Trey Veston
Member
I love red dots for the range and low light situations. My near-sightedness and astigmatism makes getting good groups with open sights a challenge these days.
I bought a Glock Gen 5 G19 MOS a couple of years ago and then a Burris Fastfire III. The Burris matches the Glock perfectly and I was able to get 1" groups at 25 yards with the sight...
However, for carry, I found the sight to be a hindrance due to mass, weight, lint on the screen, remembering to turn it on/off, suppressor sights snagging on the draw, etc, etc. Red dot just didn't make sense for a carry weapon, for me at least.
So I removed it.
Then I bought a Henry Big Boy X tactical lever gun for my new camp carbine and long gun for hiking and ATVing.
I had a large red dot on previous carbines, and was going to just put a peep sight on the Henry, when I got a wild hair and decided to dust off the Fastfire III and mount it. I actually loved it! This is an under 100 yard weapon and is sighted in at 55 yards. With the Burris, I could get 1" groups with it.
But, I retired the G19 to range duty and decided I wanted the Burris back on it. Now I needed a new red dot for the Henry.
I was going to get another Fastfire III when I stumbled across a review for the Vortex Venom 3 MOA and the reviewer said it was a bit bigger that the Fastfire III and had a larger field of view.
I had a gift card to Cabelas for a few bucks, and a military discount, so I ordered one and paid $215 with tax and delivered to my door in a few days.
Initial impressions are good.
But, it is just a fraction of an inch bigger than the Fastfire III...
Vortex is the forward one.
The size difference is so small that I'm not sure it's even noteworthy. However, the Burris does fit the G19 slide absolutely perfectly.
I compared both dots and both are equally blurry due to my astigmatism, lol. It's a miracle I get the groups I do.
Installing the battery was a major pain with the Vortex, however. You really have to crank down hard to get the threads to catch. Both sights use the same CR1632.
Vortex has two buttons on the side. One powers it on and scrolls the brightness up. The other scrolls the brightness down and turns it off.
Burris has one button for powering on and scrolling through the brightness settings.
Burris has four brightness levels and Venom has ten. However, I have never felt that I needed more brightness levels than the ones the Burris has. Both have auto brightness adjustment and auto off.
Windage and elevation adjustments are nearly identical, with both having almost no detectable "clicks" on either of them. You can sort of feel them on the elevation adjustment, but not at all on windage on the Venom. The Burris is the exact opposite, lol.
The differences are so minor that it really comes down to price and application. Both are great and seem to be of equal quality.
The Venom does have a wider field of view, and when acquiring targets, it has a slight advantage to the Burris, so my using the Burris on my range weapon and the Vortex on the woods gun makes perfect sense.
Overall, very happy with the purchase and can't wait to sight it in when the wind dies down.
I bought a Glock Gen 5 G19 MOS a couple of years ago and then a Burris Fastfire III. The Burris matches the Glock perfectly and I was able to get 1" groups at 25 yards with the sight...
However, for carry, I found the sight to be a hindrance due to mass, weight, lint on the screen, remembering to turn it on/off, suppressor sights snagging on the draw, etc, etc. Red dot just didn't make sense for a carry weapon, for me at least.
So I removed it.
Then I bought a Henry Big Boy X tactical lever gun for my new camp carbine and long gun for hiking and ATVing.
I had a large red dot on previous carbines, and was going to just put a peep sight on the Henry, when I got a wild hair and decided to dust off the Fastfire III and mount it. I actually loved it! This is an under 100 yard weapon and is sighted in at 55 yards. With the Burris, I could get 1" groups with it.
But, I retired the G19 to range duty and decided I wanted the Burris back on it. Now I needed a new red dot for the Henry.
I was going to get another Fastfire III when I stumbled across a review for the Vortex Venom 3 MOA and the reviewer said it was a bit bigger that the Fastfire III and had a larger field of view.
I had a gift card to Cabelas for a few bucks, and a military discount, so I ordered one and paid $215 with tax and delivered to my door in a few days.
Initial impressions are good.
But, it is just a fraction of an inch bigger than the Fastfire III...
Vortex is the forward one.
The size difference is so small that I'm not sure it's even noteworthy. However, the Burris does fit the G19 slide absolutely perfectly.
I compared both dots and both are equally blurry due to my astigmatism, lol. It's a miracle I get the groups I do.
Installing the battery was a major pain with the Vortex, however. You really have to crank down hard to get the threads to catch. Both sights use the same CR1632.
Vortex has two buttons on the side. One powers it on and scrolls the brightness up. The other scrolls the brightness down and turns it off.
Burris has one button for powering on and scrolling through the brightness settings.
Burris has four brightness levels and Venom has ten. However, I have never felt that I needed more brightness levels than the ones the Burris has. Both have auto brightness adjustment and auto off.
Windage and elevation adjustments are nearly identical, with both having almost no detectable "clicks" on either of them. You can sort of feel them on the elevation adjustment, but not at all on windage on the Venom. The Burris is the exact opposite, lol.
The differences are so minor that it really comes down to price and application. Both are great and seem to be of equal quality.
The Venom does have a wider field of view, and when acquiring targets, it has a slight advantage to the Burris, so my using the Burris on my range weapon and the Vortex on the woods gun makes perfect sense.
Overall, very happy with the purchase and can't wait to sight it in when the wind dies down.
