Reviews & Ratings for Steiner Close Quarter Red Dot Thermal Sight — 2 reviews — Page 1

First thing I want to say is that I can’t be 100% sure this was new, but it looked good so I accepted without it being fully wrapped. From that point on everything got progressively worse. First at 25 yards I could not get it to hit the paper. I’d adjust the reticle up then down, never got two shots within 6 inches of each other. I’m not crowing here but I have three thermal trijicon scopes and they are wonderful for the hog hunting we do in Florida. So I decided I would put the Steiner CQT on a Wilson Combat 300 hammer, maybe the most accurate gun I own. Nothing I could do to get any consistency at all. I called Steiner, they had me send it back kept it for 3 1/2 weeks and sent it back. Ten times worse. Now I could net get Thermal to fire up most of the time and when it did it stayed on about three seconds and went off. Could not get the reticle anywhere near target and finally when I finally did get it working and tried to turn it off, the red dot stayed on, burning up batteries. Terrible experience but I still love the concept so I sent it back for a replacement, believing that with Steiners reputation this had to be a defective unit. I am going to give it one more try and will follow up with another review if my results are better, but for now purchase with caution

Physically:

Upon opening the box, I noticed the string connected to the battery cap was broken. A minor inconvenience but still not a good first impression. Overall, the weight is on the heavier side for an optic but there’s nothing to really compare it to. That being said, the weight wasn’t noticeable one mounted on my M4. A minor complaint about the mounting: a star key is required. Not a deal breaker but making mounting a bit more convenient would be nice.

Operationally:

I haven’t zeroed or shot with this yet. After minimal testing and scrolling through the menus, I noticed that I have to recalibrate the thermal overlay upon each power up. This is a problem. I shouldn’t have to scroll through menus to ensure my thermal pic is accurate. Although it only takes about 2 minutes (once familiar with the menus), I may not have that kind of time in a pinch. I’ve been through the manual and can’t find a way to save my changes. Saving under the debug menu is supposed to “save all current variables to memory” but it doesn’t seem to save the overlay adjustments I made. I’ll be contacting Steiner’s technical support to see if I’m doing something wrong. Other than that, this sight is really impressive. The thermal overlay modes provide quick acquisition and a clear picture.

I’ll have to rate this 4 stars due to the overlay calibration issue. If it turns out I’m doing something wrong (after contacting Steiner), I’ll gladly update to 5 stars. Although my complaints are minor, ...
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