I received my Redfield Accelerator today. Here are my initial impressions. I'll add to this soon.

Here's the packaging


The inside


All that is included (mounting screws and wrenches, adapter base plate for Docter/Burris mounts, picatinny mount, battery, cover, and sight)


Sight mounted to included picatinny mount



Bottom of sight and adapter plate. You can see there is a difference in the adapter length and the sight length. The holes for the dows are closer to the middle of the sight on the Accelerator than they are on the Fastfire or Docter.


This is the adapter on top of my Larue LT635 which is made for Burris/Docter floor plans. THE SIGHT DOES NOT MOUNT STRAIGHT TO ANY OTHER FLOOR PLAN WITHOUT AN ADAPTER EXCEPT THE DELTAPOINT


The sight, adapter plate, and LT635 together. They do fit together with some front sight overhang. This does not affect mounting on a TA33 ACOG. It fits just fine.


Adapter plate and top of the LT635. You can see the circles from the dows that go into the sight and the holes where the dows on the LT635 fit. Obvious mismatch


Sight








The sight starts off with what seems to be a dot that uses the Intelligent Brightness Control, then highest, then progresses down in brightness by two and turns off. Obviously it's difficult to get a picture of the dot but it is brighter than what the picture shows.









Initial impressions
1. My included battery was completely dead. The sight has an indicator light on the side of the sight that will light up with a low battery. The light will stay on for hours before the sight is unusable (per the manual) so this battery must be D.E.A.D. I replaced it and it works fine.

2. The battery door is rather hard to get off. Such is life with a small sight. I had to use the rounded handle of a key to turn it.

3. The base adapter is plastic, the picatinny mount is metal. If you want to mount this to a pistol you have to do some research to find out how. Obviously you can buy a mount that is floored for a Doctor/Burris and use the adapter plate, but then you're stacking on stacking on stacking. Anything that is going to increase your height over bore is bad in my opinion. So I gave Leupold a call b/c on their website it shows the Accelerator mounted to a M&P and a Glock in a smaller picture with only one mount under it. There is a full mounting kit that is made to fit the contour of various different pistols that can be bought for $49.99 (no shipping charge but tax in some states). This kit is not available through retail, only through them. It is the full mounting kit that comes with some packages of Deltapoint. You can buy a set for a single gun (I bought the one for Glock 9mm's) for $39.99 or the entire kit for $49.99. When I called to inquire about mounting to a pistol the customer service rep said they'd throw in a replacement battery since mine is Bin Laden'ed

4. The sight itself seems nice. Not a fan of the floor plan (dow hole placement). Obviously it would be nice to have a configuration that is the same as Docter/Burris, but that's just not how they made it.  I have not got to shoot anything with it yet b/c I've had it all of 3 hours. I'm going to mount it to my Glock 34 first instead of my AR since the pistol will have more of an impact to the sight so I can see how well it's going to hold zero. Then I'll move it over to the AR on top of the Larue mount to see how I like that. The Glock mounting plate should be here sometime next week.

Glass is clear. It seems like there is a very small magnification. Images viewed through the glass close up or far away are larger (maybe 1x) to me.

The power button is easy to press and go between brightnesses. I like that it starts off with Intelligent Brightness Control. Not sure how I feel about the rubber cover on the button. It feels like it is thin and will wear quickly.

The cover is a tight fit and doesn't go all the way down. Speaking with the service rep this is normal. It covers down to about half of the power button.

Per the customer service rep he said the sight is longer than Docter/Burris sights so it will not fit into the same floor plan such as on the M&P Core. It will need its own milling plan cut into a slide.

5. The adapter plates\ (not the picatinny mount), including the pistol plates you buy separately, are all plastic...not metal. The way the sight mounts to a pistol is an individual dovetail piece goes in to replace a rear sight, a plate that goes down, then the sight, then the screws go through all and into the dovetail. I would rather have metal plates. I asked the service rep if there is a warranty on the plastic plates (using running a pistol hard in a pistol class as an example) and he said they'd warranty the plates if they break. We'll see how the plastic holds up.







Update 8/19/14
So I've had this sight for a couple months now and I really like it. What I've learned about the sight is that BOTH adjustment set screws have to be loose to adjust even just one adjustment. I had only the windage set screw loose to adjust it and it wouldn't adjust properly b/c the elevation set screw wasn't loose. Worked fine after loosening it. As I said before I have it mounted on my Glock 34 and it has held up perfectly and has maintained zero. I used a red marker to mark the heads of the mounting screws with a straight line to visualize any loosening



The battery is easily changed with using my thumbs to remove the battery cover. There is a five hour auto shut off on the unit. I have found that I do not like the power button, for a few reasons. #1 if I lay the gun on the side that has button it'll turn on. Obviously, but I would prefer a countersunk switch (Trijicon RM07) or a slide switch (Burris Fastfire 2). #2 It is awkward to rack the slide due to the location of the power button. #3 The intensities of the dot cannot be cycled fast by pushing the button. You have to wait up to a second between each push. It's almost like you have to wait for the actuator to fully reset after you push it. However, you don't have to put much pressure on the button to go through the settings. That is where it's kind of a trade off, doesn't require much pressure to change the settings so you could accidentally change the setting or turn it on when you want it off.

The first on setting that adjusts based on the ambient light sensor is nice and seems to adjust promptly. I have shot in all brightness settings and have no real complaints about them.

Final impressions:
1. Quality sight that has held up well and maintained zero under shooting range use on a Glock slide
2. Somewhat awkward location power button
3. Easily changed battery
4. Exclusive floor plan and shape. Will not fit any pistols setup from the factory to hold a mini sight. Will fit the Docter/Burris Fastfire mounts with included adapter.
5. Front hang off on mounts is kind of weird

I would buy another one

Received the mount from Leupold and got the sight mounted up. The mount has two pieces. One piece fits loosely into the dovetail and the plate sits flat on the slide. Two screws go into the dovetail piece and pulls it up to secure the sight to the slide. The dovetail piece is metal and the base plate is plastic. It fits really nice since the base plates are cut to the same shape as the slide it goes on. Not sure why they didn't make the base plate longer to fit the entire length of the sight though.





Here is the protective cover that comes with it. You can see that it doesn't fit all the way down on the sight.





I'm going to sight it in on Saturday and see how it holds up on the gun.

I have to say I'm liking having a red dot on the sight!

I am really interested to see how this holds up on a handgun.  I don't want to have a slide milled if the sight is junk.

Well, the news from the range is not good for me. This is the first time using the sight. Got it sighted in at 15 yards in three shots. Shot three, moved the dot from the original point of aim to the actual point of impact and it was golden...for about 20 rounds. Then the dot started walking out to the right. I double checked that I had the lock screws tightened and I did. I went back through the process of zeroing it and the dot just would not budge. The dot would not move at all with the windage screw. This one is going back to where I bought it. I'm debating if I want to just exchange it or try to get a refund. Normally I'm not one to buy first generation products and I've already got a sour taste in my mouth about this one, but Leupold is a good company so I might just exchange it and give another go around.

updated first post

I am following this now! nice write up. Do you have a pic looking down the slide with the red dot on?

How much does the sight cost?

From the back facing forward?

msrp is 199 but it can be found for less

Correct.

Please.

straight down the sight


optic on and aligned to see the dot