Sig MSR Review
In 1853, 3 men began a wagon factory in Rhine Falls in Switzerland. Little did they know that company would become one of the world’s most renowned small arms companies, Sig Sauer. In 1864 that same company developed a rifle and the rest would become history. Fast forward to today and Sig Sauer has become a leader in small arms, supressors, optics, ammo, and airguns.
In 2015 Sig Sauer began manufacturing optics and currently produces over 100 different types for rifles and handguns. We picked up a Sig Romeo-MSR a few weeks ago and have put it through it paces on one of our rifles to test reliability and durability in several conditions. The MSR is on the less expensive side of the Sig family of red dots so it was a no-brainer to grab something of this quality when I saw it at my local gun store. I personally own 3 Romeo-5s but those have been hard to come by lately and we needed another optic for a 2 day rifle course.
The MSR claims a 20,000 hour battery life so you can leave the optic on when not in use. For those doing the math, that’s a little over 2 years but we recommend changing the batteries annually just in case. A red dot for a self-defense rifle is almost a must these days as they are much quicker to pick up than iron sights and easily seen in the dark. The MSR has a large dial on the top to adjust the brightness which we found to be incredibly stiff to turn. This may loosen up with time, but brightness adjustments aren’t that frequent on a red dot so I’m doubtful. The knob was so stiff it would be almost impossible with slick hands of for someone with a weak grip to turn so keep that in mind. The Romeo-5 has a simple plus/minus pushbutton adjustment which was much more user friendly.
The optic overall was very sturdy and held it’s zero incredibly well during our 2 day rifle course. We rolled around in gravel, banged the rifle around, got into tons of different positions, and basically treated the optic like one that was much more expensive. Once zeroed, we couldn’t find any issues with the point of aim point of impact after all of our abuse. Parallax wasn’t the most crisp but overall wasn’t a problem. Even in uncommon shooting positions we didn’t have any issues making good hits on our targets from 100 yards.
The MSR comes with clear flip up sight covers which was kind of an odd choice but didn’t really cause any issues. You can look through the covers or flip them up. Being clear, there really isn’t a need to flip them up so I guess it makes sense. It also comes with a riser and a nice wrench for mounting the optic and sight adjustments. Fortunately, the optic was zeroed perfectly when we mounted it so no adjustment was needed. The up/down left/right adjustment has a nice clicky feedback and are .5 MOA at 100 yards. For a red-dot, that’s good enough as you really don’t need super fine adjustments. I do like the fact that they print on the adjustment covers what your measurement is. I’ve spent too many times at the range trying to find manuals for other optics when I didn’t know what the adjustment was.
Overall, the Sig MSR is a really nice choice for anyone who wants to get into the red dot world or just needs another one for a new rifle. It won’t break the bank and from what I’ve seen, competes with optics 6 times it’s price.
You can find the MSR currently for $115 on Amazon.