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Posted: 9/9/2011 8:19:17 AM EDT
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Considering this or the SPARC from Vortex.
Because the SPARC's on/off is an exposed soft button on the side of the optic, that kind of turns me off to it. (sorry for the pun, i didnt mean to) The few impressions that I've heard on the PA Micro seem positive, but I wanted to get a little more input: Anyone have a BAD experience with it? I havent heard of one so far. Washout? Battery life? unexpected electronics failures? What about Parallax? Does it maintain zero after thousands of rounds, or taking a bump or two? ( I understand its no aimpoint ) Anyone with experience with both the SPARC and PA Micro? (Optic application is target shooting, recreation, and teaching my kids to use an RDS. Of course, every gun I own has a latent designation as home defense, but I'm not LE/MIL and cant justify an aimpoint right now) |
| Have you been to the primary arms forum on this site? Lots of good info there. I have seen enough torture vids to believe it can handle abuse. Mine works great, and marsh at pa is great to work with. Battery life is of course not even close to an aimpoint, but that's the only negative I can come up with. |
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Have you been to the primary arms forum on this site? Lots of good info there. I have seen enough torture vids to believe it can handle abuse. Mine works great, and marsh at pa is great to work with. Battery life is of course not even close to an aimpoint, but that's the only negative I can come up with. I wouldn't go to war with it, or use it in some kind of gun competition where a million dollars was on the line, but yeah, they're good stuff. The videos of them tossing the Micro red-dot onto concrete, several dozens of feet, and it having zero failures, save for scratches in the anodizing made up my mind for me too. I bought one for my Draco AK pistol where it will see plenty of abuse. As to the battery life, not that big an issue, if you know where to look, (just google "bulk coin cells") you can get entire blister packs of 5-10-20 coin cells/watch batteries in a strip for like $5. Plenty of decent stuff can come out of China, you just need an importer who's willing to watch them like a hawk, and ride their ass. |
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I had a Primary Arms Micro. I zeroed mine at 25 yards for a local competition shoot. IPDA style but with rifles. It was fine on the first stage but as the day progressed my shots were really "off". Part of the last stage was to hit a 2" clay at about 35 yards, took me about 13 shots to hit it. Checked everything on the optic and everything was still nice and tight.
Went to the range the next day and was shooting from the bench. Sure enough using the red dot the shot group moved about 2-2.5" in the 10 oclock direction. Got home, threw the optic in the trash. I know PA probably would have taken care of it, but I just wanted to be done with it. |
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I've never owned a Vortex Sparc. I do have a few Vortex StrikeFires and every one has stayed zeroed perfectly over the past few years. The dot comes on every time I turn it on and I do not recall having ever changed the batteries. I'm not sure if the micros are built just like the StrikeFires, but I'd personally go with Vortex due to my personal experience with their products.
StrikeFires and the micros have been around long enough and used long enough to know if they have 'issues' with their design. As far as the on/off/NV buttons separating from the body of the sight ... I couldn't imagine how that could happen (though I've read a thread about it). It supposedly happened once or twice, but those instances were taken care of in the swiftest & most professional manor so I'd attribute it as a an extreme rarity. |
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I had a Primary Arms Micro. I zeroed mine at 25 yards for a local competition shoot. IPDA style but with rifles. It was fine on the first stage but as the day progressed my shots were really "off". Part of the last stage was to hit a 2" clay at about 35 yards, took me about 13 shots to hit it. Checked everything on the optic and everything was still nice and tight. Went to the range the next day and was shooting from the bench. Sure enough using the red dot the shot group moved about 2-2.5" in the 10 oclock direction. Got home, threw the optic in the trash. I know PA probably would have taken care of it, but I just wanted to be done with it. PA would have taken care of you and your experience is not the norm. I have owned Several PA micro dots and still have 1 and they have held up fine. The ones I don't have I have given away at my three gun shoots and they are holding up fine for my friends. You should have given a Marshall a chance before you posted this. Pat |
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Have you been to the primary arms forum on this site? Lots of good info there. I have seen enough torture vids to believe it can handle abuse. Mine works great, and marsh at pa is great to work with. Battery life is of course not even close to an aimpoint, but that's the only negative I can come up with. Where can I find these vids :) |
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Have you been to the primary arms forum on this site? Lots of good info there. I have seen enough torture vids to believe it can handle abuse. Mine works great, and marsh at pa is great to work with. Battery life is of course not even close to an aimpoint, but that's the only negative I can come up with. Where can I find these vids :) There are quite a few on YouTube but this is probably the best one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMosefuud0I |
| I have a SPARC and had a Bushnell TRS which is similar to the PA micro dot. I kept the sparc because I prefered the sparc's 2moa dot over the 4 moa one. I have read the newer micro dots are closer to 3 moa. I really don't mind the rubber on off switch on the sparc once I got use to it and I haven't ad any issues in 2 years of casual use. My eotech 552 at work has rubber buttons on it and they aren't an issue. I also liked the sparc better because I was mounting it on a sig 556 and it is hard to find a mount that will co-witness with the sig factory sights. The sparc comes with 4 different mounting options. The sparc does cost double the price of the micro dot. The PA micro is a good buy if it suits your needs. I have been thinking about picking one up for my Mossberg 930. David |
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Can only speak of the PA microdot. Bought it a few years ago when funds were tight. I get the urge to buy a T1 sometimes, but cant justify the $500 when my microdot works so well. Good luck finding a bad review on the PA or PA's customer service. ONLY downside is the battery life. I just keep a few extra batteries in my MIAD, so I've got ~90 days of life. This is also the reason the PA is <$90 vs. the $500 aimpoint.
Vortex might be good, dont know though. I dont have a reason to try other budget optics after dealing with PA |
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Can only speak of the PA microdot. Bought it a few years ago when funds were tight. I get the urge to buy a T1 sometimes, but cant justify the $500 when my microdot works so well. Good luck finding a bad review on the PA or PA's customer service. ONLY downside is the battery life. I just keep a few extra batteries in my MIAD, so I've got ~90 days of life. This is also the reason the PA is <$90 vs. the $500 aimpoint. Vortex might be good, dont know though. I dont have a reason to try other budget optics after dealing with PA This is kind of what I'm seeing in a general sense. Cant see anything out there that Marshall hasnt proactively taken care of his customers IF there was a problem. That gives me a lot of confidence. |
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Have you been to the primary arms forum on this site? Lots of good info there. I have seen enough torture vids to believe it can handle abuse. Mine works great, and marsh at pa is great to work with. Battery life is of course not even close to an aimpoint, but that's the only negative I can come up with. Where can I find these vids :) There are quite a few on YouTube but this is probably the best one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMosefuud0I By the way I own two of your Micros and they are awesome. |
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