It's not a standard picatinny rail. It is proprietary. I posted a pic of a slide we milled for one on this page a bit further up. Similar in design to picatinny, but even remotely the same dimensions.

No plate. Direct mill.

...There is another way. And we'll be releasing it for pre order in a couple days. Our RMR to ACRO adapter plate has been in the works for months now and is considerably lower than that. So low in fact it can use Ameriglo GL-507 suppressor sights for a bottom-of-the glass co witness for guys who are dead set on backup irons.  ;)

Available in two heights to accommodate virtually any RMR milling depth. We've been testing and working on this adapter for months and we're finally satisfied with the design! Made from 7075 billet aluminum (nearly twice the strength of 6061) and your choice of hard anodized black finish or Cerakote. Oh - and we made it low profile enough that you can still achieve a bottom-of-the-glass co witness with Ameriglo suppressor sights! ALL details are on our website! www.primarymachine.com

Looks like people are jumping ship on it pretty fast with the horrible battery life that has come to light.

We're getting reports from customers with dead batteries within 7-10 days. You can't market an optic as being for duty/defense with battery life like that. No one is going to want to replace batteries once a week.

I've had one since May 10th.

So far it's working pretty darn well.

Time will tell, but I'm betting the ACRO will turn out to be the most durable of the RDS sights.

The key to success is managing your expectations.

Aimpoint says the battery life on setting 6 is 1.5 years. I'm sure they are right.

Trouble is that the sight is damn near useless to me at setting 6. It's visible indoors in lower light, but not outside in the sunlight. To use it in the bright summer sunlight on the range, I need setting 9 to be able to see the dot. My eyes are not necessarily everyone else's eyes, but in general it seems like the max-life setting of 6 is not terribly useful to others in the real world. It seems that most who have the optic need it to be at a higher setting as well.

This is something of an issue because the drain on the CR1225 batteries the optic uses is significantly higher on the higher dot settings. The draw is exponential...at setting 6 it likely does last 1.5 years. At setting 9 the battery life is going to be weeks.

While I've been getting used to the optic I have tried a number of approaches to the brightness setting. One of those things was just leaving the thing on 9 (maximum brightness) and in doing so I killed the battery in less than 30 days.

This came to light when I was helping Tom Givens present the Rangemaster Advanced Instructor class (June 2nd & 3rd) and I went to perform my first draw on the first shots fired on day 1 and had no dot. I clicked the up button a number of times and still...no dot. When we worked on a black bullseye I could very, very, very faintly see the dot if I focused really hard. I shot the rest of the day with the suppressor height iron sights I have on the gun. While it isn't the best sight picture in the world, I could still use it very effectively. Just as an example I shot a perfect score on the updated FBI qualification course.

That evening I checked the sight and it was still visible indoors, but nowhere near as bright as it should have been set on maximum.

The next morning before class I drew the gun and had no dot. Only this time it was really and truly no dot. The optic was completely dead. I shot the whole day with the backup irons. Again, not my ideal sights...but I shot the FBI qualification perfect multiple times, shot the Rangemaster qualification with 1 point down, shot a 295 on the 300 point Rangemaster bullseye course, and earned a master rating on the Core Skills test.

The Gen5 Glock seems to vent shit at the very back of the chamber and that schmutz gets deposited on the front window of the optic over time. I found that annoying, but it wiped off easily and didn't really hurt my ability to shoot it.

So that would be the "battery issue" people are referring to in regards to the ACRO. I had it set on maximum for a prolonged period of time. I also shot it in multiple 500-1,000 round sessions where the gun got hot enough to be uncomfortable even when it was holstered. It was enough of a concern that I got an IR thermometer and took some readings on the pistol:



My Gen5 G17 heats up faster than my Gen4 G34 does, and it retains the heat longer. The measurement there was right where I put my finger on the slide in the "register" position and it got up to over 160 degrees F. The muzzle hit 180 degrees. It was downright unpleasant to have shoved down the front of my pants.

I mention this because I also noticed that some of the heat was working its way into the ACRO mounted on the slide. The ACRO's temperature when I measured the slide there was over 110 degrees. Now how much of that worked into the battery compartment I don't know...but if the outer casing of the optic is getting its temperature raised that much it's a fair bet that the battery temperature is going up some too and that will have some impact on the battery life. Some, as in I can't quantify how much or give you a good read on whether or not that contributed to my battery not reaching 30 days. I think my practice with the optic was, at best, a minor contributor to the demise of the battery.

Since going through all of this and talking with other ACRO users I've come up with a battery management strategy that I'm going to use for the ACRO:

- I bought 40 batteries because you can get the quality Renata batteries for 8 bucks per 10. I keep packages of batteries in my range bag, in my glove box, in the bag I carry at work, in my tool box, etc. I'm within a few steps of new batteries at all times.
- I will use a grip plug to stash one in the grip space behind the mag well of the gun so there's always one on board, too.
- Since my pistol is not a primary HD gun, I dial the optic down to 5 at night and up to setting 7 or 8 (7 for overcast days, 8 for brighter days) when I put the gun back on in the morning.
- I will swap the battery every 30 days. As cheap as they are there's no reason not to.

Really there's no "battery issue" with the optic any more so than there is with other Aimpoint products. If you leave an Aimpoint micro sight on its brightest setting all the time you will drain the battery faster than whatever their quoted life on the optic is. This optic is no different in that regard, it's just working with a smaller battery supply than the micro and because it's mounted on a pistol you seem to need a higher brightness setting for the optic to be useful.

A proactive battery management strategy is needed...but if you keep up with that it shouldn't be an issue. Swapping a battery is quick and easy to do and doesn't require removing the optic so it's a two minute process at most.

I had my ACRO set on max brightness for a lot longer than 7-10 days without killing a battery.

I think there's some exaggeration going on, here.

It's also worth noting that not all batteries are created equal. Shoving the cheapest battery available into it and leaving it on 9 is probably not a good strategy.

I'm going to replace my battery tonight and dial the thing up to max and document how long it takes to kill the fresh battery.

I'm just reporting what I'm hearing, man. Take it for what it is. I have nothing to gain by it. More to lose if anything lol. We just released a brand new ACRO adapter plate thinking these optics were going to take off. Now we're getting reports from customers that we've milled slides for for that optic complaining of batteries dying in just over a weeks time.
I assume they're leaving it on higher settings than Aimpoints advertised 1.5 year battery life. But the problem is the setting they recommend is way too dim IMO for outdoor use and I don't think most people are going to adjust the brightness every single time they go indoors or outdoors. That's as impractical as having to replace the battery ever 10-14 days.

Edit: With an extremely minimal amount of searching, one can find many Acro owners complaining of exactly what I'm reporting from our customers. Batteries are definitely dying in DAYS. Not weeks - and absolutely not months or years. On setting 8, which is pretty widely agreed what's minimally necessary for outdoor use or with a light, tons of guys are reporting dead batteries from multiple battery brands in 8-10 days.

ACRO was mounted, but the battery was dead. Had to use the backup irons through the optic...which worked plenty well.

I greatly prefer the distortion and tint free ACRO to the RMR...but that tinted lens is how the RMR is able to project a visible dot while consuming less power. So it's a tradeoff.

The ACRO is easier to clean off when it gets schmutzed by oil, carbon, and other shit thrown out of the ejection port when the gun cycles during firing.

Pistol Forum and some social media groups as well as a number of personal acquaintances I've made through training over the years. That has networked me with a lot of serious end users and early adopters.

That's why I'm doing my test.

I'm using the brand of battery recommended by Aimpoint. (Renata) I've got the optic set to 9 with a new battery installed at 6:11 pm last night. We'll see what sort of battery life I get.

My general thought as well. Only way to get decent battery life is by keeping one specific brand of battery on hand?
The whole debacle is 100% ridiculous for what's being marketed as a combat optic - no matter how you look at it.

The battery life of an EOTech was one of its many issues. Of much greater concern was the rate at which they stopped working altogether. Which was sufficient that the DOD actually ended up suing EOTech.

To attribute EOTech's utter failures as simply a matter of battery life is to be either ignorant or willfully obtuse.

No, the way to get the most battery life is to use batteries that aren't shit.

The fact that all batteries are not created equal is not new. We see it with everything from the 9 volt batteries I put in my electronic ear pro (I will only use Duracell or Energizer because everything else has significantly less life and resistance to temperature changes) to the batteries I use in my lights.

Do you put the cheapest CR123 batteries you can find in your weapon lights, or do you spend a little extra money to get ones that can stay shelf stable and that will withstand the forces they experience when mounted to a weapon?

Do you buy the cheapest battery in the auto parts store to rely on for starting your car, or do you spend more money getting a battery with more cold cranking amps with a better warranty and longer pro-rate on replacement?

I mean, I first learned that there's a difference in the quality of various batteries when I was like 5 and I had battery powered toys. But we're going to forget that's a thing with literally every battery powered device on the planet now?

And not to put too fine a point on it, but if you put shit batteries in an RMR sometimes the fucking optic won't work period because you need to use batteries from a company who gives enough of a fuck to make the battery to the actual 2032 spec for it to make good contact. This is a known thing in the RMR world...so it's puzzling, then, to see people familiar with the RMR world acting like batteries are somehow a new and novel issue just with the ACRO. Talk to me when Aimpoint has to replace contacts in their units because of how often they fail like has had to happen on the RMR's in the past.

I'm familiar with all the pistol optics options on the market. They all have their quirks and issues. All. Every. Single. One.

Which one you choose depends on what specific quirks and issues you can manage most easily.

By the way, 30 hours until my ACRO has been set to 9 on a fresh battery for a full 7 days.

You seem really upset about the whole thing.

I hope your ACRO is good to go, sir. We're still getting reports of dead batteries in 8-10 days.

On the contrary: I'm completely agnostic.

I don't even like the concept of a RDS on a pistol. I've been experimenting with the RDS because one who teaches needs to have some familiarity with what's out there...and the ACRO + Glock MOS is highly likely to be adopted for mass issue by a number of large institutional users in the near future.

It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my bones if the ACRO sucks. My unit is a tax writeoff. A piece of equipment purchased solely for the purposes of evaluation.

That evaluation, however, will be honest. There's a lot of absolute nonsense swirling around out there about the ACRO propagated largely by people with, as best I can tell, little to no firsthand experience with the thing.

...which again prompts questions about the battery and the conditions under which it is being used. Hence installing a brand new battery from the manufacturer recommended by Aimpoint reps and turning the thing to max brightness to see how long she runs. I'm certainly willing to listen to the input of others who are willing to do the same to see if there's variance in the results. I'd welcome more data. But it has to be a reasonable attempt at generating specific data, which isn't really happening unless someone puts forth the effort to do exactly that.

Excellent! Thank you!

The tint on the RMR allows them to have a brighter dot while using less power, as I understand it.

As an update I checked on my ACRO this evening at exactly 6:11 pm. This marks 7 full days (168 hours) of operation on the maximum brightness setting. No change in the appearance of the dot.

The optic had dimmed significantly as of 11:00 am yesterday. It was totally dead by 12:30.

Just shy of ten days on full brightness.

I had multiple spares on hand so it wasn't a big deal to swap it. I'm keeping one in the gun using a grip plug with some tape on the top as a just-in-case.

A few other folks are doing a similar thing with theirs and the 10 day range seems to be about where it is for maximum brightness with a good quality battery. Life is extended significantly by adjusting the dot down, especially at night or when not carrying the gun. Battery management and dot adjustment would appear to be features of living with the ACRO. It will be interesting seeing what sort of practices get adopted by any agencies that adopt them.

You can buy the Renata batteries from Amazon for something like 9 bucks per 10 batteries.

As for another test, I don't have a plan to test it on 8. Because power consumption is exponential I'd imagine that on the next lowest setting you could likely get at least 3 weeks out of it.