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Thread: SRO false dot with a low sun angle

  1. #1

    SRO false dot with a low sun angle

    This weekend, my wife and I shot a two day match at our winter time local club. The match starts early, and a known issue is when the sun comes over the berm behind certain targets. My wife shoots a Romeo 3 Max, which is awesome with low sun angles. I was using an SRO.

    On the second stage, as luck would have it, I encountered an in-line plate rack near the end of the stage with the sun right behind it. It was only about 12 yards, and I didn’t give it a second thought. I was firing, watching the dot lift, hearing the sound of impacts on the steel, but the plates weren’t going down. This went on for nearly a magazine, and finally I turned to the RO and asked if he was going to stop me because of a range equipment failure. He said “no, that I was hitting the splash guard low below the plate rack.” I was like WTF. At that point I reloaded and shot some targets left and right of the plate rack, including some harder targets like skunks with no issue. We went over to the plate rack and it was working properly, and there was a magazine of hits tightly clustered at the bottom of the plate rack on the splash guard.

    What we figured out, was with the sun directly behind the inline plate rack, I was getting a false dot with the SRO, and shooting the wrong dot. As I mentioned, the Romeo 3 Max has no false dots. My experience with the RMR and DP Pro is you will get splatter with a low sun angle, but that makes it obvious what is going on. The SRO can suck you in because the false dot looks just like the real dot.

    We had dinner with a friend who was at Nationals, and the SRO was a big enough problem there at Frostproof in the morning that numerous competitors were putting blue tape over the front SRO lens and shooting it occluded on the morning stages. My friend had taped his SRO over the first two stages at this match, although I didn’t know at the time since we were on different squads.

    Obviously this ruined my match, but if you were depending on the SRO for something serious, and encountered the wrong sun angle, it could lead to a bullet striking somewhere you weren’t intending for it to go.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  2. #2
    Site Supporter MGW's Avatar
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    What’s the difference between the Max and other dots that eliminates this issue? Do other recent Romeo MRDS have this issue? I’m thinking specifically of the new Romeo Pro that looks very similar to a DPP.
    “If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi

  3. #3
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Thanks for this.

  4. #4
    The RTS2 from C-More is also good with a low sun angle and I understand it and the R3Max are made in the same plant in Japan. Not sure if it the glass or the design — there has been speculation that the curve of the SRO lens contributes.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  5. #5
    Seen the same thing with the Aimpoint ACRO and the SIG Romeo4M.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Tokarev View Post
    Seen the same thing with the Aimpoint ACRO and the SIG Romeo4M.
    I have seen it with the Acro, but the false dot is a metallic color and obviously not the primary red dot.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  7. #7
    Can this happen with car headlights, flashlights, or other light sources at night?

  8. #8
    Member SoCalDep's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by frozentundra View Post
    Can this happen with car headlights, flashlights, or other light sources at night?
    In theory yes. If you go into a dark garage and set up a bright flashlight pointed at you then present the pistol you will likely see a false dot. This requires a BRIGHT light and the false dot is clearly (on my SRO) not the main dot, especially when moving the pistol.

    I used a Fenix PD32UE at about eight feet away because it was close at hand. The modes are 9, 40, 140, 400, and 740 lumens. At the "turbo" (400lm) mode I got a faint dot that I don't consider being confused for the actual reticle when the muzzle was depressed a fairly significant amount (30 degrees maybe?). On the burst (740lm) setting I got a bigger dot but it still required a significant deviation from on target to pick it up. It also seems pretty far from the actual dot unless you have it set at an unrealistically low brightness.

    I did this with an SRO and an ACRO. The results I summarized above applied to both optics, though the ACRO's phantom dot was less than the SRO. That said, they both exhibited it and they both could still (in my opinion) be used with little problem when one if familiar with what the dot is supposed to look like.

  9. #9
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by frozentundra View Post
    Can this happen with car headlights, flashlights, or other light sources at night?
    A member here had the false dot issue, also with a SRO, during a Gunsite pistol class in October. Interestingly, it was only in the afternoon on a west facing range when the sun was still well elevated to his left-front.

    I haven't had headlights, legit flashlights pointing right into my Acro or RMR so I can't opine.

  10. #10
    Let’s just say it is a big enough SRO problem guys are taping over their front lens for early morning stages, and I have never heard of taping over another red dot at matches. Where it shows up is running and gunning in matches, where the positions and sun angles are changing.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

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