FC1 Prismatic Red Dot clone

[renegadecow]

Been on the lookout for a replacement hipster red dot since I cracked the lens of my china clone LCO. I happened across this by accident on AliExpress and ordered one straight away. Unfortunately it's taken its sweet time in customs for the past three months so it's only now am able to test it out in person.

 

It's a clone of DI Optical's FC1 which uses a prism as a means to project the red dot to the shooters eye. Surprisingly enough the copy is faithful in that respect that the insides is one big hunk of glass. It uses a single CR2032 battery with an advertised 2moa dot. Right out of the box I already had issues with my unit, not all surprising as it retails for less than $50 shipped. The sight has two heights, low and high and the spacer for the high setting only came with one screw. Not so much an issue for me since I'm using the low setting, but make sure you have two screws on if you're using the high setting. Another missing screw was one of the small Phillips head screws holding the right side panel. Had to scrounge through my junk pile to get the closest size and ended up replacing two of the originals already on since they were pretty short and might lose their thread from recoil since they were only on a few turns. More screw woes, and the last one, is the main mounting screw. It was way too tall so the bottom of the base mount wasn't actually in contact with the rail below it. I had to grind it down some until it was a proper fit. After that, absolutely no wobble and seems like a pretty solid design.

 

On my WE P90 I've shot it for roughly 300 rounds with no sign of losing zero however this gun having a stock barrel and hop-up isn't the most accurate of bb slingers I have so I can only say that it holds up at least when paired with this gun which roughly groups 7" at 20m. Both windage and elevation is adjustable with plenty of room for correction, however the dials themselves have a lot of slop despite having click-positive increments. What happened is for 4-5 clicks the dot won't actually start shifting so I had a tendency of over adjusting the dials out of frustration when the dot finally starts to move.

The glass if fairly clear with hardly a discernible tint and parallax correction is very good. However, possibly due to inconsistencies in coating, the dot will have varying brightness depending on where on the glass you put it. On the 12 o'clock position it almost completely washes out. Another concern is when the sun or any bright or reflective surface is at your back as it projects it in red which can cause the dot to wash out in certain angles and from what I've read is also a problem with the genuine optic. One big advantage of the whole prismatic gimmick is its ability to correct for astigmatism. I won't even pretend to know how that works but it simply really does. I have a slight astigmatism myself, nothing too serious but any conventional red dot I see with my right eye has a small loop of light on the upper left corner. With this it's a clean, crisp dot. 

 

 

with a polycarbonate lens protector already installed so appears more reflective than it really is

 

says 2moa in the manual but looks more like a 3 or 4

 

dot can wash out in glare if the light is against your back

 

mounting screw ground down to fit properly

[DarkLite]

Very nice. Do you have a link to the aliexpress page for it?

[renegadecow]

Got it from this guy:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/FC1-Tactical-Optics-Collimated-Prismatic-Sight-Rifle-Scope-Red-Dot-Fiber-Sight-for-Hunting-Equipment-20/32824684038.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.0EpjJi

 

at the time I ordered he was the only one that had it but now there are also a bunch of others.

Edited December 16, 2017 by renegadecow

[PureSilver]

Thanks for the review! In sum total - would you recommend it? How about over the clone MRO? I'm looking for something to put on my Scorpion EVO, and that looks a bit different.

Edited December 17, 2017 by PureSilver

[renegadecow]

I wouldn't normally recommend something missing screws and not fitting properly out of the box, but given it's just $50 and not that hard to "fix", I'd say it's ok. I've handled a clone MRO myself and the parallax correction was atrocious. You can outline a persons head with the dot at a mere 10m when shifting your vision around the glass.

[R2IN]

do you have a fake EOTech you can compare the optic to? also, can you tell me the size with both risers

[Xjøker]

Where did you get the lens protector? If possible can you send the link? Thank you. ☺️

[Mike_West]

On 5/25/2021 at 10:47 AM, Xjøker said:

Where did you get the lens protector? If possible can you send the link? Thank you. ☺️

From what I've seen, it's built in.

[renegadecow]

Lens protector I made myself. Just friction fit and rests against the block holding the prism in.

[kdagoat]

Does anyone know if these having a prism will help astigmatism any? I can’t seem to get a straight answer anywhere.

[renegadecow]

It does. I'm not sure how the science behind it works, but it really just does.