I just bought this sight off another member here.  There hasn't been much info out on these so I wanted to share my initial impressions.  I won't get a chance to shoot with it for probably another week but I'm really impressed with what I see so far.  I had never heard of DI Optical until recently and I've seen a few pictures but nowhere could I find much for reviews.  Apparently they are a South Korean company that makes machine gun red dot sights for their and other foreign militaries.  It seems to me that they are somewhat new to the American market.

I have an Aimpoint CompM4 in hand as a comparison as I go over my initial impressions:

Size and Weight: As you can see in the pictures it is close to the same height and width of the CompM4 but only about half as long.  It has a blockier build, more like an Eotech.  I don't have an Eotech in hand but from what I can tell from published dimensions it's quite a bit more compact than an Eotech as well.  I weighed it on my scale and it came out at 10.85oz.  My CompM4 weighed in at 13.65oz (with Bobro mount).  The Eotech EXPS is listed at 11.2oz.



Field of view: This is where this sight is really impressive.  Because of the large lenses and short length you get a massive field of view through it.  Both this and the CompM4 have 30mm listed as the objective lens size.  However measuring the actual opening in the lens I measured 28mm for this and 26mm for the CompM4.  The EG-1 lens is a lot more squared off than just the Aimpoint circle lens so there is quite a bit more area.  This combined with the short length and no tube effect and the field of view seems massively larger than the CompM4. I tried capturing that in pictures but it's even more impressive in hand.  The field of view is more comparable, and actually even larger, than the Eotech lens which is 30x23mm.


Clarity: The other really impressive thing is the lens clarity.  The thing that interested me about this red dot sight is it uses a prism rather than a curved lens.  The result is absolutely no distortion, from edge to edge, even looking through the sight at odd angles, there is zero distortion I could detect.  I actually purchased and returned a Trijicon MRO earlier in the year just because my eyes were going nuts trying to cope with the slight magnification and distortion that wouldn't allow my eyes to merge things with both eyes open.  There is also no detectable color tint in the lens, it looks crystal clear.  Again, probably comparable to looking through an Eotech.  In comparison there is a slight blue tint to the CompM4 but not enough to really be all that noticeable.

Dot/Brightness: The dot is 1.5 MOA, a little smaller than the 2 MOA CompM4 dot.  It looks very crisp like the CompM4 dot.  Like the Aimpoint, you can dial it down to make it nice and small for a more precise dot, or you can dial it up higher and the brightness makes it seem a little bigger and easy to pick up.  At the max brightness setting its not quite as bright as the CompM4.  I backed the CompM4 down one click and it seemed equally bright as the EG-1 at that point.  I don't recall using the highest setting on the Aimpoint often, but in a bright scenario where you would use it at maximum, the Aimpoint would have a brightness advantage over the EG-1.

Glare:  One thing I was curious about was how it handled glare, especially with the large lenses it has.  One complaint about the Trijicon MRO was how it seemed sensitive to glare, which I think s probably related to having a large lens and short body (there is just more area to reflect off of).  I'll have to use this EG-1 a little more in different light situations t tell for sure, but my first impression is that it does pick up a little more glare than the CompM4, but nothing bad enough to really bother me (in fairness, even the MRO glare I didn't notice much).  In the daylight it seems to pick up a little more glare than the CompM4 when there is brightness directly behind you.  I think this is due to the large lens size and not anything due to a lens coating or anything like that.  The intensity of the glare isn't worse, it just seems to be able to pick it up more often due to the size of then lens.  However at night in the house with the lights on, I noticed the CompM4 had a bit more internal glare if the dot was turned up a little too high where the EG-1 didn't seem as bad in that scenario.  Overall, I think the EG-1 was a little more sensitive to glare, but only due to the larger lens.  One more thing to note, it comes with removable rubber shades the can mount on the front and back of the body which can act to cut out some glare as well.

Battery Life:  The Eg-1 uses a single CR2032 battery that installs in a rotary switch like a T1.  DI Optical lists the battery life at 2000 hours at brightness level 13 (max is 15).  That's about 3 times longer than an Eotech, but obviously well short of multi year capability of the CompM4.

Other: The EG-1 body feels really solid, it looks to be machined out of a solid block of aluminum.  The mount it comes with is a thumbscrew mount.  The mount attaches to the body of the EG-1 by two bolts and the mount is reversible.  I'm not a huge fan of thumbscrew mounts, and apparently there is a QD mount being developed, but for a thumbscrew mount it looks and feels high quality, like what comes on a ACOG.  I was quickly able to mount it on a rifle and co-witness it to the iron sights.  It appears to be an absolute co-witness mount.  The adjustments are set into the body and can be adjusted with a coin or anything else flat.  They adjustments have nice audible clicks.



Obviously this is all just a first impression, but I really like what I see so far.  I have owned or used just about every high end red dot sight out there and this is the best first impression I've had of any of them.  As far as durability, that remains to be seen, I doubt I'll beat it up enough to really tell.  I do think it's encouraging coming from a company that makes military sights.  Their website says these conform to MIL-STD 810G Environmental Testing and are submersible to 30ft.

Hopefully soon I will have a range update.

Update:  Got to try it out at the range this past weekend.  A couple notes:

- As expected the field of view, zero distortion or tint were really awesome.  It felt like there was no optic in front of me, something my brain just couldn't do with the Trijicon MRO.
- The weather was very overcast, I was using the dot on the max setting and it seemed nice and bright.  Until I use it in bright sunlight, I really don't know if I'd want it to be able to go any brighter or not.  The 1.5moa dot is definitely very small, so having it bright seems crucial.
- The only negative I experienced, after several magazines I suddenly had a hard time making hits and then realized the optic had shaken loose in the mount.  The thumbscrew mount was still tight on the rail but the two bolts that hold the optic to the mount had shaken loose.  Granted, this may have been my fault because I had taken the mount off and reversed it to put the thumbscrew on the left side since I'm a lefty.  I noticed when doing this there was no threadlocker of any kind on the bolts, I just reversed the mount and snugged up the bolts leaving them as they were.  I guess I should have used some threadlocker on it then, not sure if they had it torqued tighter from the factory or if I would have experienced the problem had I not removed it.  Anyway, I'll definitely add some locktite before I use it again.

Thanks for showing us this product. I wrote for a review sample a while back and so did one of the editors of breach bang clear. We never heard back. I guess they don't believe in marketing other than word of mouth.

Very interesting design.

I suspected as much and suggested on their FB page awhile ago they should get some out there
if they wanted to sell em.  I dunno what their deal is.  I've been eyeing the Raven(s) for a year or better now
but haven't felt motivated to take the chance.

Yeah, that's the really odd thing, that they really haven't gotten these out in peoples hands to review.  Other than the specs on their website and some pics on their facebook page (with none of them showing a view through the optic) there wasn't really anything to go by.  It almost had me worried that once I got it in hand that it wouldn't be a great product.  Unless there are some unforeseen problems that occur once I get it out to the range, I really can't see why they haven't been getting these in people hands to review and getting their name out there.  Especially with so many people returning Eotechs, there's a huge opportunity there.

They lost my yearly optic money by dragging ass, and I even asked them a time or two via FB what was up with reviews.
Shame, maybe they'll get someone with a clue onboard before they bail.

Nice!  Now buy the smaller FC1 and get back to us

I have one.



You know when your mother says if you have nothing nice to say, it's better not to say anything at all? Well that.



 

Like the FOV a lot!

At first glance, I thought wtf is that thing doing to your fence? in that side by side pov shot. But the straight, unaltered window pane and the walkway lining up cleared that up. Good luck with it and looking foward to hearing how it runs.

The FOV is impressive.  If this thing winds up being super reliable they may very well be on to something.  I like what I see.

Thanks for the review!

I'm a bit impressed from the window comparison picture.

I must say this thing is quite intriguing.  Looking forward to the Bobro or LTxxx QD mounts...

Update in OP

Mounts for this sight, the RV1, and RV2 are already available. They use the ARMS 17 pattern mounts. I have my RV2 on a Sig 516 in an ADM AD170 Mount. If you use the AD170, use the shorter screws that come with the mount, and use the treadlocker supplied with the mount. The screws that come with the sight are really longer than they need to be, and will bottom out on the threads when used with the AD170, since the AD170 has slightly more dished out areas for the taper head screws to sit, allowing the screws to thread in slightly deeper.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know they were the same pattern.

No problem. There was a one line blurb in my RV2 manual that mentioned the ARMS 17 as an alternate mount for these sights. I figured that if the ARMS 17 worked, than any mount that was intended by other manufacturers to replace the ARMS 17 would also work. I rolled the dice and picked up the AD170 and sure enough, it fit and worked perfect. I think Larue makes a mount that is also meant to replace the ARMS 17 if someone prefers to use a Larue product.

so i recently got the EG1. i've only used Eotech and Meprolight in the past, so its a bit different for me. when facing the sun i'm getting some glare and halo'ing around the red dot. is this normal for red dot sights like this? i've ready of people having similar issues with aimpoints but just wanted to see what you guys thought.

Yeah, any reflex sight will have glare under the right conditions. On my EG-1 I also noticed the same glare under those conditions (brightness cranked all the way up and optic either facing directly at or away from bright light. As in your picture the glare I saw was the same, concentric circles around the dot, one large one about the diameter of the lens and one smaller one as a ring around the dot. Considering other red dots optics will have glare in these conditions, I actually thought the concentric circles on this was far less distracting and much less prone to losing the dot than the glare I've seen on other red dot optics.