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A Mailbox for Your Handgun - Viridian RFX 45
Updated
10 months ago
Good morning, everyone this is John with gun.deals, and today we're going to be taking a look at a brand new enclosed emitter optic, design specifically for pistols from Viridian, this is the RFX 45.
Full disclosure on the Viridian RFX 45, they did send this out to us for free to review, so I did not pay for whatsoever. On top of that, they sent me other products in the past to review, some of which you've seen on the channel, some of which will probably come out in the future as well. Just keep that in mind that we did not pay for this optic whatsoever because they sent it out to us for free.
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Getting into what is the Viridian RFX 45, this is a mailbox style optic or an enclosed style pistol red dot, or in this case a green dot, because basically everything Viridian does is going to be a green dot not a red dot, and this is a green dot, which we'll get into a little bit later on, but this is a fully enclosed optic that is an Acro footprint, so it will mount to any Acro adapter or any slides that are cut for a Aimpoint Acro, this will mount directly to those.
You can also buy it from Viridian directly, I believe the price is about 399, which is on par with some other closed emitter optics. On this Glock 17 Gen 3, this is using the RMR adapter plate. In the kit that they sent out they sent out the RMR adapter plate, the MOS adapter plate as well as the high and low mount, so you could in theory mount this to a rifle as a standalone optic or as like an offset red dot either via Picatinny or like a direct cut Acro offset that I think Reptilia makes, something like that. So, you could use this dot not just as a pistol dot but in a variety of circumstances.
Getting into size and weight on the RFX 45, this is a little bit bigger than some of the other pistol red dots on the market, even enclosed pistol red dots coming in at a little bit over an inch tall, two and a half inches long and the weight is a little bit under two ounces.
The material choice here is 6061. Most other enclosed emitter optics that I've seen are 7075, which is about twice the strength to weight ratio of 6061, though we will get into a durability later on, and so far it has held up very well, but just know that it is going to be 6061 and not 7075.
Getting into external features of the RFX 45, you have a very interesting top-loaded battery, so it is flush with the body, though it does make the top bezel very thick, which we'll get into a little bit later on, you have a top mounted 2032 that is rated for 30,000hours at a medium setting, comboed with Auto on/Auto off technology, meaning that if you leave it sitting for I believe five minutes it turns off, you touch it to move it and it will automatically turn back on, meaning that thirty thousand hours of battery life, or let's say 10,000 hours of battery life on a high setting, is theoretically years maybe even a decade, depending on how much you use it.
Externally, you also have a flush mounted elevation and windage dial that you can adjust using a tip of a bullet, a knife, a flathead screwdriver, very easy to adjust, you don't need a specific tool for them, which is quite nice. On the left hand side of the optic body we have two rubber buttons, one that goes up one that goes down, in terms of your illumination you have eight daylight settings and two night vision settings for a total of ten.
I haven't personally tested the night vision settings so I cannot attest to how well they work or how good the light transmission is on the optic in very, very low light scenarios, however, the glass quality itself is very, very good, whatever coatings that they're using look very nice, there's very little tint to it whatsoever, it looks very good. It does have a little bit of warping if you move the dot around in front of your face, but there's very little noticeable magnification, the glass quality is very good with very little tint.
Getting into the dot itself, this is just a 5 MOA green dot. 5 MOA, for me, is perfect, that is going to be more than accurate enough for inside of 100 yards, and the dot itself looks very, very good. I've seen some 2 MOA dots that are a little bit bigger and they're oblong and they don't look quite as nice, this to my eyes looks like a nearly perfect circle. So, even though it is 5 MOA and a little bit bigger than some of the other dots on the market, it is a very, very good looking dot, something that I do like.
Getting into the emitter refresh rate, it does not have any issues whatsoever, so on whatever brightness that you happen to be on the emitter looks like a perfect laser beam with no distortion or no flickering while you're moving from target to target or tracking the dot during recoil, it is a very, very solid, consistent, laser-like appearance in the window, which is very nice.
Getting into window size, I believe it is 24x16 millimeters, which is not particularly large. That is kind of par for the course when it comes to enclosed pistol red dots, there's not a lot of them with big windows because the bigger the window you need a lot more material to cover it up, but then the dot start to get heavy and then you might start to have some reliability issues on certain slides. 24x16 isn't the smallest out there, but it's not particularly big. One of the main reasons for that is because they're doing a top mounted battery, which means you don't have a battery door hanging off the side or underneath or something like that. The top bezel is very thick because the top bezel has to have a 2032 battery, your elevation, your emitter, and so because of that it's about 3/8 of an inch thick, and that is really going to cut into your window size.
A possible benefit of it being so thick on top is that might add to the durability of the optic because you have about 3/8 of an inch of aluminum before you get to your glass. Having a little bit smaller of a window as well might also help with durability because glass is not the most fun material to work with from a structural stand point, it's very finicky, in certain environments it can be very strong, you can change a few things around and now it's not very strong at all, but durability, we'll get into that a little bit later on, has held up very well so far and hopefully will continue to hold up with some more aggressive testing later on.
For those of you who don't know the mount and adapter interface on an Acro style red dot is kind of like a miniature Picatinny, so you have a little recoil lug with a locking block and a bolt that you torque down, I believe they recommend 20 inch pounds on this specific red dot or green dot, and that will vary from dot to dot, and then you have the adapter that bolts directly to your slide. In this case this is an RMR Aim Surplus slide, an RMR adapter that fits very tightly in the pocket, so there's very little movement between the slide and the adapter, and then the Viridian RFX 45 also has a very tight fit to the adapter and then it is clamped to that.
In theory you are stacking a lot of tolerances on top of each other by not going directly onto the slide, however, at least in this case, the RMR cut on the slide has a very tight fit to the adapter, and then the RFX 45 also has a very tight fit to the adapter, in theory keeping everything locked down nice and secure, and I would always recommend using blue or red Loctite on your screws, depending on if you ever want to switch them out or not.
Before we get into what it's like to actually use the dot and how it performs, at least to me, I should mention that this is the first enclosed emitter pistol dot that I've used, so I can't really compare and contrast to other dots on the market because I haven't used them, so this is my first experience with them, and I should also mention the gun that we're using it on, this is a Glock 17 Gen 3 with a Aim Surplus ported barrel and slide combo, so it has very little recoil as well as a custom trigger, let's say.
Because of the ported barrel that I'm using on here there is very little recoil, so it is very easy to track the dot through recoil, even with a very short window size. On non-compt, non-ported guns, snappier guns, it is going to be a lot harder to completely track the dot through recoil because it only has to move up to about there to completely lose the dot in the window because you do have a very short window, which is going to be a downside, depending on how you shoot, depending on what you're mounting it to, it's something that you're definitely going to have to grow a custom tube and depending on what gun, your personal skill level, you may not be able to completely track the dot through the recoil, so you might have to just literally wait for the dot to come back into the frame before you can start lining up again.
Keep in mind that I am certainly not the best pistol shooter by any means, I spend most of my time, probably 90% of my time, shooting rifles, and then the other time shooting a kind of cheater gun like a Glock 17 with a ported barrel.
In this somewhat of a cheater setup I would say that the Verdian RFX 45 did not hold me back in any way shape or form, we aren't dealing with very much recoil, the limiting factor here in this setup is definitely going to be me, the shooter, not the RFX 45, of course that's going to depend on what you're mounting it to and what your specific skill level is. It's not going to be the easiest dot to use on the market though, so if you're already having a hard time with a bigger windowed red dot, you want to move to an enclosed window, and then you get something like this with a very short window, you're gonna probably have a little bit harder of time tracking that dot, making very quick follow-up shots, very accurate follow-up shots, a lot of really good shooters track the dot completely, it allows them to transition to from target to target faster because they can see the dot at all times versus if you're waiting for it to come back down in the window and then you can start to move and actually line up your next shot.
As far as raw performance goes, it's not going to perform like a gamer dot, any one of the big windowed red dot is going to perform better than it in terms of raw speed and performance because you get more information through the glass, you can track the dot better, so on and so forth, it's going to allow you to perform as good as you can. The RFX 45 with a smaller window is going to be more difficult, the trade-off there is that you get a very, very durable optic
The durability that I did on the RFX 45 was I believe three or four shoulder height drops onto gravel, so it's just dirt and rocks that I'm dropping it onto, and then I had a 8x12 setup at 50 yards. One thing that I do want to mention, and this is a little bit of a caveat on me and the gun, is that with the Aim Surplus ported barrel it's not particularly accurate, it'll probably do like eight to ten inch groups at 50 yards, so I got to be very, very specific when I'm aiming at a target, a smaller target, at extended ranges, so I do have to slow down quite a bit and make sure that that dot is just perfectly in the center of the target when I pull the trigger.
I didn't do any sort of paper groups with it, though I will do that later on with a little bit more aggressive testing. However, after three or four shoulder high drops onto dirt and gravel it was still hitting the target consistently at 50 yards.
On top of the optic we have scuffs and scrapes on the anodized finish, so normal wear and tear there. The glass is 100% perfect, no cracking, no issues whatsoever, and it maintains zero to an acceptable degree. So, as far as durability goes, I think it's going to perform very well, though we will continue testing on it, probably do a follow-up video on my personal channel at some point in the future, with an AR 500 steel plate in the mix.
As it stands right now I think this is a good option from what I've seen. Keep in mind that I haven't used any other enclosed window pistol dots yet, so I can't really compare and contrast, however, in this setup I really like it, it fits with my Safariland holsters, I should mention that you're going to have some holster compatibility issue if you're using like a duty style holster just because of how big and blocky it is, so depending on what holster, what gun you're on you might run into some holster compatibility issues, but as it stands right now I really like using it and it's going to stay on this gun and until I'm done testing it.
As of right now I really like it, but it's hard to recommend, compare to other optics on the market. As far as price goes, I think it's very comparable 399, is going to be the same as like some of the Holosun 509 Ts, or maybe some of the other, maybe cheaper than a lot of the other enclosed pistol red dots on the market. It's kind of in the ballpark in terms of price, I can't really compare and contrast, it has all the features you would want, it does seem to be very durable, the dot looks very good, the glass looks very good, the feature set is all there, Auto on/Auto off, top-loading battery, Acro footprint, so it will fit with a lot of your aftermarket mounts and adapters, fit to basically any gun out there, but I can't really compare and contrast so it's hard to give it a 100% recommend. All I can say right now is that it's performed very well for me and I will continue to use it.
The main drawback is going to be it is more expensive than some other pistol optics on the market and that shorter window size, which will probably throw some people off.
