Sightron SRS-2 : The Best Competition Red Dot You’ve Never Heard Of
The Most Underrated Competitive Shooting Red Dot
In this review we’ll cover the Sightron SRS-2. In our opinion, it is the best competitive shooting budget red dot on the market. Almost no-one has ever heard of it. We’ll go over all of its best features. If you want to see it in action, watch our above review video also.
All the features you’d want for competition shooting
The Sightron SRS2 excels in many areas:
Pros:
- Incredible Price
- Glass clarity
- Emitter Brightness
- Window size
- Durability
It has all of the features you’d want for competition shooting. Most frequently, these are the features that are lacking in budget optics. The Sightron SRS-2 has all of these.
It might be the only budget pistol red dot that does that set of features well.
Neutral:
- Design
- Uncommon Foot print (C-more)
Cons:
However, it lacks many of the duty red dot features you’d care about:
- Bulky, not concealed carry friendly
- Short Battery life
- Doesn’t have Shake awake
Where to Buy the Sightron SRS-2
Sightron SRS-2
A great competitive shooting optic in C-More footprint.
The Pros
Price – 5/5
The SRS-2 has a higher MSRP, but it often goes on sale for $130 or less. I paid $130 for mine. At this price point it is a steal. I can say with absolute confidence, there isn’t a better pistol use case red dot on the market at this price point, specific to competitive shooting (for concealed carry is a different story).
For this reason the SRS-2 is an excellent choice for competition shooting or for mounting on primarily range guns, as it is an incredibly economic option for the feature set that it offers.
It’s important to note that I believe this sight goes on sale often specifically because it is largely unheard of and has flown under the radar. If the sight gains more popularity, this point may not be as true in the future. At least in the first half of 2023, however, you can get crazy good deals on this optic.
Glass Clarity – 5 / 5
The Sightron SRS-2 has very good glass clarity. In fact, it is the most clear pistol optic I own, including versus higher end options. Being made with Japanese glass, which is unheard of at this price point, it has super clear glass with a great window size.
This makes the SRS-2 a great option for competitive shooting.
Brightness – 4 / 5
The SRS-2 has a very bright emitter. It isn’t the brightest that I’ve seen, some emitters, for example the ones equipped on Holosun sights can nearly burn your retinas out on highest setting. However, the emitter brightness on the SRS-2 is quite solid.
My model has a 2MOA reticle, which is ideal for precision shooting. Overall the brightness of the optic is more than acceptable, especially for a budget optic.
The optic did great on a bright florida morning.
Great Window Size – 5 / 5
The SRS-2 is a chunky optic. This is great for competitive or range shooting however, as the window size is extremely generous. As such, it’s very easy to find the dot and transition between targets. It really is purpose built for competition shooting in this sense.
Durability – 4 / 5
The optic appears to be well constructed and fairly durable. It doesn’t appear to be built quite as heavily as other options (e.g. Holosun optics), but it seems to be built well enough for its purpose.
I do have a fairly high round count through this optic at the time of the writing of this article, and the SRS-2 has held up well, although its important to note that I’ve only had mounted via fixed pic rail (so it hasn’t taken the beating that red dots take on a reciprocating semi automatic pistol slide).
I currently have it mounted to a Taurus TX 22 competition slide, and it is the perfect red dot for this setup.
Built for Competitive Shooting
So upto this point, I hope that its clear, the SRS-2 is an incredible choice for anyone wanting an affordable competitive shooting optic.
Right now, I am running the SRS-2 on my dedicated steel challenge and target pistol, the Taurus TX-22 with a competition slide. In this role, the SRS-2 is great. I have no need to spend more money on something else for this particular usage. As you’ll see soon, the optic does have some cons, but these are mostly irrelevant for competition shooting purposes.
If you’re wanting an optic mainly for competitive sports shooting, the SRS-2 should be on your list for consideration.
Sightron SRS-2’s Weaknesses
While the SRS-2 has some incredible strengths, it does come with a few drawbacks. I’ll start with some that I consider more neutral as they are largely preference, and then a few true weaknesses.
Neutral Aspects : Design and Controls – 3.5 / 5
The optic is well designed for competitive shooting, I don’t want to detract from that, specific in the way the window is designed.
Furthermore, it has some smart design choices. The battery tray pops out from the side, which I really appreciate considering the shorter battery life of this optic.
The push buttons are in a convenient area, and the optionally included sunshade is designed in a way that doesn’t obscure the buttons.
However, the optic loses a couple stars on a few negatives.
- The controls themselves are a little bit mushy.
- The adjustment controls for windage and elevation use a tiny, tiny allen wrench, which is crazy considering how large the optic is (there was plenty of room for say, flat blade adjustments).
- The adjustment controls aren’t snappy, they don’t audibly click, they are more analog in style so they don’t correlate to measurable changes in MOA like some other optics do
- The optic is very large, so it doesn’t fit, even with mounting adapter plates, on many slide milled slides (like my Canik TP9SFX). This was extremely disappointing because if it did fit, it’d be my optic of choice for that particular pistol. It would end up seeing a lot of time in USPSA carry optics at that point.
For these reasons the SRS-2 loses a little bit of its luster.
Neutral : Uncommon C-More Footprint – 3.5 / 5
I have yet to find a slide milled directly for C-More footprint. Oftentimes adapter plates exist, but this is a fairly uncommon footprint with most modern pistols.
The SRS-2 does include a pic rail adapter, so I do give this optic a little bit of credit for that.
However, the size of the optic still makes it impossible to mount for some adapter plates (as mentioned earlier the Canik TP9-SFX), so for this reason I am only giving this optic 3/5
Con: Bulky and Oversized 2.5 / 5
The optic is very large, and as discussed before this prevents it from being mounted on some guns, even with C-More specific adapter plates. The optic also would print significantly if you did try to conceal carry with it (the pro of a large window size also comes with this con).
Con: Short Battery Life 2.5 / 5
The SRS-2 is only rated at 250 hours, which is so incredibly short as compared to other modern optics that are rated at tens of thousands of hours. This isn’t a huge deal for competitive shooting contexts or range contexts, and swapping batteries is super easy on this optic as discussed above given the placement of the SRS-2’s battery tray.
However, this pretty much rules the SRS-2 out for any duty, home defense, or concealed carry contexts, especially given the next con.
Con: No Shake Awake Feature 2.5 / 5
Most modern red dots today have a shake awake feature or “auto off” feature. The SRS-2 doesn’t have that, meaning that if you forget to turn the optic off after a range session, you will almost certainly come back to the optic being dead on your next range trip.
Always carrying spare batteries in your range bag is a best practice regardless. You can buy bulk batteries very cheaply at amazon.
However, lacking the shake awake feature, paired with the short battery life pretty much kills the deal for using this in concealed carry and home defense contexts. You aren’t going to want to have to tinker with turning the optic on and adjusting brightness if a criminal breaks into your home.
Conclusion
At the low price point, the Sightron SRS-2 is definitely one of the most if not the most under rated and unheard of pistol red dots currently on the market. This is definitely one that has flown under the radar so if you can find one during a sale and you want to mount this up to a competition or range gun, the SRS-2 may very well be the option for you. If you are looking for an optic to use for concealed carry or home defense however, I’d encourage you to look at another option.
Here at CRACKSHOT.tv, We have plenty of great reviews for other optics, so check those out if you are looking for a great concealed carry option.
Sightron SRS-2
A great competitive shooting optic in C-More footprint.
