As promised to Judders; a few weeks ago a friend of mine said he’d let me have a go with his Sightmark bowl magnifier (and Sightmark Ultra Shot red-dot).
To say I am disappointed in this product is an understatement, while I accept that it is firmly within the ‘budget’ price range for a scope, even for a magnifier, you’d think that it would be being strictly marketed towards the airsoft crowd, rather than an a serious contender to similar magnifiers produced by EoTech or Aimpoint. Potentially trusting your life to such a product would be foolhardy in the extreme.
Before I get to the scope itself I have to say that the mount was fine. The finishing on it was better than I’d expected (considering the standard on the Sightmark Ultra Shot red-dot I initially tested it with). The magnifier is moved in or out of place manually, sliding along a rail within the mount base. A spring loaded mount, such as you get on Eotech/Aimpoints which flips the magnifier to the side at the touch of a button would be nicer, however for the money it was good. In both the open and closed position it is held in place by friction detents, which kept it in place while I was testing it. I have some slight reservations as to whether the detents could wear away from excessive or long term use, however I’ll never know!
The mount attaches to any picatinny/weaver rail via a quick-release lever clamp which can be adjusted for tension without any tools and is quite a nice feature. You simply hold the lever perpendicular to the mount and pull it ‘out of socket’ and give it a few turns to tighten/loosen it. This also allows you to have the lever, which is quite large, facing either forwards or backwards – you’ll notice I had it facing backwards to keep it away from the charging handle of the LRA9. Further, you can mount the magnifier so that it flips down to either side, simply by attaching the scope either way onto the mount. It was a difficult decision to make on the LRA9 (or any AR for that matter), due to the location of the charging handle/ejection port.
If you mount it so it opens to the left (gun facing away from you) it obstructs the charging handle – this would be less of an issue on a semi-auto, especially if it was just a plinking rifle, however for a competition gun (or self-defence if you’re stateside) it would be too much of a hindrance under stress. Mounting it on the right side isn’t without its drawbacks either, as you have to be careful not to obstruct the ejection port of the gun. In addition to potentially bouncing brass back into the action (which it did on test! - once), if you shoot it a lot debris can be deposited on the objective lens, or if you’re shooting in cold conditions it can fog up.
The next mounting problem to get over is less of an issue for sporting/plinking users, but if you’re a tart when it comes to your gun it could get your lip quivering. The scope has a normal to short eye-relief, which means it has to be mounted quite far back on the top rail, and as you can see it meant I had to remove my rear M.B.U.S. sight. You can mount it further forward so that you can JUST squeeze the rear sight underneath, however in order to get the right sight picture you end up with your nose pressed against the charging handle. Although there is a school of thought that this is the correct cheek position for AR’s, I simply don’t, and find it uncomfortable and potentially dangerous, so I lost the rear ‘iron’ sight.
Now the weak part of the magnifier, the scope!! I appreciate this is a budget scope, however I have seen EoTech magnifier airsoft knock offs with surprisingly good optical clarity, (the main thing that lets those down is the mount, so if you could pair the Sightmark mount with one of those scopes you could be onto a winner!) The finish on the scope was reasonable, although some glue (or similar) could be seen on the inside of the tube on the objective end. The scope does not have any type of crosshair, it is literally just a magnifying scope, which means that it does not to have to be 100% true aligned and returning to zero after it has been opened/closed isn’t an issue, your zero remains with the separate red-dot/optic. The scope does have adjustments (allen key type) to ensure it is centred around the red-dot, which were non-clicking (bad) but held the scope in line during the testing (good).
The lenses did appear to be coated, but not the nice green or red you expect on a decent scope and the light transition wasn’t good, especially in low light conditions. At the indoor range (which in fairness is pretty damn dark!) it really showed, especially when viewed through the Sightmark Ultra Shot red-dot, which doesn’t have brilliant light transition in the first place, but it was also evident on the 3 other red-dots I tried it with (Hakko Quattro, Burris Fastfire III and an EoTech 551).
Worse still, the magnifier produced a terrible ‘ghosting/halo’ effect on the red-dots reticle (all 4 red-dots), no matter what brightness setting the red-dot was set to (you can normally eliminate this by turning the brightness down). This coupled with the poor light transition meant I ended up producing worse groups with the magnifier compared to without!! I can only presume that the lenses/prisms are not properly aligned with the scope body as 3 people tried it and all said the same thing.
Actually doesn't look that bad here, but the dot never looked that clear to the eye;
All in all IMHO the scope element is not fit for purpose, other than as a tart up piece on an airsoft rifle. Producing a fixed power, low-magnification scope for less than £100 is easily achievable these days (the airsoft ones are <£50), so the state of this is pretty shocking at £130, particularly as its marketed as a serious (albeit budget) contender to an EoTech/Aimpoint magnifier. I’m certainly glad I got a chance to try one before I spent my money!
The owner of the magnifier (and Sightmark red-dot) offered to sell them to me for £50 (cost new would be £200!!) and although I took the red-dot off him I wouldn’t touch the magnifier with a barge pole. I was tempted to buy the mount and get an EoTech replica magnifier to put in it, but to be honest after using it on my 9mm, I don’t think theres much point given that its maximum effective range is 100-150m which is doable with just a red-dot, and the gallery rifle comps I shoot are rarely longer than 25m. A magnifier like this might have use on something with a bit more range (e.g. 5.56/.223) but I wouldn’t bother for a .22 or pistol calibre carbine.