When I visited Vortex back in September, I mentioned that I took a quick look at their new line of Defender red dot sights.
While all three are pretty nice, I thought the largest variant, the XL, stood out. Despite being relatively compact and having a substantially large window, it seemed to maintain collimation quality very well pretty close to the edges. That was noteworthy.
Now, I have done a good amount of shooting with it and have some initial thoughts.
The main reason I went with the XL version is two fold. One is that it looked to have a very large sweetspot. Another is that while the overall trend with pistol mounted red dot sights is toward enclosed emitter designs, one of the areas where open emitter sights have a distinct advantage is window size. If you try to make an enclosed emitter RDS with a window this big, it will no longer be practical on a pistol. Too big.
One of the long running experiments I have going on is an attempt to figure out how much of an issue (for me) is window size. Many people want the largest window possible. Others do not hugely care. In principle, with a larger window size, your follow-up shot can be faster if you enver lost sight of the dot due to the recoil impulse.
In practice, I tend to shoot with rather slim and compact handguns a lot (Glock 43x or 48 most commonly), where the gun moves enough to always lose the dot. Since you always ahve to reacquire it, the larger window size does not seem to offer all THAT much of an advantage.
Now, I have three similarly sized Glocks (two GLock17 and one 34) with different size red dot sights: Vortex Defender XL, Shield RMS2 and Leupold Deltapoint Micro. I am going to do some experimentation and see how quickly the gun settles back on target for me with all three.
The Defender XL is somewhat new for me, so before I do anything with a shot timer, I am just making sure I do some practice with it.
There are several reasons, other than the large window that made me the XL version of the Defender intersting. I wanted to see if the size will prove to be a hindrance for carry. I also really liked how they did the battery compartment. It also comes with the largest dot size of the three: 8MOA.
There are three models: XL, ST and CCW. XL and ST use DPP footprint. CCW uses RMS/RMSc footprint. Parallax and distortion seemed very well corrected on all three.
The window size of the XL is 25.5x23.5mm (WxH). On the ST it is 23x20mm. On the CCW it is 20x16mm
In practical terms, the width of the window on the XL is about the same (very slightly narrower)as the width of a full size Glock slide.
The housing, naturally, extends a little bit wider with the widest point being the brightness control buttons on the left and the right. That makes them very easy to find via the tactile feel. It also makes me wonder if I will accidentally press them when carrying the gun, so that is something to experiment with. I do not have any issue concealing a full size pistol, especially now that we are at the beginning of November. I will keep an eye out for that. Generally, for a carry gun, I prefer autoadjust brightness, but there are conflicting opinions on that.
In terms of durability, I do not expect any issues. I know that these were seriously abused during the design phase and the people at Vortex I have talked to do not seem to have any concerns about durability of the Defender red dots. I am looking at a sample of one, so it is not like I can do anything statistically significant there.
The XL comes with either 5MOA or 8MOA dot size. ST and CCW are available with 3MOA and 6MOA options. I have long been a proponent of larger dot sizes in handgun red dot sights. It seems like competition guys are on board with that (XL is aimed at them to some degree), but why you would want smaller dots on the ST and CCW that are ostensibly aimed at the consumer carry handgun market is not clear to me. I suspect Vortex is simply giving people what they are asking for even if they are asking for something that makes no sense.
That's the difference, I suppose, between people who criticise stuff for a living (yours truly) and people who have to sell stuff for a living (Vortex). They have to be very cognizant of what their customers are asking. I am very curous what the relative sales numbers for different dot sizes are.
The Defender XL I have here came with an 8MOA dot and that is just about perfect.
For an example of what that looks like, here is an 8MOA dot on a 7'x12" plate at 52 yards (note that the red splash to the right of the dot is a reflection off of the camera lens; it is not there when you are using the sight).
There are several reasons I prefer larger dots: they are easy to see at lower relative brightness, they work better with mild astigmatism, they are easy to pick up. Also, if you are shooting a little further out, it is a little easire to compensate for drop. For example, if you sight your dot in at 25 yards, with a typical 9mm, you have about 2 inches of drop at 50 yards, about 4 inches of drop at 75 yards and about 10 inches of drop at 100 yards. On a hundred yard plate, I just place the lower edge of an 8MOA dot on the top edge of the plate.
XL and ST use 2032 batteries. CCW uses a smaller 1632. All three have shake awake, so I expect the batteries to last for a while. With all three, the battery is accessible from the top, so you do not have to remove the optic to change batteries. With ST and CCW, the battery cap is simply threaded in, which is uniformly a pain in the ass for many reflex sights out there, including these. Vortex does give you a tool for that and it sorta works, but I much prefer how they did it with the XL. Since they had more space to work with, the battery cap is hinged at the front and is released with a simple button. Not only does it make battery replacement a breeze, it also makes sure you can not get your fingerprint onto the inside fo the lens while messing with the battery.
Shooting with it, my initial impressions are very positive. Everything worked as it should. Nothing shifted. Zeroing in was a breeze, and it stayed zeroed.
Getting on target was VERY quick. I am not a high speed/low drag kind of guy, so I suspect in the hands of a truly skilled shooter this thing would be blazing.
The gun I have it on is a very modofied version of G17. The frame started life as a G31 which was the first handgun I ever bought. I have somewhere between 150k and 200k rounds fired with that frame between the original 357Sig, the later 9mm and also the Advantage Arms 22LR conversion kit. As you can imagine, all the springs have been replaced more than once.
At some point, I sent it in for a grip reduction, since I do not like the figner grooves very much. The grip was made slightly smaller and shortened to accept both 17 and 19 magazines.
The trigger I have in it is the Gen3 version of Haley Stregic's Skimmer trigger.
The slide is the first gen Atom from Unity Tactical with the OEM Glock barrel, Lone Wolf striker and extractor.
It is still a Glock, albeit a nice one.
For the side-by-side I am planning to do, the RMS2 sits on a Gen5 Glock 17 that is stock other than sporting a Timney trigger. Deltapoint Micro is on a bone stock G34.
Generally, I fully admit that Deltapoint Micro is more appropriate on a slimline G48, but I wanted the guns to be broadly comparable. Once this test is done, the Micro will go back onto a smaller gun and G34 will be milled for a different optic, probably for Acro footprint.
