Scope Review

A few weeks ago, I went shooting with a friend. We sighted in some of his guns. We shot some AR15's. We had a grand time. His AR15, a 16" model from RRA, was outfitted with a free float quad rail. He had a red dot on it, but replaced that with a Burris 332 tactical sight. I zeroed the scope in at 100 yards and made some observations about the scope, as well.

The concept behind the Burris 332 is simple: it is a "poor-man's ACOG." It offers ballistic drop coefficients for 100 yards, 200, 300, 400, and 500 yards. It has a built in range finder for 100 yards of sorts (the width of the horizontal crosshairs is approximately the width of a man at 100 yards).

The glass was clear. The reticle was a nice dot (more on that a little later). The scope mounted via a rail mounting bracket. It is my understanding that the scope can be used in conjunction with an ACOG quick detach mount if the owner so desires. The controls were easy to use, and the scope zeroed easily.

One thing I found really nifty was the covers to the zero turrets. These covers were attached to a wire that held them near once removed so that the user does not accidentally misplace them! This is a fantastic idea.

The reticle looked a bit more like a red dot reticle. Indeed, it can be used with a Bindon Aiming Concept up close. Indeed, the scope has lens covers that help make that possible (one would close the front lens cover to switch to a BAC). For that use, the Burris 332 is superior to most ACOGs, with a possible exception of ACOGs using a horseshoe reticle. The reticle is black normally, however, it can be turned on (provided one has installed a battery) and has both red and green settings.

The scope has picatinny rails on the front at the 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00 positions. These could be used to mount a true red dot, light, or even a laser. I would opt for a red dot on the top, as a matter of personal preference.

Other than 100 yards, the optic has no measuring devices that I could tell for gauging distance to targets.

We tried the optic at 100 yards, 50 yards, and 25 yards. When properly zeroed, the 200-yard point should be pretty close at 50 yards. Similarly, the 300-yard dot should be very close at 25 yards. Both of these held true.

Directly compared to an ACOG, this scope does not win in any major category except eye relief. But then, it is not supposed to. It is supposed to offer an affordable alternative. The Burris 332 does that quite well.

For the record, the typical ACOG will run about $1000.
The Burris 332 sells for about $350.

For that price, it is an excellent choice.


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