Wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and wanted to discuss Tactical Sights options. In this video we are going to cover quick reflective sight options. The main topic for this one is the LaRue Tactical (LT624). I will talk a little more about LaRue in the article portion than Eotech (since many people may not be as familiar with LaRue since there margins are smaller to the Resellers and the Resellers are more inclined to give Eotech premier space because of it) Click the READ MORE to read the article below. The Video portion of the Article can also be found in the article below.
Please note, I will be getting a Resellers License this year and will start selling items that are mentioned in my articles. I will provide the items at a discount but will probably not be the lowest person on the internet (mainly because of volume). I would appreciate it if you enjoy my articles and the item mentioned that you support our website by purchasing through us. To be honest, I am looking to make a fairly small margin on each item as a way of supporting the website. Last year's (2008) cost of running the website was nearly $10,000 in Camera, HD Video, Computers, Webhosting and items purchased to review on the website. This will be something added later on this year.
Tactical Reflex Sites
by Jessie Indracusin
Introduction
I have mentioned in the past my passion for Eotech products. The Eotech products I have used have all been rock solid. They can take a significant amount of abuse and still function correctly. Today's article is actually going to be about the LaRue Tactical options. Some of you may or may not be familiar with a LaRue. They are a significant player in the AR space and specialize in a lot of Marksmanship products. There products have seen action in the miliary and some on the front lines have been replacing their C-More sights with them. I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about Eotech specific in this article, mainly making references back to Eotech since many of you are more familiar with them.
LaRue LT624 First Impressions
The LaRue LT624 is a excellent VERY low profile Sight. It is also probably the lightest I have held out there. Keep in mind, this is not some $49.99 dollar made in Taiwan for $2.00 sight that breaks a week later. ALL RED DOT SIGHTS ARE NOT THE SAME! It kills me everytime I go to the Gun Shows and see these cheap red dot sights that look like C-More copies and people buy them. Most of the time you can see the glue dripped down on the glass inside with these cheap immitations that were probably made by child labor in China. If you drop them or bump these things in anyway, you might as well toss them.
LaRue Tactical, based out here in Texas, is a military and law enforcement grade solution. The product mentioned lists at $399.99. It comes 
with a high impact shield/hood over the optics to increase the survivability of the units under combat situations. You can see this in the photos here in the article. These products are MADE IN THE USA. I don't even know these days where to find ANYTHING made in the USA anymore. I applaud this company's continuing support of maintaining jobs within the United States and being able to closely control manufacturing quality based on this.
The quality of the overall unit is rock solid. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the smallest detail. There is no rattle to this device when it is mounted, even though it uses a quick release connector. Everything feels properly made.
There are no sharp edges to cut yourself on. I know this sounds like a strange thing to mention, but if you do buy some of the cheap knock offs, you might understand what I am talking about. I would feel comfortable dropping this sight mounted on a rifle upside down and feeling confident it would still work. If the manufacturer is interested in providing another unit, I would be interested in torture testing one of these.
UNIQUE FEATURES
The sight has a very slick feature that I absolutely love from a CQB status. Normally a red dot scope of any form has an on/off switch and a 
control switch that manages the power of the unit, controlling the brightness of the dot. LaRue has a better solution. The LT624 has a switch on the front of the unit that has an OFF/AUTO/ON setting. There is a small sensor on the front of the unit that is refered to as a Front Light Sensor Module. When the Unit is set to AUTO, it controls the intensity of the red dot based on the amount of light it sees. This translates to an automatic crank up of the intensity when you are outdoors during the day and sights are harder to see unless they are turned up all the way. When you go inside and are in dim areas, the red dot dims down to relieve your eyes.
If you think about the applications this provides, this is a VERY nice feature. If you are doing room clearing and have to keep going in and out of rooms with different lighting conditions, you do not have to set it for some medium setting that you think would work okay for all environments since this device will do it for you.
Another thing to note about this device is it's weight. This is VERY light. I don't have a scale that is precise enough to measure this for you, but trust me, my set of keys weigh twice as much as this sight. This makes it a very viable solution for anyone looking to mount a red dot scope on a pistol for competitive shooting. This is an option you will already see out there.
One other major thing to comment on is the height. This is a very low profile sight. If you have a gun that requires something like this, hands down you need to look at this. The first thing to come to mind for me is the PS 90. The PS 90, and especially the triple rail models, has the sight sit very high up as far as comparison to the center of the barrel to where the sight sits. Because of this, optic options like an Eotech may not be the best option. FNH USA was offering free C-More sights for a while when you bought a PS 90, you can think of this as a C-More sight on steroids. If you purchased a PS 90 and got the free C-More sight and are happy with it, you don't exactly need to replace it with this. If you are using the PS90 for protective services (there is an increase in usage of the full auto P90 as an Executive Protection weapon since you can easily fit it under a coat) or use in a PMI (Private Military Industries) role, you are better off upgrading. If you bought a PS90 and have no optic yet, buy this one.
COMPLAINTS
These are minor complaints, but I wanted to make a quick note of. After looking at this, I would personally re-design a few minor things on 
this. Luckily once you configure the scope, you would never need to do it again. Adjusting the site is a pain compared to the Eotech series. Mainly this comes from the fact of the unit being so small. I still would prefer some form of adjustment I can do with at most one tool. If you look at the photo to the left, you will see some of these items I am going to mention. There is a Locking Hole that is used to lock each of the adjusting holes. If I have to use a special tool on a sight, make it so I don't need to carry a hole set of different tools. The battery compartment uses a flat head screw driver, you can see the screws for the phillips head in the top down photo, there are two different allen wrenches needed, one to loosen the locking hole and then one to actually use on the adjusting hole. I would really prefer just one tool to use on all of them. As I noted earlier, you will rarely need to do this, but it was something that bothered me in the design. I hate having a whole bunch of tools I don't feel comfortable leaving out of my range bag.
Outside of these minor points, I like the design. Also, I don't feel that any of these are major enough not to recommend this solution.
OVERALL RATING
4 Out of 5
Quality: 5
Cost: 4
Innovation: 5
Design: 4
Accuracy: 4
Durability: 5