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Eotech EXPS 3-0 - A Professional Optic
Updated
20 months ago
Good morning, everyone, this is John with gun.deals, and today we’re gonna be taking a look at the Eotech EXPS 3-0.
Getting into full disclosure on this optic, I didn’t pay for this optic, however, this was actually sent out by a gentleman for me to put on his custom build, however, I’m also doing a video review on it as well, so I don’t have any relationship with Eotech whatsoever, I have reviewed a couple of their products in the past that I have personally bought. I don’t have any relationship with them, however, I didn’t pay for this optic.
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Getting into the EXPS 3-0, EXPS means that this is the taller style optic, using a side-loading CR123A battery, and then 3-0 means that it is night vision compatible, so the 2-0 are not night vision compatible, the EPS series is the lower version, and the EXPS is the taller version with the QD mount on the left hand side.
MSRP on these optics is probably like 750, however, street price is usually somewhere between 500 and 650 bucks, so depending if find one on sale, you can find them sometimes for around 500$, which is expensive, but not the most expensive optics on the market.
As you guys can probably tell, even though this is not Eotech’s largest holographic optic, It is still not a small or particularly lightweight optic, it is definitely a little bit chunky, this one here comes in at 11.2 ounces, it’s not the heaviest holographic or red dot style optic on the market, but it is fairly heavy for a non-magnified optic.
With that size and weight you do get one of the best things about an Eotech and that is going to be the window size. The window size is 1”x1/4, which is a very large viewing window, if you like big red dots, if you like large viewing windows this is definitely going to do that.
On top of being a large windowed optic I also has probably the best glass on the market for a 1x optic. There is no distortion, there is no tint whatsoever, it is a perfect, crisp, clear 1x image with nearly perfect light transmission, and when I say it has no tint, no magnification, no warping, anything like that, I mean it actually has no tint, no warping, no magnification, and it looks basically perfect.
That is going to be translated to-1. Being a very clear sight picture, very fast acquisition in combination with the reticle, which we’ll talk about in just a minute, it also means that it has basically the best night vision performance out of any optic on the market, so if you’re looking for something and for night vision use with passive aiming, that sort of thing, Eotech's do that sort of thing basically the best on the market. That has to do with a couple of things, you have a very precise 1 MOA dot in the center and then your 68 MOA outer circle, if you need to use that sort of thing, on top of that, you have 20 daylight settings and then 10 night vision settings, so it is very, very modular, you can definitely fine tune that reticle for your environment, which especially when we’re talking about night vision use is going to be very important.
So, that excellent glass quality, excellent clarity, crispness, light transmission, all of that, combined with the big window size, means that this is very usable for passive aiming and even in normal conditions. I personally do like large windowed optics and the EXPS 3-o definitely does that.
Getting into the reticle, this does have Eotech patented donut of death reticle, you have 1 MOA floating dot, which is very, very precise, even when under magnification, and then you have a 6 MOA outer circle. What that means is that you can use that 68 MOA outer circle for auto ranging, so basically a human should completely fill that up at 100 yards, half of it at 200 yards, so on and so forth, on top of that, you can use the lower hashmark as sort of a holdover at seven yards, so if you are trying to take into account your height over bore on your optic at seven yards or a close range shot, 5, 10, what have you, you can kind of use the lower hashmark on the bottom of the donut of death as a reference point for those closer range shots.
Getting into the optic body, mount and controls on the optic, the body itself is kind of a hybrid, so the lower portion of the optic body is aluminum, and then you kind of have this polymer section in the middle, and then you have this entire thick aluminum shroud that is bolted into the base of the optic, in theory that will transfer any of the energy, any of the impact from the shroud into the base of the optic and away from your glass and your electronics.
However, the last time I drop-tested an Eotech, I actually broke it. I didn’t not drop-test this off because it’s not mine, it was sent out for a build, so this is not getting dropped, this is going straight to a customer, but, in theory, that shroud should protect the glass and internal from taking the brunt from that impact.
Getting into controls on it, the mount itself, we have our QD lever and a little button that we need to repress before that QD lever will actually disengage that way there it can’t accidentally come off, if that something gets caught on there or pulls on it you can’t actually get it off without first depressing the unlock button.
To tighten it down you actually have a hex head on the other side that kind of clicks into position, it has very tactile clicks, so you can kind of fine tune and then it kind of locks into position and then that will kind of dictate how much pressure you have when you actually put your QD lever down into position, you can have it very tight or have it not so tight whatsoever, kind of as you wish. I would recommend having it a little bit on the tight side, but you can do as you see fit.
On the other side we have our battery tray for our side loading CR123A battery. Battery life is rated at 600 hours at setting 12, if you’re outside in the daylight you’re probably gonna be set on settings somewhere between 15 and 18, so 600 hours does not seem like all that much because it’s really not all that much, however, you are using this optic, it is an auto-ON/auto-OFF optic, so it will turn off automatically after every four or eight hours, depending on which button you use to turn it on.
This is not a constant ON optic and it doesn’t have any auto ON features either, so basically every time you push the button to turn it on you get about 50 uses out of it, roughly 50 to 75 uses out of each battery, depending on what circumstances you’re using it in, so with that, if you use your gun once a week to the range or training or what have you, that’s still about a year of battery life, however, if you’re somebody who’s gonna be using it every single day then you’re only gonna be getting a month/a month and a half battery life out of it, which for some people is going to be a big downside, which is why they go for the standard LED emitters with 50 000-100 000 hours of battery life, combined with auto-ON/auto-OFF technology, though Eotech’s are much more designed for the professional, if you will, you know you’re gonna be using it so it’s already ready to go.
Not necessarily something I would use for an impromptu use case scenario, you definitely can like home defense, truck guns, back guns, that sort of thing, but for me personally, I think there are other optics that do that thing a little bit better and you don’t need to fumble and try and turn on a button in the middle of the night or something like that.
Getting into the controls on the left hand side, we have our UP arrow for cycling through your different brightness levels, UP and DOWN arrow, you have 20 daylight settings, which you’re generally speaking going to be on the higher end, somewhere between 15 and 18 in full daylight, and then if you have a night vision lockout, so you press the night vision mode to get it into the night vision settings, and then you have 10 night vision settings. Then last UP on the optic body we have our windage and elevation, which are recessed underneath the aluminum shroud of the optic body. They are very easy to adjust, they’re very tactile, they’re very positive, though they are nicely recessed so they’re not gonna accidentally shift if you’re knocking it against something or something accidentally bumps up against it, you’re not gonna be accidentally shifting them one way or the other.
Getting into the performance of the optic, the very good reticle, the very fast reticle that people are very familiar with and tends to work very well for most people, having that very fine, very refined point of aim at 1 MOA center dot with the 68 MOA outer circle, combined with a very large viewing window with some of the best glass possible on the market, means that you get an optic that performs extremely well. Every time that I use an Eotech versus 20mm red dot or any other red dot on the market, really there does seem to be something about it that just works really well.
That combination of a very fast reticle, that holographic reticle, combined with the best glass on the planet, no tint, no distortion, and no warping whatsoever, means that it is a very, very fast, very intuitive optic to use, and something that is very fun to use if you want to go fast, if you want to shred targets up close, the best optic on the market is going to be an Eotech or something similar to that.
The downsides of this optic are going to be mainly the fact that it is big, it’s expensive and the battery life is a subpar for what you can get on other optics out there.
If you were to ask me what is the most performance I could get out of a 1xoptic, irrespective of size, weight, cost, battery life, so on and so forth, well that answer is probably going to be an Eotech and the Eotech EXPS 3-0 is an excellent option, especially if you are considering use with night vision devices.
Do Eotech’s make sense for everybody and in every role?
Well, of course not. There are definitely optics that are going to serve better and more of a general purpose role, especially if you’re worried about battery life, there just a ton of other optics on the market that are going to provide you with 50-100 times the battery life of an Eotech, they’re probably not gonna have the same 1x performance some of the other nice attributes of an Eotech, but depending on what you’re looking for, the Eotech EXPS 3-0 can be a great optic, but all that is going to be for you to decide, given your specific circumstances and use case scenario.
