I stole this off another forum. Seemed applicable to the discussion here:
Ive been running a P4Xi on my duty rifle since mid 2017 ( maybe a little earlier, I cant remember exactly when). I bought it in a bundle sale with a Midwest Industries mount for 495 dollars. I have had zero issues with it in that time. We do 4 mandatory training days a year with the rifles totaling about a 1000 rounds per year. It's been through a couple shoot houses and through a couple force on force days using simmunitions. Range days include a lot of barrier work and moving in and around vehicles. It's ridden in the back of my patrol Tahoe the whole time and was back there when a guy fell asleep at the wheel and rear ended me at a red light going 40 mph. It's been deployed many many times at work when searching for suspects or on a barricaded situation. Basically, it definitely hasnt been babied and it's handled an active life without issues. between work training days and my own training days with the rifle, the optic has about 6000 rounds under it.
I have found the center dot to be daylight bright even during the summers here in Phoenix. The glass is good for an optic in it's price range. I was able to discern that a barricaded guy was waiving his cell phone around like a gun on one scene which probably saved him from going suicide by cop. I got in a gunfight in 2018 with the rifle. As I was aiming at the guy in the middle of the road about 60 yards from me I noticed through the Steiner that there was a family loading their kids into their car about 100 yards directly behind suspect, in the line of fire. I did not notice them with my naked eye and I probably wouldn't have seen them with a red dot. I was able to move and get a safer shooting lane and finish the fight. That's the day that really cemented my opinion that a good LPVO is a superior general purpose rifle optic. Still fast up close but the magnification gives you better PID and shots at range.
My only real complaint is that I find the view to be distorted at 1x. I find the Razor 1-6 and the PST Gen 2 1-6 to have a better 1x. Those scopes act more like a red dot to me. Like Im looking though them like an Aimpoint or EOTech, while I feel like Im still looking into the Steiner. I dont know if that makes sense.
Here is a pic of the day Det Sog and I went to the range and I took my duty rifle. Finding 10 inch plates at 500+ yards was no problem with the P4Xi. Hitting them was a bit harder. HAHA. Det Sog had an ACOG on his Colt 6940 which was a good comparison to the Steiner. The ACOG had better glass but not enough to make a difference for what we were doing.
IMG955636 by
chase, on Flickr
20190921_123215 by
chase, on Flickr
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