cover (I just used the cap of some dristan).

Then open your weak eye, and Voila, you will see it just fine ;)


That is the beauty of both-eyes open optics.

Second off, by military requirements, the Aimpoints do not project light from the LED beyond a certain distance. The EOTech is the same way, you can see it up close and then it blurs out as you move a little bit away. Granted the EOTech is better at doing this, the dot on the aimpoints is next to impossible to spot unless you are directly in front of the sight, and looking for it in pitch black.

Thirdly, the lack of a mount for the Aimpoint tube models gives the end user the ability to "name his price". You can buy very inexpensive 30mm rings, or go with the top of the line QR mounts. With the EOTech, there is only 1 QR option that doesn't raise the height (the GG&G). and a very select options that do raise the height.


The Aimpoint has a VASTLY superior battery life (the worst ones are a measly 10,000 hours compared to EOTech's best at 1000 hours. The best being over 80,000 hours on 1 battery), and is MUCH more robust, MUCH more reliable, and you will NEVER have any trouble getting service for ANY of the models.


Many of the EOTech's have common problems:

- Battery drain (personally experienced)
- battery contact problems (553 was recalled from Mil. testing due to this). (personally experianced)
The 511 and 512 suffer from multiple contact problems too.
- Sights not holding zero
- Sight base being CANTED preventing user from zeroing optic
- Sight not clamping onto Picatinny rail properly. (personally experienced)
- retical stopping working until batteries being removed and optic set overnight,
- distorted retical on lower power settings (not just blurry, but massive swooshes)
- batteries exploding because of the constant drain.


NOW, all of these problems alone are relatively RARE by themselves. But the fact that there are SO MANY of these problems that have remained even with the revision F models, is scary. With so many things that go wrong, getting a bum model is not "rare" at all.

I have seen 2 Factory EOTech's fail in ONE RANGE TRIP. One had dead batteries, the other would not clamp onto the picatinny rail properly.



Military testing has shown time and time again that the circle/dot combo is no faster than the single dot. If you have even a BAD cheek wield, you can easily find the dot on an Aimpoint. Since they are tube optics, you can also reference the dot off of the tube (using the 2 tube ends as sort of ghost rings to center the dot)



The EOTech's lack the 2 MOST IMPORTANT things that a red-dot should have: RELIABILITY and LONGEVITY.

Most definitely the choice is Aimpoint.


If you REALLY want an EOTech? then get one! They are awesome sights, however they are a VERY new technology. When working properly the EOTechs are awesome. Aimpoints are using 30+ year old technology, so the teething issues are all gone.

But you have to make the decision if you want an optic that is almost 100% guaranteed to work, or maybe one that will PROBABLY work most of the time.
 
I had a 553 and I found it bulky, chunky and heavy. I though it took up too much real estate on the rail, and although people say the Eotech has a better "field of view" I found that the wide blocky base actually blocked a lot of my view whereas you can easily see around the mount of an Aimpoint.

If you're focusing down the tube of an Aimpoint and getting tunnel vision, you're not using it right.
 
On course in the US last month,

The instructor called the Eotech, "eo-crap". Most of the students had Eotech's.

Aimpoint all the way. Yes this has been done to death. Eo very good, Aimpoint great.

Rich
 
Thanks for all your reply's to my query.
It does look like the aimpoint is by far the superior choice.
Can anybody tell me why the US military and ours I think are feilding both of them then?
 
blackpowderguy said:
Thanks for all your reply's to my query.
It does look like the aimpoint is by far the superior choice.
Can anybody tell me why the US military and ours I think are feilding both of them then?
Click to expand...

Well the 553's had been recalled due to battery contact problems. I think they use 552's as well (the AA kind), although in the Mil. the EOTechs suffer from concussive blasts.

If you knock the laser out of alignment even a few nanometers it wont work properly. And grenades and flash bangs do that pretty easy.

As for the Aimpoint, the models in service IIRC, are the M2, and the M4s. The M4 was designed, and the mil wanted to change the battery location, so the M4s was born.
 
How about an Elcan SpecterOS3.4x (C79)? It's what the Canadian Forces have been successfully using for two decades. Wouldn't say the best optics, but they're rugged and decent enough.
 
Demon971 said:
How about an Elcan SpecterOS3.4x (C79)? It's what the Canadian Forces have been successfully using for two decades. Wouldn't say the best optics, but they're rugged and decent enough.
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The glass is decent, but the base of the unit sucks. The clamps wear out very fast, and they are plastic knobs. All the guys I have spoken to in the Military don't speak very highly of them, except for the glass. Elcan does make good glass.
 
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