What do you think of it. Just looking for opinions and or lessons learned.

Yup, gotta a used one for $20. it serves a couple of purposes
- protects the lens from debris/dirt and damage (disposable protection) so I remove the flip cap for easy of operation.
- in bright sunlight, give additional contrast for the red dot, making it easier to see.
- eliminates glare from Bad guy point of view (Military/LE application)
-looks cool.....

got two myself for two aimpoints i own.

just got a used Aimpoint and took it off. I'm not LE/MIL so serves me no purpose, and only hindered my view of the target.

Harv24 has it right.  

Same thing as above; it reduced the light so much I took it off.  I live in dark rainy Washington where it made a difference; if I lived in AZ or took it with me back to Iraq I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Thanks for the input guys. I ordered one.

I took mine off.

I took mine off as well.   A day of BUIS-only training and that was it.  

Quoted: just got a used Aimpoint and took it off. I'm not LE/MIL so serves me no purpose, and only hindered my view of target.

+1

I am LEO and it was distracting to me.  I took it off...

I got one included with my Aimpoint at RFI prior to rotating into the sandbox last year and thought it was cool.  Then I took it to the range and absolutely didn't like it one bit so I took it off.  For the average operator in a CQB environment, glare at the bad guys isn't much of an issue.  They know you're there and if they don't it ain't because you have a killflash on your itty-bitty optic.  Now, for a sniper with a large objective lense who needs to be able to remain concealed regardless of the sun's angle, sure, but that isn't exactly the fortay of an aimpoint equipped rifle in my opinion.

To each his own, but my thoughts after trying it was that it was simply another gadget that someone figured out how to get Uncle Sam to buy.


Saleen

they look cool, but they do darken the image.

Quoted: just got a used Aimpoint and took it off. I'm not LE/MIL so serves me no purpose, and only hindered my view of target.

that is not at all what was implied.

Mike said if you are military/LE then he recommends the killflash. this is akin to if A (you are in the military/LE) then B (he recommends it).
this is logically equivalent to: if not b, then a. a logical equivalency would be, if Mike doesn't recommend you a killflash, then you are not in the military or law enforcement.

i just don't see why you gave him a hard time

Cali,

I don't think that anyone has been given a hard time at all, but perhaps I'm more hardened by time on more flame-prone boards

I would be interested to know why someone would recommend this piece.  As it happens, I am both MIL and LEO, and I've used an Aimpoint in both roles so I guess I have some practical background to base my low opinion of a killflash on.  

The bottom line is that in a LEO scenario you may have the luxury of starting a situation in good light, but the odds are that at the very least you will have to deal with degraded light before it is all over either from the turning of day to night, or because you have to go indoors to search, or both.  The killflash degrades what little light gathering an Aimpoint's objective lens can muster, so when the ambiant light goes away it gets impossible (at least for me) to see anything through the sight without either activating my weapon light (not good on perimeter) or NVGs (which my department --- let alone myself --- can't really afford).  As an LEO you need to have a weapon that can go from good to bad light instantly in my opinion, and unscrewing a killflash to get your weapon up and running just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.  Especially when I'm at a loss to see what practical purpose the equipment could serve me to begin with.

Now, I'll admit that when I posted above that I kind of skimmed the topic first, and in doing so it escaped me that the person who recommended this item was also a retailer.  Maybe in that context I can see how you may have interpreted responses to be "harsh" in your words, I don't know.  My comments towards the killflash being a gimmick item to get coin from Uncle Sam weren't aimed at any retailers here, but believe me it does happen.  You wouldn't believe some of the useless crap that gets pawned off on soldiers at RFI time.  From shitty, shitty sidearm accoutrements, to worthless Camelbak knockoffs, to some of the crappiest BUIS set-ups I've ever encountered.  Fortunately, there's a whole bunch of really good equipment as well (Aimpoint, Knights rail systems, Surefire tactical lights, etc.), but govt. rip-offs do occur any time there's a need to equip soldiers.  The killflash is a prime example, and my opinion was overwhelmingly in the majority in my unit at least.  Out of the 3700 soldiers in our BCT, perhaps 85% were equipped with Aimpoints at RFI.  Each one got a killflash, but out of my year over in country I saw only a handful of them attached to rifles.  And a couple of those were on wire-hugger rifles.

To get back on point, however, I'd like to know why it is that CS Gunworks recommends this product to it's MIL/LEO customers.  I consider myself a fair man and I'll admit that there may be some issues I either didn't think of or didn't encounter.  If this is the issue, please enlighten me.  Failing that, I'll say that the killflash is better suited for someone who wants their rifle to look "Just like the ones issued to soldiers" instead of "Just like the ones carried by soldiers.


Saleen

I've noticed that if I keep both eyes open and fucus on the target and not the sight, that I dont even notice the difference

I've noticed that if I keep both eyes open and fucus on the target and not the sight, that I dont even notice the difference

BINGO..... That's why I never have any issues with  this Whole "Makes everything look darker" issue that others talk about. or anything to do with "Lightgathering" qualities,etc  which leads me to believe their are alot of shooters who still don't use a reflex sight the way it was designed. If you are , then you could leave you front dust cap CLOSED and still continue to use the sight day or night. It's a CQB optic, not a rifle scope.

I suspect a lot of shooters still use them like a scope and close or slightly close one eye.

I'm aware of the proper way to use a reflex sight (both eyes), but as the light goes away I can tell a difference and it bugged me enough to dump the killflash.  Not for how it affected the sight picture in ideal conditions, but for how it degraded my view when the light was less than optimal.

Perhaps the alalogy of "light gathering" was a poor one on my part, but the point I was trying to make was that the objective lens was diminuitive to begin with and anything that interferes with light coming through is a minus to me.  And the fact remains that I still can't see why having my Aimpoint equipped with the killflash would enhance my survivability in the situations that I typically found myself in regardless of the role I was playing at the time.  

As is often the case with accessories, you weight the benefits vs. the drawbacks (be they weight or cost) and decide whether or not they are right for your application.  To me, this product offered no benefit and degraded performance under conditions I usually operate in, so I don't see any value in it beyond being a "gee whiz" gizmo that looks high speed.  And that was when it was for all intents and purposes free to me.


Saleen

I use mine to keep the foam in the box from getting lonely. I run a TA31 on an A1 carry handle,  so the killflash assembly obstructs the iron sights, and it does tend to darken the image when attempting to make precision shots at range. I keep it because I may need it someday for some unforseen SHTF scenario. If I were LE/Mil., then I would use it to gain the advantage of anti-reflection, but until coyotes and jackrabbits learn to shoot back, I'll be okay without it.

I have done 2 Iraq rotations. At the start of OIF 1 I had my CompM2 up and running with the kill on but after about 3 weeks of tagging engine blocks and tires at a checkpoint I realized that A: they (Iraqis) didnt care about my reflection and be around 1900 hrs and 2100 hrs when the sun started fading the kill made it a little more difficult to place the shots exactly where they needed to be. B: A clean open site picture is a must when shooting a tire out on a vehicle rolling 50 mph at a checkpoint at 2015hrs right before you get ready to crack open another shi##y MRE. If your vision is even slightly obscurred or distorted and you hit the rim or miss entirely the  probablity of penetrating through the fire wall of the vehicle and killing the occupant (however much that wouldnt be a bad thing) are better than Iran letting the US check out their panty drawer, it creates way to much F'ing paperwork. So when OIF 3 rolled around and I was reissued another CompM2 the kill came off and stayed in the box. Also the odds are that when you enter into the situation in which you are forced to fire your weapon regardless of range and stealthness as soon as the first shot is out it is game on. Plain and simple from my Mil. point of view as I am not a sniper although that is an objective, the kill is a waste of aluminum. On my civ M4 again it stays in the box. Who needs cool guy parts when your neighbors already fear you because you where cleaning your pieces on the back deck?

No rest for the WICKED, and the good dont need none!

I use mine on my Aimpoint Comp M because I don't want Wile E. Coyote to catch a glimpse of me of the front lense.

I don't know if I would use it otherwise.

WIZZO

SapperSlacker,

I'm just back from my rotation (OIF III), what unit did you go over with last time?  I was with the 56th BCT (36th ID of the TX NG).  I was based in Tallil, but spent most of my time on the road between Anaconda, BIAP, and TQ.


Saleen

In an open desert, where you aren't doing much to camoflauge yourself anyway it probably doesn't serve much purpose.  Hell with the woodland crap we had on top of our DCU's, and being in a city anyway, it was sort of pointless to even thing about it.

But back in a woodland environment, where you are able and wanting to hide, they might be more useful.