Ade Optics RD3-009 Shake Awake WATERPROOF Compact MINI Crusader Red Dot Reflex Sight Pistol or Rifle and Glock MOS

This is a very well made red dot sight. Pluses: very solid housing, rubber covered on-off switch on the side, 5 brightness settings (very nice!), easy to mount, easy to adjust, batter secured by slotted cover. Neutral: adjustment screws do not have positive click, battery replacement requires taking the red dot off the base. Minuses: parallax set at 50+ yards, 5 moa dot. Discussion: I read the specs carefully before purchasing so I understood what I was getting. I mounted it on a S&W 22A with 7.5-inch barrel. At 10 yards, the 5 moa dot covers about a 2-inches radius on the target. However, I was able to put 11-rds within in 1-inch using a rest. Because the target distance was less than 50 yards. there is some minor movement in the dot with slight movement of the head/eye. So for these reasons I gave it 4 stars based on my application, which is probably not the ideal case for its use. I would like to see Optics Factory make a 3 mod dot model available with a shorter parallax.

I have purchased two of these and really like them for the money. In both cases, the sights have been used on 22lr rifles so I cant attest to the durability when used on heavier recoiling firearms but for the 22's they have been excellent. Both sights have been run for more than 500 rounds each without failure or movement in sighting. When sighting in, the adjustments do not "click" to indicate the amount of movement that is input for either windage or elevation but I find this common in the lesser expensive sights - it takes a little more fiddling to get it dialed in however once set and the adjustments are locked, they have not moved. Good battery life - in fact I'm on the original installed battery that came with the sight and the box contained an additional (2032) battery in a package. The dot appears to be pretty darn close to 4MOA as advertised and is a nice round dot with minimal to no flaring. Unlike some of the lesser sights, the battery actually has a sealed, threaded on cover over the battery which secures the battery in place and likely adds to it's advertised "water proofing" however this does make the sight sit just a little taller (because it's thicker) than some other sights of this type. The sight is turned on/off manually with the press of a button and the brightness of the dot is controlled manually as well. I have found that most of the auto-brightness sights don't accurately adjust the brightness of the dot to my liking or shooting conditions so manual is my preference. The sight adjusts low enough for lower lighted conditions and goes bright enough not to wash out on sunny days. The package comes with a dime-sized o-ring that I have yet to figure out what it's for. The seller indicated that it's to seal the battery compartment however that would require an o-ring much closer to the size of a quarter or the 2032 battery that it uses.

Of the compact red-dot sights in this price range that I have used, this one rates right up there at the top. The bad: The adjustments for windage and elevation are a bit "quirky" in that they don't necessarily move exactly vertically or horizontally when moved. For example, when making an adjustment in elevation, since the movement of the dot is not exactly vertical, you will induce a small change in windage as well. This is not a huge issue if you tinker a bit but it will likely take just a little extra time to get it dialed it. Also, the movements in the adjustments have no detents or "clicks" to indicate how far you have turned the adjusting screw. There's a disk with graduated markings that comes with the sight that is intended to slip over the shaft of the included screwdriver and aid in determining how far the adjustment screw has been turned but I found it to be easier to peer through the sight and observe the movement of the dot while making adjustments. Once the sight is successfully dialed in, the locking screws seem to do a good job of preventing movement. The sight has to be removed in order to replace the battery and it may be necessary to make minor adjustments to the windage and elevation after it is remounted. All of the described "bad" has been consistent with all of the other sights in this class that I have used. The Good: The overall build quality seems decent. The finish is good and the machine work is clean with no tooling marks. The sight is controlled by a single button which has a positive "click" when it is depressed. Press and hold the button for a few seconds and the sight powers on. Press and hold it again for a few seconds and the sight powers off. When turned on, pressing the button momentarily causes the sight to cycle to the next brightness level. Once at the brightest setting, pressing the button again cycles the sight to the lowest setting. At the highest setting, the dot is super bright and it's unlikely it will wash out even on the brightest sunny days. I found myself using the 2nd or 3rd lowest settings even on brighter days. Some of the sights in this class come with an "auto brightness" feature which uses a light sensor to determine how bright to make the dot. From my experience with the auto brightness system, it often times is either too bright or not bright enough if you're shooting from a location that is not as bright or dark as the location of your target. For example, you're shooting from a dark/shady area and the target is in a bright sunlit area, the dot just isn't bright enough. I'm sure the $500 Trijicon, Leupold, or Aimpoint would be able to overcome that but not the $50 sights like this one. The manual brightness of this sight solves that problem. Only complaint about the about the dot is that when it's powered on, it starts out at the brightest instead of remembering your last setting or maybe starting out at one of the mid-level settings - not a huge issue but it is awful bright! Again though, this isn't a $500 sight. The dot in this sight is spec'ed at 5-MOA which is probably fairly close but I think it's a tad smaller. As long as I'm wearing my glasses, the dot is relatively clean and round as long as the brightness isn't turned up too bright, at which point I start to see some "flaring" of the dot. I'm pretty confident its more due to my eyes since my C-more and Aimpoints both do this too, maybe only slightly less. I installed this sight on a 22lr rifle and it's handled the mild recoil just fine for a few hundred rounds. I don't know that I would install this on a heavy recoiling firearm or on the slide of a pistol however I don't have any knowledge it wouldn't handle it and Optics Factory sells mounts for it for pistols so who knows... I have a similar sight to this one that's a different brand (Possibly made by the same company as they are essentially identical) that has been running on a 9mm carbine and its handled that just fine so far. All in all its been a good sight for it's class and I would recommend it.