The good folks at Primary Arms keep sending me optics to test, evaluate, and reviews. And I’m here for it. This time around they sent me their brand spanking new GLx RS-15 Mini Reflex Sight which represents their first foray into the competitive pistol mountable optics market. This is a very interesting offering to me as I’m an avid competitive pistolero that shoots pistols with mounted optics just about every single weekend. Furthermore, it’s a market space filled with consumers who are often very particular about what they expect from their optics. I’m no exception to that.
Before getting into this review, I have to make a couple of disclosures. First, Primary Arms sent the RS-15 at no cost to me. I also have a financial relationship with Primary Arms as one of their affiliates. This means that I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you for any sales that take place on the Primary Arms website after a reader uses one of the links found in this post, or elsewhere on this blog, to navigate to there. That said, I do my best to review their products honestly without bias. This isn’t hard to do. They either sent me an optic I will or won’t use and I’ll disclose in this review.
So what exactly is the RS-15? It’s a pistol-mountable open-emitter micro reflex sight with a budget friendly price of $360 designed primarily for competitive pistol applications and features an ACSS Vulcan reticle.
What’s in the Box?
The complete $360 package includes:
- A manual,
- A microfiber optic cleaning cloth,
- A Torx key,
- An combo elevation/windage adjustment and batter compartment tool,
- A Glock MOS mounting plate,
- Six different mounting screws,
- And the GLx RS-15 optic itself.
The inclusion of the MOS mounting plate is a nice touch that I suspect Glock owners will appreciate as I’m unaware of any other MOS compatible mounting plates that support the advertised “C-More mounting footprint” this optic features. Unfortunately, that won’t be me as I am not currently an owner of a Glock MOS pistol. We’ll discuss the mounting footprint that I found a little disappointing and think may have been a design miss a bit later in this review.
The combo adjustment/battery-compartment tool is also a nice touch, but I would rather have adjustment tools and compartments that could be easily operated with something like the rim of a cartridge case since ammunition is something that is much less likely to be left behind at home on the workbench. Thankfully the elevation and windage adjustment dials can be operated with the rim of a cartridge case. It looks like it is possible to operate the battery compartment cover in the same fashion but it’s not quite as easy given the location leaves very little space to work with.
A Closer Look at the Optic
Walking the 1.1 ounce optic from front to back we first encounter the optic housing which is machined from 7075 aluminum. This is not surprising as this material is virtually the common standard for pistol mountable optics due to being lightweight and durable.
The housing houses the multi-coated lens which has an aperture diameter of 26x20mm. That’s a pretty good sized window, but I can’t help but compare that with the aperture diameters of the Holosun 507Comp and the Trijicon SRO as those are two other competition optics that are extremely popular in competition activities I participate in and I have plenty of experience with. The aperture diameter of the Holosun is 28x22mm and the SRO’s aperture diameter comes in at 22.5x25mm. Of the three optics, the RS-15 has the smallest aperture area available. However, it is not the narrowest aperture. In fact, it has almost the same width as the Holosun and I’ve come to appreciate and prefer a wider aperture over a taller one. Again, while it’s the smallest aperture of the three, it is a really good size that provides ample space for the 3 MOA center dot of the ACSS reticle to appear on the target. The wide nature of the aperture allows for a wider alignment margin of error with the dot appearing on target compared to the SRO.
I’ll try my best to prevent this review from becoming a Holosun 507Comp vs Trijicon SRO vs Primary Arms GLx RS-15 comparison. However, I won’t be able to avoid comparisons altogether.
The quality of the lens is good at least in edge to edge clarity which didn’t have any glaring edge distortion that I noticed. As is the case with all reflex sights, the lens coating isn’t entirely tint free which would be impossible anyway since the coating is responsible for reflecting the dot back to our eyeballs. The tint has a light blue/green hue to it. It’s present and noticeable, but I didn’t find it distracting or annoying.
Behind the lens on the top of the optic body we find the top loading CR2032 battery compartment which is reminiscent of the Trijicon SRO. I prefer this battery compartment over a battery tray because it is a much more rugged design in my opinion. I’ve seen my fair share of small battery tray screws walk out and battery trays break. I’ve yet to see a top loading cap fail. The battery life on the optic is advertised as 5,000 hours with the full reticle on a medium brightness setting and 25,000 hours with just the center dot on a medium brightness. Contributing to the long battery life is the Primary Arms Autolive feature which puts the optic to sleep after a period of time without detected motion. This is similar to Holosun’s Shake-Awake feature.
Just after the battery tray, we find a label with the torque specification of 20 inch-lbs for the mounting screws. This saves the user from the trouble of having to go look up the torque specification in the manual or online when mounting the optic to a pistol. Not that looking up a torque specification takes a lot of effort, but I still found it to a nice thoughtful touch.
The red ACSS Vulcan Dot reticle emitter follows the label. The reticle consists of a 3 MOA center dot and an optional 250 MOA outer ring that can be used for target-muzzle alignment corrections. I won’t go into detail with regards to the reticle, which some folks, like me, really like and others don’t, because I’ve previously covered it in detail twice. The emitter has three (3) night vision (NV) compatible brightness settings and ten (10) additional brightness settings for a total of 13 settings which are controlled by the two buttons found on the rearmost left side of the optic body.
The illumination control buttons are tiny. So small in fact, that I’ve had trouble operating them with my stubby sausage fingers. While I’ve found it frustrating, it’s also a good thing as this means that they are unlikely to be unintentionally pressed. The operation is simple enough. Press and hold the forward most up triangle button for three (3) seconds to power the optic on or off just like the label on the optic body suggests. When the optic is powered on, a single press of the up or down triangle button will increase or decrease the brightness respectively. Pressing and holding the rearmost down triangle button for three (3) seconds enables or disables the outer 250 MOA ring of the ACSS Vulcan Dot reticle.
The last thing we have left to look at are the elevation and windage adjustment dials round on the top rear and right rear of the optic body respectively. The total adjustment range of both dials is 87 MOA which is a pretty generous range. Both dials have their adjustment directions clearly labeled and are surrounded by lots of little major and minor hash marks which mean absolutely nothing to me. I suspect the major marks represent 1 MOA and the minor marks represent 0.5 MOA increments since the optic is labeled and advertised as having an adjustment increment value of 0.5 MOA per click. The only problem for me is that I have not been able to detect any sort of audible or tactile click which is disappointing as it will make zeroing the dot tougher than it should be.
Hits and Misses
Take everything that I say in this section with a grain of salt as I haven’t spent much time with the Primary Arms GLx RS-15 on the range yet. However, I’ve spent enough time with pistol mounted optics to be able to form initial opinions from first impressions that tend to mostly be reinforced as I spend more time with them. Whether or not these opinions will remain intact remains to be seen, but here they are nevertheless.
There is a lot to like about the RS-15. It’s an inexpensive, light, low-profile optic with a generously sized window manufactured in the Philippines. The lens quality is quite impressive. All of these aspects are a good sign indicating that the RS-15 will prove to be a good competition optic. The thing is it has some misses right out of the gate in my opinion that I suspect will limit the dot’s adoption in the competitive market space.
The first miss for me lies with the adjustment dials. I’ve tried hard to detect a click and I just can’t. As such, I fully expect that getting the zero on this optic dialed in will be a frustrating experience. Especially when attempting to do so in a noisy environment, like a public indoor range, when one is forced to rely solely on tactile feedback. Another thing is that adjustment clicks instill trust that the optic will hold the set zero. Most of the optics that end up having a zero that walks from recoil also tend to lack pronounced adjustment clicks. Not having a pronounced click isn’t a guarantee of failure, it just fails to instill confidence. Further testing will reveal how this shakes out.
The other miss for me is the C-More mounting footprint that was selected in the design of this optic. The C-more mounting standard, sometimes referred to as the RTS/STS mounting standard, is one of the less common ones. In terms of optics commonly used in competition that use this footprint we have the C-More RTS, the C-More STS, and the Sig Romeo 3 line. I do see those from time to time at matches, but not often. What I see most often is the Trijicon SRO and the Holosun 507Comp which both share the Trijicon RMR mounting standard. I think that footprint would have made much sense. Especially since it’s a footprint that virtually every single optic mounting system supports. Granted that what I see is anecdotal based on the local and major matches I’ve attended. Perhaps Primary Arms has better data than my personal observations. Or maybe this footprint made production of the RS-15 more economical which allowed Primary Arms to keep the price down.
To be completely transparent, I have a strong bias for the RMR mounting footprint since virtually all of the pistol optics I use are based on that footprint. I can’t eliminate that bias. As such, I suspect it plays into my opinion on that particular design decision.
My main concern about these misses is that they don’t exist with the Holosun 507Comp which has been growing in popularity by leaps and bounds since it was introduced last year. The Holosun and the RS-15 have virtually identical price points as well. Frankly, I think this will be a huge hurdle to overcome in order for the RS-15 to establish a foothold in the competitive pistol optics market.
Next Steps
At this point in time, I’ve sourced a C-More mounting standard optic plate for the Smith & Wesson 929. I’ve been wanting to slap a dot on a wheel gun and shoot it competitively in the Steel Challenge Optic Sight Revolver (OSR) division. Since I had to source a mounting plate for this optic anyway, I figured this would be a win-win. The optic gets put to the test and I get to try out a new Steel Challenge division. Assuming the optic holds up well, I’ll see about trying it out on a semi-automatic pistol which will punish the RS-15 far more than a 9mm revolver will. But I won’t get ahead of myself, revolver first and I’ll go from there.
At this point in time, all I can say is that the Primary Arms GLx RS-15 looks promising and I’m excited about its introduction. However, it’s too early to tell how it will be received by the market and too early for me to start recommending it to anyone who isn’t willing to try and test a new product.
