Red Dot with BDC, Holosun vs. Eotech

[gxer]

Optics covered in this post:
Holosun HS503G-ACSS
Eotech EXPS3-4

To use a red dot with BDC, I highly recommend that you use a magnifier, otherwise it would be hard to distinguish each dot in the BDC reticle. I use a Vortex Micro 3X and with it, the reticle becomes usable under many conditions.

Comparison

1. What you got

Both sights are well built and comes with a lower 1/3 mount already attached. The Eotech actually has a mount built into the sight so you can't change it but it's a quick detach mount and it is very streamlined. The Holosun has a non quick detach mount attached to the sight but in the box you can also find a low profile mount that you can swap to. The Holosun also comes with bikini lens cover, mounting hardware, and a tube of threadlocker. There's not much else other than the sight itself coming out of the Eotech. The Eotech box does look nicer than the Holosun.
Winner: Holosun

2. Build quality
Both sights are well built. Both uses aluminum as the main material that made out the housing. However, the Eotech is build more like a tank as the sight uses 2 layered housing design to protect the inner core which contains the lens. Speaking of the lens, both sight have great clarity when looking through, the Holosun has a very slight bluish tint and this is only noticeable when looking at the two sights side by side as the Eotech has no perceivable tint or hue to the lens. Both sights has control buttons built into the housing. The buttons on the Holosun has a very short travel and is covered by a rubber material which helps with water proofing. The Eotech buttons are beefier and requires more strength and travel to actuate than those on Holosun.
Winner: Eotech

3. Function
This is where you see the main difference between the two approaches of making a rifle optic. The Eotech, built for mostly military and LE, focus on keep it simple stupid. The sight has basically 3 modes: On, Off, and Night Vision. It is designed this way so it is fool proof, on the battlefield the user don't have to fiddle with settings and functions, just turn it on and you are good to go. On the other hand, the Holosun is intended for civilian market, in addition to On and Off, it also offers Night Vision, motion sensing On/Off, and ability to select different reticles. The sight also remembers the brightness setting you left if on it when you last turned it off, an ability that Eotech doesn't have.
Winner: Holosun

4. Reticle
Use this link to see pictures: https://imgur.com/a/Ef4NLnB
Both sights offer a central 4 position BDC with 68 MOA outer ring. In fact, I'm pretty sure Eotech is the inspiration for Holosun in this case.
Keep in mind that the photo does not reflect what your eye actually see thanks to spotty camera focus settings, the actual reticle looks sharper to the eye. Also all photos were captured with 3X magnification.

One major difference between the Holosun and Eotech reticle is the center "dot" Eotech is know for the clear, crisp 1 MOA dot which looks like the smallest particle that your eyes can pick up. The Holosun uses a chevron tip for the same job, in theory, a tip is even finer than 1 MOA but that's up your eyes to determine. Personally, I'm a big fan of the chevron.
Following the "center dot" there are BDC dots for 400/500/600 yards. Here you can see that the Eotech continues with the 1 MOA dots and Holosun uses 2 MOA dots. If you see a fifth dot for the Eotech in my photo, it was not there, I don't know how my phone picked it up but just trust me, the Eotech offers 4 clear and crispy dots.

Here you can see that when align the two reticles' "center dot" on top of each other, the BDC is different, with Holosun offers a tighter BDC from 0-600 yards. This is likely due to the reticles were designed for different ammo and zeroing distance, I believe Eotech is intended for 62gr M855 or M855A1 on a 16 inch barrel M4A1 that is zeroed at 50 yards, while Holosun should be zeroed at 100 yards with a 55gr M193 or similar ammo.
Eotech reticle has one good feature on top of Holosun's, the 6 o'clock hashmark on the ring can be used for 7 yards engagement.
Winner: Eotech (this is very subjective so it is just my own opinion)

5. Battery life
No doubt about it, the Holosun with its 50,000 hours battery life beats Eotech's 600 hours square and fair. Holosun even offer auto shut off and shake to wake features meaning you don't have to worry about turning on and off the sight at all. However, if you plan it right and be prepared, you will be fine with the Eotech as well. Eotech's auto shut off is not determined by motion but rather which button you pressed to turn it on. Each time you turn on the sight, it will stay on for 4 or 8 hours unless a button is pressed to refresh this timer.
Winner: Holosun

6. Weight:
The Holosun with battery installed, without bikini cover, attached to a lower 1/3 mount weights 4.85 oz
The Eotech with battery installed, without any aftermarket attachment, weights 11.1 oz
Winner: Holosun

7. Low light usage:
Eotech being the military focused product, offers better night vision capability, it uses infrared light which can be picked up by your NVG to light up the reticle. Holosun just simply dim down the brightness to a level that will not blow up your NVG. Another good tactical advantage the Eotech offers is under low light environment, there's no light bleed from the front of the sight. On the Holosun, there will always be a light source point to the front of the sight as it is a reflex sight. The clearer glass on the Eotech also means this is the more ideal sight out of the two you should choose for night vision usage.
Winner: Eotech

8. Price:
Holosun is roughtly 1/3 the cost of the Eotech. If you are a civilian who likes to go to ranges, then I would recommend giving Holosun a try. Eotech is indeed a well made, combat proven optic that is more fitting for operators in the field. At that point the user doesn't pay for its price but the tax payers' money does. However, if money is no concern of you then by all means, get them both and try them both out. They are both very good sights for the money
Winner: YOU, after reading this review

And don't forget to use BDC red dots with a magnifier. or your eyes will get tired really quickly.

[Master_Prestige]

Eotech American.

Holosun Chinese.

Could have just ended the review there.

[gxer]

Eotech American.

Holosun Chinese.

Could have just ended the review there.

Yeah, dragging politics into a totally technical review and discussion here really made your point. Thanks for your input

[godofgamblers]

I don't have that BDC Eotech but I do have an Eotech for 300blk. I do have that Holosun with the BDC, and yes it works great with a magnifier.

As far as I'm concerned, both are great sights. Eotech of course is "War ready", with a solid reputation (aside from that lawsuit), and real world military usage. Having said that, I'd say Holosuns/Primary Arms/Sigs (the Chinese-made ones) are pretty danged rugged too -- I've dropped mine before and dinged them up with them still working. I'd say the latter are "battle/home defense ready", as in I'm sure they'd hold up fine in a self defense situation or even after a 3-day training course. Long term field usage is a different story, but I doubt most of us will ever encounter long term field usage unless the Boog or SHTF hits.

[jamie404]

Good write-up, thank you. After reading your review I'm more open to the idea of a holosun, although which one exactly, I am unsure. I think the battery life is the only real drawback of the eotech, but that is the curse of the holographic technology. I like the motion sense on of the holosun although with a 50k hour life, I am not sure it matters. It seems the eotech should have the motion sensing technology.

I do not like the tint of my MRO so I doubt I'd like the tint of the Holosun. I wonder if their higher end sights suffer from the same affliction.

Which of these are buy-worthy?
HE512T-RD https://holosun.com/index/product/detail/id/128.html
HE530C-RD https://holosun.com/index/product/detail/id/153.html
HE515CT-RD https://holosun.com/index/product/detail/id/148.html

[godofgamblers]

I have 4 holosuns, though none of them are the high end titanium shell models that you list. One of them is the standard version of the 512, the others are all the standard versions of the 515 with circle dot or BDC.

For me, as I've explained, I think even the standard versions are home-defense and "battle" ready, I don't plan on rough duty use. If you too are like that, unless you really want the added expense for uknown durability/ease of mind, I would say it's not necessary to shell out nearly double the price for the titanium models. Your call on that.

Regarding the 512, the window is quite large, on par with any eotech window. If it's for home defense, this is the kind of view I prefer. The 530 may offer you a similar window to the MRO, but I've never used the holosun 30 mm or an MRO, so I wouldn't know. The 515 and other standard H1 sizes are fine for general use; if you've ever used any Aimpoint H1 or clone, it's got that feeling. I prefer the green over the red dot, but it's your call on that (they now even have gold dots). I definitely prefer the circle dot over just the standard 2/3 MOA single dot.

[five.five-six]

Yeah, dragging politics into a totally technical review and discussion here really made your point. Thanks for your input

[gxer]

I do not like the tint of my MRO so I doubt I'd like the tint of the Holosun. I wonder if their higher end sights suffer from the same affliction.

I have not used any other Holosun than the HS503G-ACSS, but I can tell you without looking at both Eotech and Holosun side by side, I won't even know that the HS503G has tint, it was bluish and very slight, Check my pictures of the sights, did you notice the tint with Holosun compared to the Eotech? It's so subtle it's not possible a user who have never looked through the HS503G would think it has tint. I have also never used 510+ series from Holosun, I heard that they are well made but I didn't think the price bump from Holosun made them appealing to me, they are also heavier than the 503 series, for a simple reflex red dot, I think the lighter the better.

Another word on solar, if you want to get it because the ability of the sight to adjust brightness automatically, you may be in for a surprise, the function really don't work that well since the brightness sensor is on top of the sight, not where you are aiming, so if you are in the shade and trying to shoot at somewhere sunny, the auto brightness maybe too low for you. This function works better if you are in doors.

[Coolguy101]

I always wanted to know if Holosun really left a red dot on for 6 years straight before making their 50,000 hours claim. My suspicion is that it just estimated based on discharge rate, but as anyone that has a modern cell phone can tell you, batteries do not discharge at an even rate over time.

I would bet money that their battery life is significantly less than that, but I don't feel like buying one myself and leaving it on for the next 6 years to find out.....

[k1dude]

I don't think the dots are different due to different zero/ammo as you suspect. I notice you didn't overlay the 2 reticles properly. They aren't aligned. If you align them properly, I think the dots will then also align properly. Or at least they'd be closer than shown - if your zero/ammo theory is correct.

If you have an astigmatism, it will likely affect both of these optics. Personally, I can still use a red dot, but I cannot use an Eotech holographic sight. It's just a blurry mass of wriggling lines. YMMV. I know others with astigmatisms that make red dots unusable for them. Instead of a dot, they get a slash that looks like a comet trail in the sky. A magnifier helps those people when using a red dot. I don't know if a magnifier works with clearing up the astigmatism problem on an Eotech holograph though.

[gxer]

I don't think the dots are different due to different zero/ammo as you suspect. I notice you didn't overlay the 2 reticles properly. They aren't aligned. If you align them properly, I think the dots will then also align properly. Or at least they'd be closer than shown - if your zero/ammo theory is correct.

If you have an astigmatism, it will likely affect both of these optics. Personally, I can still use a red dot, but I cannot use an Eotech holographic sight. It's just a blurry mass of wriggling lines. YMMV. I know others with astigmatisms that make red dots unusable for them. Instead of a dot, they get a slash that looks like a comet trail in the sky. A magnifier helps those people when using a red dot. I don't know if a magnifier works with clearing up the astigmatism problem on an Eotech holograph though.

The alignment reference is the center dot on the Eotech to the tip of the chevron on the Holosun ACSS. If you zoom in you will notice the 400 yard marker (2nd dot from top) actually aligns very closely on the two reticles, the difference grow bigger as you move down to 500 and 600 yards. Alternatively, you can measure how many pixels in height are the two BDCs, Even with a naked eye I can tell you that Eotech's BDC is higher.

[crufflers]

Yeah, dragging politics into a totally technical review and discussion here really made your point. Thanks for your input

IMHO EoTech is made better than HS. Aimpoint is made better than HS. You can gamble on the brand new Chinese models that are now tough and more expensive... and approaching the cost of a MRO, EoTech, Aimpoint PRO, etc... or just get something proven to be tough. Without politics, there is an valid opinion on build quality. HS are more likely to just stop working due to a bad PCB or switch... not a battery connection issue. IMHO.

[k1dude]

The alignment reference is the center dot on the Eotech to the tip of the chevron on the Holosun ACSS. If you zoom in you will notice the 400 yard marker (2nd dot from top) actually aligns very closely on the two reticles, the difference grow bigger as you move down to 500 and 600 yards. Alternatively, you can measure how many pixels in height are the two BDCs, Even with a naked eye I can tell you that Eotech's BDC is higher.

Yet the 68 MOA rings aren't aligned. Interesting.

[crufflers]

This is where you see the main difference between the two approaches of making a rifle optic. The Eotech, built for mostly military and LE, focus on keep it simple stupid. The sight has basically 3 modes: On, Off, and Night Vision. It is designed this way so it is fool proof, on the battlefield the user don't have to fiddle with settings and functions, just turn it on and you are good to go.

NO ONE wants to fiddle with buttons or settings or hit two fragile teentsty chicklets simultaneously to turn it off etc... NO ONE wants to have a rds go into the wrong mode and have to do a weird key combo to get it back to the reticle you wanted or turn off auto-sensing mode or whatever.

I love an Aimpoint PRO where I just crank the knob over and go or leave it on if you prefer.

Can't really compare a holographic to a RDS IMHO... doesn't HS make some kind of EoTech knock-off that's holographic?

As far as EoTech longevity goes... I still have an old Holosight 400 that still works like new having been on who knows how many rifles.

BDC in a tiny RDS? Most people would prefer a simple dot to even a circle dot in a micro tube RDS would be my guess. If you have a RDS where you can't turn off the ACSS in favor of a 2 MOA dot, that would suck. IMHO.

[gxer]

Without a magnifier, the Eotech reticle looks like a fuzzy ring with an also fuzzy vertical line in the middle. Holosun actually looked clearer without a magnifier but it is still not something I would recommend as a stand alone sight. As I have mentioned many times in the post, don't use BDC reticle without a magnifier.

Currently only other manufacture that makes holographic sight is Vortex. But that sight has a heavy tint to it, it's cheaper than Eotech but IMO not something I would pick up, maybe wait for the second generation.