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.

As I have mentioned previously, I am looking to shoot in a couple of NRL Hunter competitions in 2025.  I have many reasons for that: preparation for the Team Challenge, leading by example (trying to get my kids interested) and simply having fun are all contributing factors.  The "trying to get my kids interested" is what usually gets me a hall pass from my wife, so that one is an integratl part of the reasoning.

One aspect of this whole decision process that needs to be addressed is the almost inevitable paralysis by analysis that every gear junkie is bound to develop when looking at the options.

Given my comparative inexperience and relatively limited shooting skills, I think my best bet is to not overthink it.  Just set up a rifle for the Open Heavy class and go practice.  I intend to shoot 6.5CM, hopefully with factory ammo.  Given that, a ltitle extra weight for controlling recoil and having good information for the second shot after I miss the first one, should be beneficial. 

On the other hand, since there are many ways to win the race for the last place, I could not help myself and tentatively configured rifles (on paper for now) for both Open Heavy and Open Light.  I plan to build them all up exactly as described below and figure out how contorted of a shooting position my aging joints can tolerate with each one.

The idea, for now, was to simply look at what I have and play with different configurations.

I was at the range again...

It appears that I start many of my posts with that phrase.  I should probably stop making that disclaimer.  At this point it should be abundantly apparent that I spend a lot of time at the range.

I always have a good reason.  I cleaned the barrel of my muzzleloader yesterday and needed to make a couple of fouling shots before I go hunting tomorrow.  Since I was there anyway, I figured I should do some tripod shooting practice, so I brought one of my ARs with me.  It is an unusual AR since it has a very unique AlSiC wrapped barrel.  AlSiC (Aluminum Silicon Carbide) is an interesting material that can be tuned to perfectly match thermal expansion of whatever it is wrapped around.  It has an incredibly high thermal conductivity coefficient, so it absorbs heat very fast and sheds it equally quickly.  There was a company looking to make barrels where isntead of carbon fiber, a thin steel barrel is wrapped in AlSiC.  The project did not pan out (they vanished on me at some point), but they did make me one barrel.  It has an intereting property in that it seems to exhibit very little POI shift with heat.  It is not the most accurate barrel I have, but it is accurate enough and it is consistent.  It runs a little on the slow side, but it works.  Somehow this rifle ended up being the test bed for the Delta Stryker 3.5-21x44, which happens to be one of my favourite precision gas gun scopes, so I shoot this rifle a lot.  So much so that I think I am going to go swap out the Bootleg Camlock handguard currently on it for the 12" Q Honey Badger handguard I have.  For what it is worth, while I really like the adjustable bolt carriers from Bootleg, their Camlock handguard is a wobbly, bendy, slidy piece of crap.

There are many excellent handguards on the market.  I tend to default to the ones from Q more often than not, but I have several I like from BMC, Aero, MI, etc.  They are all good.  They all work.  Bootleg's Camlock does not stay put.  The engagement of the handguard to the barrel nut is poorly designed.

Moving on...  after hitting the 220 yard plate a couple of times with the iron sighted muzzleloader, I decreed it "good enough to take a shot at a mule deer on an off chance I see one" and switched to the AR-15.

With cheap 55gr ammo, I keep my practice to within 450 yards or so.  The range where I shoot has conveniently placed a bunch of plates at ~430 yards for me to practice on.  I verified zero from the bench (I move stuff around so much, that it is good practice) and transitioned to shooting off of a tripod.

For some reason, I have a very hard time taking a good picture of this reticle handheld.  I'll have to get my fixtures out.  Either way, the above pictuer was taken on 21x and the hangers you see at the bottom left quadrant are at !430 yards.  The illumination is on max setting and is visible but not nuclear on a bright New Mexico day.  Only the main stadia are illuminated, which I like.

Part of routine practice is to shoot offhand using both the primary optic (on low power) and secondary optic.  That's when it dawned on me that I have never really talked much about the SeeAll Sight that I use for redunduncy on a few guns.

https://www.seeallsights.com/

It is a weird looking thing that sorta straddles the gap between iron sights and red dot sights.  It found its home somewhere in that "no mand's land".  It works and it is probably a better option than irons, especially under challenging light conditions.  However, modern red dot sights walk all over it.  Still, I have several of these, which brings up an obvious question: why?

There is really one main reason: they are cheap.  If you check on them through the year and have a little patience, you wil stumble onto some sort of a half off sale.  If that happens late at night after you have been exploring some of the finer qualities of your bourbon collection, you might end up with half a dozen of them.  Ask me how I know.

The sight is very simple.  It is, essentially, a block of greenish edge glow material, a reticle etched on it and a simple lens to project that reticle to your eye.  Some also have tritium for night time use.  They have a couple of picatinny mount versions and a couple of direct mount versions (RMR and RMS).  I have a tleast one of each.  Keeping them properly mounted seems to require a good amount of loctite, but once everything is set up, they stay put and stay zeroed.

The one you are looking at is the RMR base one sitting on Swampfox' rather excellent offset mount.  

Here are the strenghts and weakness of this thing in a nutshell.

Strengths:

-small, light, cheap

-focus on the target, not on the aiming point (like on a red dot)

-no batteries

-forgiving of eye astigmatism

Weaknesses:

-open design that does not do great in inclement weather

-you bisect the target with the top edge of the sight, so the bottom half of the sight picture is blocked

-eye position is not terribly forgiving (kinda like the irons)

-accuracy with these is tricky

If you are setting up an offset optic to use as a primary sight at close range, this is not a good option for you.  

If this is mostly something to get you a little redunduncy, it is not a bad option.  In practical terms, I struggle shooting with this thing beyond 100 yards and I am much happier with it inside of 50.  I can shoot it relatively quickly, but it is distinctly slower than the red dot.  I do not see any speed advantage with this thing over irons unless it is pitch black.  If there is enough light to see the target, there is enough light for the irons and for the SeeAll sight.

Now, if your eyes have a hard time focusing on the front sight, the SeeAll Sight might work a lot better for you. 

Before you all rush out to buy one of these, do keep in mind that you can pick up RS-15 from Primary Arms for $120 right now.  https://alnk.to/9buj4aU  RS-15 is a vastly superior sight to the SeeAll.

However, if you stumble onto a sale where SeeAll sights are going for a $100 or so around Black Friday, it might not be a bad idea to pick one up.  Perhaps, it will agree nicely with your eyes.

Taking a photo of a proper sight picture with this thing turned out to be pretty difficult:

They do have a couple of decent picture with the two available reticle on their website.  

Once I get some of my fixturing set up, I'll take a couple of better pictures and update this post. 

Either way, I know that my take on these sights is a little bipolar.  On one hand, in the grand scheme of things, I am really not a fan.  The way I shoot offhand, I like to drive the gun onto the target and that works very well with red dot sights and not very well with irons or the SeeAll sight.  On the other hand, I have a lot of guns. I like having backup optics on them.  SeeAll Sights do work.  They are wonky, but they work.