re: $1500-2000 M4 build/prebuilt rifle recommendations?

quote:

---

Then one night, a call I went to drew my attention to the one MAJOR drawback the entire EOTech line suffers from, at least from a patrol rifle standpoint.  And when I say drew my attention to it, it pounded me on the head with that shortcoming like it was a 12 pound sledge hammer.  It is easy to practice deploying your rifle in static environments, under little or no stress.  However, that night, when I pulled up to my call in my patrol car, I immediately came under fire.  I was taking rounds from a bad guy armed with a rifle, and I was sitting in my car with my gun in the rifle rack.  Everything else went as practiced, hit release, open lock, grab gun, establish grip, charge, shoulder, but turning the EOTech on was something that just did not happen, at least not until I regrouped.

In the days that followed that incident, I did some serious reflection both in respect to how I  performed my job in general and in respect to the equipment I carry daily.  One of the victims of that self-evaluation was my EOTech.  That incident drove home the one and only truly negative thing I have to say about the EOTech line, especially when compared to the Aimpoint line, and that is battery life, which is directly linked to runtime.  The EOTech XPS2 will run 600 hours at brightness setting 12, however, the optic powers itself off after either 4 or 8 hours depending on which button you use to turn it on.  Either way, that does not cover my 10 hour shift, and 600 hours goes by pretty quick causing battery expenses to rise.  Compare that to the battery life of just about any Aimpoint, which is measured in years, not hours.  Another place the Aimpoint line beats out the EOTech is the power/brightness adjustment controls, but this is only a minor quibble.  The EOTech uses rubber coated buttons, which are not the easiest to use, but they do work.  The Aimpoints, at least all of those that I have had the chance to play with, use a single knob, which both simplifies the controls and makes them easier to operate with gloved hands or when your attention is primarily directed somewhere else.

---