Built up a Browning Buck Mark to help entice the Mrs. to come to the range with me. It worked, and she loved shooting it.

Mounted a brand new Vortex Venom to it (purchased from Primary Arms), and put a brand new Energizer Lithium Battery in it. This was at the beginning of April 2023, so almost 8 months ago. Sight functioned fine at the range, no issues, other than running out of elevation adjustment (which I've read is common with the Venom).

Brought it home, cleaned it, and put it in the safe.

I took it out last night, and the sight wont turn on now. I had to re-mount the sight with an OM Tactical shim, to fix the elevation issue. Once it was re-mounted, the sight would not turn on.

I did not have a spare battery handy, so I will have to buy another to see if it is the battery or something else.

I thought the Venom had the auto-off feature, but I could be wrong. Looking at the Vortex site now, and it doesn't mention it. Perhaps I accidently left the sight on when I put it away.

Anybody else have this issue?

Here's a pic of the offender

Their battery life isn’t that long.  


Looks like your only issue is forgetting to turn it off.


3,000. Hr battery life is only at the “lower settings” it drops off the higher you go

This is example #734 why shake awake is NOT a gimmick.

Buy plenty of spares OP. Forgetting to turn optics off is a common occurrence.

So, according to the manual I found on the site, there is a way to put the sight into "automatic mode". In this mode, it auto-adjusts brightness, and has a 14-hour auto-turn-off.

However, in manual mode, the auto-turn-off is not active, and will drain the battery if left on (as I discovered).

I do have one of their Razor red dots (really nice sight), and that one has an auto-shut-off after 6 hours. No "Auto-mode" to activate to get this feature.

Luckily, this is on a range-toy, so not a huge deal. Though an auto-off would be nice to save me some batteries lol.

Quick update. Got another battery and popped it in tonight. Turned on no problem.

Guess I need to keep a few spares on hand and be more careful of turning it off at the end of the range session.

Thanks!

Sell it and buy a Holosun.  Vortex battery life and durability sucks compared to Holosun.

That's a nice looking setup you have there.

There have been a couple times where I forgot to turn the dot off and found a dead battery latter on my Venom. Like you said, not a problem with a range toy.

I don't particularly like the auto mode. It is distracting to me when the brightness changes while I swing. I don't have that problem with my FF3.

If I were doing a new build I would look at a 407 instead of a Venom, assuming the footprint worked for the application. At current prices the 407 is probably worth the extra $20-30.

Four years ago the Venom was a top choice for a mid-tier multipurpose RDS. Today it needs updating or price reduction to stay competitive.