Today I got another Eotech 557 weapon sight. It’s my 4th one I own now. That in itself should tell you something about them. For me they are “it” in holo-sights. There’s not another sight I have ever used I like better. I have used Aimpoints, Elcans and Trijicons. All nice gear for sure but I just prefer the Eotech. I like the big circle, I pick up the sight picture fastest with this sight. I have some cheaper Sigs and Bushnells but that’s another review. I don’t think of them as in the same class as the Eotech. They are more for my cheaper stuff like 22’s or some of my older stuff but all my “top of the stuff” stuff gets an Eotech.
mag flipped out of way
Now this one is a later generation as it has the buttons on the side, which is great, a much better place for them. They’re in the right spot to be easily adjusted even while you stay in your shooting position. No need to move your face. Also this will allow the mounting of a magnifier behind it and still easily turn your sight on and off. She runs on 2 common AA batteries and will run for 600 hours or 1000 hours on lithium AA’s. You will know you need a battery change when turning the site on, every time you fire it up keep your eye on the reticule, if it flashes a few times right at start up it’s telling you it needs batteries soon. So that’s a nice thing. You have quite a few brightness levels and a night vision button in this model for use with NV goggles. It can be set to turn off by itself in 4 or 8 hours, I keep them on 8. This new one also has a nice big knob with a screwdriver slot to mount on your rail. The older ones have your choice of an Allen bolt or a smaller thinner slotted thumb knob. I don’t really care either way, they all stay on and are rock solid. This new one has a different reticle than I am used too. Instead of a 65 MOA circle and a single MOA dot in the middle, this one appears to have 4 MOA dots in a vertical line inside the circle. I am assuming this is a bullet drop compensator reticule. I don’t know how I feel about it yet, we’ll have to see when we get on the firing line. Right now I have reservations about it. I’ve thought lately I might finally need eyeglasses. I’ve noticed it mostly with roadsigns and trying to read labels in stores. I’m having a really hard time separating the dots. I just don’t know yet whether they will be useful to me or not. We will see.
reticle without mag
A bit on Eotech customer service: In a nutshell those folks are awesome. I have a beat up EoTech 552 and the old girl has 27 months total in combat. It’s been dropped and slammed around more times than I can remember, soaked, cooked, frozen, blown up on at least 2 occasions and subjected to countless 1000’s of hours of rough armored vehicle vibrations and it kept right on humming. It’s also very important to say I sighted in ONCE and it NEVER lost the zero! At one point I totally tore apart my rifle and washed it with soap and water over there. When I put it all back together the eotech was still almost perfectly sighted in! Definitely usable as it was. I only slightly adjusted it and I was once again sending chem sticks flying across the desert at night. I used to crack a couple and use them for practice at night at the test fire pit before we would move out on patrol. It’s one badass piece of gear and very tough! So I was home awhile and my old girl started acting funny and going through batteries left and right. Now at the time I had that sight for like 4 years and it had been VERY, VERY used. So I took it in too EoTech as they are in my area fully expecting to pay for the repairs, instead they replace the guts and put on a new hood so it looked new and gave it back to me in a week or so for FREE!! The warranty was long expired. I cannot say enough good things about the company and their people! Simply the best, thank you very much. They sure didn’t have to do that. Customer for life.
Last thing before I mount it on something and head out to bust some caps. I bought a clone eotech magnifier, one of those 3 power little scopes that sit behind your holosight and magnify the target. The reticle looks a bit bigger and it’s clear and centered well in the optics. Downrange it’s doing its job and making things bigger and surprisingly to me they are focused. Also NOW I can see the dots in the reticle, it is a BDC with 4 dots. Still I am not totally sold on this idea and decided to buy a cheapy clone for 70$ and giving it a try before plunking down 500$ for the real deal and finding out I’m not a fan. It’s been awhile since I played with a magnifier on Govt time. So we will see how all that goes and whether I really want one or not. The mount is a “flip to side mount” which I think is the best of the mount styles as it can be quickly used or quickly moved out of your way, it’s just this cheapo Chinese clone mount is a total POS and I ended up rebuilding it with some nuts and bolts and removed some shims and overall tweaked it till the thing would center on the reticule and stay solid, the optics seem ok though. So that having been said it’s time to mount all this stuff and go fire off some rounds. I’m going to try and speed/accuracy test the different reticle against the older style. They will be on RRA m-4’s both with forward grips and 2 stage triggers so it shouldn’t be a matter of the weapons. Then I will settle in for a bit of more precise shooting off a bi pod with the clone magnifier and see what I think.
reticle w magnifier
Ok I fired today, any reservations or concerns I had with the different reticle was totally dissolved today! The fact that it looks like a solid line to me didn’t hinder speed one little bit, either reticle is fast on target and no appreciable difference in the accuracy of speed shots. I loved it just like my other ones. Now the magnifier, in spite of the fact that it doesn’t hold a candle to a real EoTech I’m sure, the concept totally rocks!!!! I love the thing. I can’t wait to buy a real Eotech 4x magnifier and rip this Chinese junker off. To be fair the thing works, is it the quality of the real thing?? It can’t possibly be. I was SO impressed with how when you see the reticle of the Eotech in the scope and suddenly that line becomes 4 crystal clear BDC dots. I was very pleased! That new reticle is awesome for so many reasons and a magnifier brings out the best in the site and the rifle. Finally my blind butt moved back to the 100 yard line and could see the target!! YAY! 🙂 There is a picture below of 2 different 3 shot groups using the new Eotech and the magnifier. The one I fired aiming center and the other I fired aiming about 10 o’clock on the plate. I’m so impressed with the BDC reticle and the magnifier concept I cant stand it! That’s definitely my next buy, a magnifier. The groups were great and it was just PMC Bronze 55 grain ammo. I can’t wait to see what I can do with some Federal Gold Medal.
Eotech group
Wrapping up: I tried to get the reticles in the pics to be as clear as they are in real time but the camera just wouldn’t capture it as clearly as it looks. Rest assured this is a totally kick butt setup they have here and I haven’t been this excited about anything in awhile. I totally love the concept. I don’t know why I didn’t have this before?? AWESOME!!!
As always thanks for reading and happy shooting.
By: Cary Kieffer
Cary Kieffer
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They stopped making the 557. Why? Because they wanted everyone to use cr123a batteries. The perfect (except for the fact its not an A65/1 reticule) sight for me and they stopped making it less than a year later. What a great company! First they make you pay DoD rates for a piece of glass with a hologram on it and a laser pointer run by a battery (a laser pointer that drains your batteries even when its off btw). Then they stop making the best one of their product line to force you into using a battery that THEY like. Maybe I’ll buy a trijicon or aimpoint afterall… Wait no I wont because aimpoint wants $800 for a 4″ tube with an led in it shining on an etched 2moa dot, and trijicon wants 1000 for a gigantic sight that does the same thing but has a 3 dollar (I looked up the price) solar panel attached to it. So other than those cheap non waterproof single piece of glass, laser reflective sights from like NCStar or some other chinese manufacturer, eotech’s are about the cheapest combat proven sight. Just sucks that they are assholes about it.