I’ve got a vortex crossfire 2 (on my Ruger 10/22), and an amazon knockoff (on my rf224). They are indistinguishable in their performance! These people telling you to upgrade your low cost sight make me laugh so hard. Gun people always say the same tired shit , it slays me. I have the same cheap red dot as you on my $1200 .357 lever gun and I run it hard, 150 rounds in 30 minutes, and it’s zeroed and plenty accurate for indoor range use. Do not go out and spend $250-500 on a sight for your $450 .22. Do not feel bad. Do not listen to them. It is perfectly okay to put a basic low cost sight on that exact .22. Are expensive optics better and cooler, of course, but you don’t have to do that here.
If you plan to use it outdoors, an enclosed sight might be better , that’s the only thing I’ll add, constructively. The other “cool” thing about a vortex crossfire 2 (or its knockoffs), is that you can install it with the “riser”, then you can pickup one of those little magnet lasers you stick on the end of the barrel. Align the red dot to the laser. Then you flip up the iron sights and align them through the optic as well. “Cowitness configuration”. Then if the battery runs out (it won’t lol) you can still aim. Plus the Adler iron sights can also be used without flipping them up by looking underneath. Three ways to aim!!
You're mostly right, if you're shooting .22LR. Spending a bit more on optics with centre fire rifles makes much ore sense. The repeated recoil impulse, even with lighter recoiling rounds, will beat up the bargain basement optics much more quickly. Not necessarily break them, but even simply holding zero...you do get what you pay for
Yeah with .22 especially it’s a-okay. I have dirt cheap knockoffs on both a .357 and .45 colt right now and the biggest risk in my opinion is if the cheap mounts come loose. That being said I just ordered a primary arms glx1 gen3 tonight to test out and swap around. Once you have a bunch of guns then you can always play a game of upgrading amongst them.
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u/NeruLight Apr 17 '26
I’ve got a vortex crossfire 2 (on my Ruger 10/22), and an amazon knockoff (on my rf224). They are indistinguishable in their performance! These people telling you to upgrade your low cost sight make me laugh so hard. Gun people always say the same tired shit , it slays me. I have the same cheap red dot as you on my $1200 .357 lever gun and I run it hard, 150 rounds in 30 minutes, and it’s zeroed and plenty accurate for indoor range use. Do not go out and spend $250-500 on a sight for your $450 .22. Do not feel bad. Do not listen to them. It is perfectly okay to put a basic low cost sight on that exact .22. Are expensive optics better and cooler, of course, but you don’t have to do that here.