i went to the range on sat. to do a little blasting and to stay sharp with my tools.....everything was going fine and as normal for the first couple hours....after about a 15 minute rest for my AR, i picked it up, inserted a mag and closed the bolt....aimed, fired, and BAM!!!!! Aimpoint dot went out(so it looked anyway)....i was shocked to say the least....i checked it out and proceeded to turn up the brightness....finally i noticed that with it turned up to the highest 2 settings the dot was there but extremely faint....so i turned off the Aimpoint and continued using my BUIS....after leaving it off for a few minutes i turned it back on....dot was very visible but not nearly as bright as it should be....fired another shot and it went very very faint again....i really didn't think that the battery could be bad but that was all it could be(as my buddy told me that was with me)....the battery shouldn't have had more than around 50 hours on it, but then again, it could have been turned on a lot before i bought it(although i bought it brand new).....and there is always the possibility that it was a weak battery to start with....so after using my BUIS for the rest of the range session, on the way home i stopped at my local radio shack to get another battery....i had them to check my old one and it checked out as "fair" but not good or great.....so after installing the brand new battery my Aimpoint appears to be as good as new....extremely bright and all that good stuff.....so it turned out to just be the battery, at least that is all i hope it was......


anyone else have similar situations like this with there Aimpoint when the battery starts to go out in them????


please post comments and questions......all will be greatly appreciated to keep my mind resting easy about my beloved Aimpoint



thanks

camaro

Don't knock it yet. You didn't know a thing about the old battery you had. Could have accidentally been turned on. Leave the aimpoint on for a couple weeks with the new battery just to be sure it isn't the optic.

I dunno, haven't used my first battery yet. Had the thing for a few years though!

My guess is that you have a defective/dirty rheostat. I've had two Aimpoints with similar issues and have a friend that experienced the same. There is a way to clean the contacts, but I'd suggest you just send it to Aimpoint and let them worry about it.

hum.... thanks for sharing!

all of mine are still on their first battery.





i did have a ldi otal that did that. dirty contacts on the battery cap was the culprit though

The ML2 I got during the Summer of 2002 is still on its first battery.

my battery contacts appear to be very clean......will just see how it goes for the next little while before i decide to send it off to be checked or worked on.......thanks for all the comments


camaro

ETA: so far with the new battery it appears to be great......as bright or brighter than when i first brought the Aimpoint home brand new

Based on the fact you knew nothing at all about the history of the battery installed in your sight, The first thing to look at has to be the battery, like others have said, I'm still on my first battery coming up on 2 years. and I have an ML2..

In Hindsight, you should have started with a fresh $3 battery, but I'll bet your gonna be just fine know for the next couple of years....

I'm still on my first battery for my M2 which was bought back in November of 2001, and that thing never turns off (lowest setting is for NV).  But, I've purchased car batterys that were bad from the start.  So, anything can happen.