Grizzly
Regular Member
Cross posting over here from an old thread on m4carbine with an update or two.
I know it isn't an aimpoint and I'm not saying take it to war with you. This post is not a "its as good as" post. Just a little thread about my sample of one with a red dot.
First, some background on why I picked up the Strikefire. I knew I wanted an aimpoint and the Aimpoint PRO Patrol Rifle Optic seemed like a great site for a great price. But I wasn't sure if I'd mind the size of it. I also knew I'd want to have an optic for simunition training classes as well (aka its going to get beat to crap). So after talking with a vortex rep I got in writing that their lifetime warranty did cover damage from sims/utms and the size was similar to the aimpoint so I could see how the size worked.
After shooting it in a few classes and range trips I decided the size wasn't for me and I liked a micro size more. I moved the strikefire over to dedicated sim work. I ran it on my personal gun some times (BCM carbine length 14.5 with pinned A2X) and swapped it around to other supplied weapons. It also got loaned out to others to use during sim work and at the end of the day tossed in a gear bag and ignored. Over all it has around 96-120 hours of sim training and abuse under its belt. I've counted 3 direct hits to the front glass with UTMs and countless strikes all over the housing. Each time I'd wipe the glass off and carry on.
Fast forward to a fun shoot a while back where I found myself in need of another optic for a backup gun so I dug the Strikefire out of the gear bag to see if it would still hold a zero. I took it out to the range, put it back on the BCM it was originally zero'd on and started at 25. Happily it was still dead on at 25, 50, 100 and finally 200. It held zero for the duration of the fun shoot and used it out to 500 yards with no problem. Well no problems besides my own abilities that far out.
Here are two quick pics where you can see the paint from sims still on the edges near the front glass and how dented/scratched up the casing is from abuse and sim rounds.
If you push hard enough the flip caps still close despite the dented sides.
Run on down the road another 6 months of being used for at least 12 hours of opfor a month. Often times more than that. And used for most of an lectc 1 class at darc. I switched out for my aimpoint when the NVGs came out simply because the aimpoint worked much better under nods than the vortex.
One very chilly night the vortex threw itself in front of a few UTMs to try and save my face. I'm not sure if it was the temps, additive abuse or bad luck but the front glass finally gave up the ghost.
From the shooter's view point:
Even with that kind of damage it held the zero good enough to hit diet coke cans with sims/utms at 20 yds. I know that isn't a huge distance but it impressed me a little that it still functioned well enough for opfor use.
I was curious to see how the warranty department at Vortex would handle this. I expected to at least have a back and forth where I explained what happened, forward them the email where they said sim damage was covered and generally have to haggle a bit to get it fixed.
I followed their basic warranty instructions. I printed their warranty form, noted "simuntions suck" in the reason for warranty section and mailed it in. According to UPS tracking Vortex got my dot Dec 22 late in the afternoon. At 10:27 am on Dec 23rd I got an email saying the dot was received and would be looked at. There was a warning that turn around times could take 7-10 business days not counting shipping time.
Apparently the guys at vortex like to over estimate that turn around time. Because today, Dec 28th, Fedex dropped off a brand new Strikefire II red dot.
That is some great service. 5 days over Christmas week to replace a beat to crap Strikefire I with a Strikefire II no questions asked. Take that @shooters101 and your Aimpoint saga
. And it makes me feel pretty good about putting the Vortex Viper PST 1-4 I picked up through its paces soon.
I know it isn't an aimpoint and I'm not saying take it to war with you. This post is not a "its as good as" post. Just a little thread about my sample of one with a red dot.
First, some background on why I picked up the Strikefire. I knew I wanted an aimpoint and the Aimpoint PRO Patrol Rifle Optic seemed like a great site for a great price. But I wasn't sure if I'd mind the size of it. I also knew I'd want to have an optic for simunition training classes as well (aka its going to get beat to crap). So after talking with a vortex rep I got in writing that their lifetime warranty did cover damage from sims/utms and the size was similar to the aimpoint so I could see how the size worked.
After shooting it in a few classes and range trips I decided the size wasn't for me and I liked a micro size more. I moved the strikefire over to dedicated sim work. I ran it on my personal gun some times (BCM carbine length 14.5 with pinned A2X) and swapped it around to other supplied weapons. It also got loaned out to others to use during sim work and at the end of the day tossed in a gear bag and ignored. Over all it has around 96-120 hours of sim training and abuse under its belt. I've counted 3 direct hits to the front glass with UTMs and countless strikes all over the housing. Each time I'd wipe the glass off and carry on.
Fast forward to a fun shoot a while back where I found myself in need of another optic for a backup gun so I dug the Strikefire out of the gear bag to see if it would still hold a zero. I took it out to the range, put it back on the BCM it was originally zero'd on and started at 25. Happily it was still dead on at 25, 50, 100 and finally 200. It held zero for the duration of the fun shoot and used it out to 500 yards with no problem. Well no problems besides my own abilities that far out.
Here are two quick pics where you can see the paint from sims still on the edges near the front glass and how dented/scratched up the casing is from abuse and sim rounds.
If you push hard enough the flip caps still close despite the dented sides.
Run on down the road another 6 months of being used for at least 12 hours of opfor a month. Often times more than that. And used for most of an lectc 1 class at darc. I switched out for my aimpoint when the NVGs came out simply because the aimpoint worked much better under nods than the vortex.
One very chilly night the vortex threw itself in front of a few UTMs to try and save my face. I'm not sure if it was the temps, additive abuse or bad luck but the front glass finally gave up the ghost.
From the shooter's view point:Even with that kind of damage it held the zero good enough to hit diet coke cans with sims/utms at 20 yds. I know that isn't a huge distance but it impressed me a little that it still functioned well enough for opfor use.
I was curious to see how the warranty department at Vortex would handle this. I expected to at least have a back and forth where I explained what happened, forward them the email where they said sim damage was covered and generally have to haggle a bit to get it fixed.
I followed their basic warranty instructions. I printed their warranty form, noted "simuntions suck" in the reason for warranty section and mailed it in. According to UPS tracking Vortex got my dot Dec 22 late in the afternoon. At 10:27 am on Dec 23rd I got an email saying the dot was received and would be looked at. There was a warning that turn around times could take 7-10 business days not counting shipping time.
Apparently the guys at vortex like to over estimate that turn around time. Because today, Dec 28th, Fedex dropped off a brand new Strikefire II red dot.
That is some great service. 5 days over Christmas week to replace a beat to crap Strikefire I with a Strikefire II no questions asked. Take that @shooters101 and your Aimpoint saga
. And it makes me feel pretty good about putting the Vortex Viper PST 1-4 I picked up through its paces soon.
