Have You Installed A Reflex Sight On Your Pistol?

[CleverNickname]

Seems like having to use batteries would make it impractical for EDC?

RMR batteries last for a couple years. Mine is a battery-only model and it has the same battery in it since I bought it in 2012. Admittedly it's spent most of its time in a dark safe, so the dot is often at the lowest brightness, but you should still get at least a year out of a battery before you need to change it.

I avoided the dual-illumination model because apparently it has a problem with the dot brightness not adjusting properly when the ambient light level changes, causing the dot to wash out sometimes.

[MadMonkey]

Actually dual-illuminated doesn't use any batteries... like the Truglo TFOs, it uses tritium and fiber optic. That's why I originally got it :)

But, since that turned out to be a bad idea I switched.

Why did it turn out to be a bad idea?

Very pricey for low performance (IMHO anyway). As I said earlier, unless I was in direct sunlight the triangle was very dim. I didn't mention night performance, which was pretty terrible... I do a lot of training at night, and it was very rarely visible and much slower to pick up than just using the stock night sights. And when using a weapon-mounted light, it washed out completely, every time, which makes it pretty much useless.

A red dot seems to be a far better option.

I have a friend that I often shoot with who had the same issues with the amber triangle (mine was green); he ended up returning to night sights.

All that being said, I'm still a big proponent of optics on pistols, just make sure it's the right one. They have their drawbacks, but overall I think they're a great idea as long as you still have the option of using irons (as in making sure they'll cowitness or are at least visible through the optic). Electronics do fail and batteries die.