Aimpoint at 50 Years: The Standard for Duty-Grade Red Dots—and Why 2025 Changes the Mounting Game
- Rick Hogg
- Feb 5
- 6 min read
Aimpoint Fifty Years of “Earned Trust”
A lot of companies can make a red dot. Not many can make a red dot that survives real life, duty abuse, weather, sweat, impacts, vehicle racks, training miles, and years of being “always on.” That’s why 50 years matters.
Aimpoint’s history isn’t “marketing years.” Aimpoint introduced the world’s first commercial red dot sight, Aimpoint Electronic, launched in 1975. That one fact changed the shooting world forever.
Fast forward to 2025: at SHOT Show, Aimpoint celebrated that 50th anniversary, and instead of showing up with a nostalgia booth, they rolled out new products and a mounting concept that (in my opinion) is going to force the rest of the industry to raise its standards.
Why I Run Aimpoint
I’ve been using Aimpoint products since the 1990s. I’ve used them downrange, and I’ve used them teaching. I ran the Aimpoint T-1 in combat, and durability is the reason that optic earned my trust. Today, Aimpoint is the red dot I choose across my firearms because I want gear I can bet my life on, not gear that looks good in a screenshot.
Here’s the part that matters for the War HOGG community: this isn’t about brand loyalty. This is about performance, repeatability, and accountability. If your optic fails, it’s not a “gear problem.” It becomes your problem.
Stop Buying Garbage Optics
Let me be blunt. I see too many agencies buying cheap Chineses optics, slapping them on pistols, and calling it “modernization.” Then they conduct little to no test and evaluation and little to no training. That is backward. Your red dot is life-saving equipment, and it deserves the same seriousness you’d give to armor, medical, radios, or duty holsters.
This is one reason Aimpoint’s 50-year track record matters. Aimpoint’s reputation was built by listening to end users, police, military, and citizens, and engineering optics that can be trusted under demanding environmental conditions.
Project Officer Survival and the “Duty Proof” Standard
Aimpoint also supports what we’re doing with War HOGG Tactical, specifically, FREE law enforcement red dot pistol training through Project Officer Survival. Our program uses the Walther PDP topped with an Aimpoint ACRO and a Safariland Level 3 retention holster.
That setup isn’t accidental.
Our red dot pistol course is two-fold:
Train officers (experienced or new to the red dot pistol) how to run a quality, enclosed red dot sight.
Educate them on the difference between enclosed and open emitter optics, because those differences show up fast when the weather turns, the gun gets dirty, or the fight goes hands-on.
2025 Headliner: Aimpoint COA + Glock A-CUT
At SHOT Show 2025, Aimpoint’s big swing was the COA, launched in partnership with Glock, along with a new mounting option called A-CUT.
Aimpoint and Glock built this as a system, optic plus mount concept, rather than treating the optic like an accessory that gets bolted on as an afterthought. That’s why I’m paying attention.
There’s also a practical market reality: the Aimpoint/Glock partnership includes a one-year exclusivity window for A-CUT. The expectation is that other manufacturers will start offering A-CUT-style slide options later, but for now Glock is the pistol you’ll see with COA mounted via A-CUT.
The Aimpoint COA: Concealed Carry Focus, Duty DNA
The COA is designed for concealed carry pistols, slimline and standard, built around durability, reliability, performance, and compact design. It’s meant to be an everyday-carry optic without feeling like a brick on the slide.
One thing I want to address because people love to judge optics off a photo: the COA window gets called “smaller” at first glance. I’ve live-fired the COA, and I can tell you the window size comparison to the ACRO isn’t what people assume, it doesn’t feel like a downgrade in window during real shooting.
Now let’s talk specs, because specs matter when you’re building a duty or carry setup you can trust:
3.5 MOA dot
50,000 hours (over 5 years) of constant operation
4 night vision settings, 8 daylight settings
1.7 oz (48 g) including battery
Submersible to 25 m / 82 ft
Clear aperture 15×15 mm
CR2032 battery
Tested/proven for recoil stress with vibration tolerances rated to 40,000 rounds of 9mm
That combination, enclosed emitter, long battery life, real durability testing, and a carry-friendly profile, is exactly what a concealed carry optic should be.
Enclosed Emitter: Why It Matters Outside the Flat Range
Here’s the reality: open emitter optics can run great, until conditions stack against you. Dirt, lint, sweat, water, debris, weird angles on the ground, hands-on contact, training in the rain, riding in a cruiser, falling into gravel, real life doesn’t care what was “fine on the range.”
An enclosed emitter red dot is a reliability multiplier because it helps keep the system functional through environmental abuse. That’s why we push the “enclosed vs open emitter” conversation so hard in law enforcement training—and why I like where Aimpoint continues to invest their engineering.
A-CUT: The Mounting Concept the Industry Needed
If the COA is the optic headline, A-CUT is the story underneath it.
A-CUT is a mounting design intended to create a stable, multi-point lockup between optic and slide. The simplest way to describe it is the way I described it when I saw it: it’s like a ski boot locking into a ski binding, front engagement plus rear securement, with additional lock surfaces you don’t see from the outside.
The A-CUT concept uses multiple locking points, including notches under the optic that interface with matching features in the slide cut to manage recoil forces and movement. The goal is stability through recoil and repeatability over time, because the optic/mount interface is where a lot of “mystery failures” begin.
If you’re an agency decision-maker, this should matter to you. A mount that reduces movement and maintains zero under hard use is not a convenience feature, it’s a duty feature.
ACRO C-2: Bringing the ACRO Advantage to Carbines
The ACRO line has become a benchmark for enclosed pistol optics, and the ACRO C-2 pushes that concept into a carbine-optimized setup. It runs a 2.5 MOA dot and is designed for Picatinny rail mounting solutions.
Aimpoint lists the same “always ready, always on” battery philosophy here too: the ACRO C-2 is powered by a CR2032 and is rated for about 50,000 hours (over 5 years) of continuous use, with night vision and daylight settings.
From a durability standpoint, the Safariland write-up notes testing to withstand the G-force of 20,000 rounds of .40 S&W, and emphasizes why enclosed optics stay operational across weather and conditions.
Personally, I run the ACRO C-2 on my LWRC IC-9 PCC with a Reptilia mount because it gives me a low-profile, fast acquisition option I trust.
Picking the Right Aimpoint for Your Role
I’ll keep this simple, because gear selection should be role-driven:
Concealed carry / slim profile: COA (A-CUT system where available)
Duty pistol “standard” (my opinion): ACRO P-2
Carbine low-profile enclosed: ACRO C-2
Carbine traditional options: PRO, Duty RDS, T-2, M5 (plus 3X/6X magnifiers depending on mission)
Shotgun: S-2
You don’t buy optics to impress your buddies. You buy optics to solve a problem—reliably.
Your Red Dot Optic Is Only Half the Equation
I don’t care how good the optic is if you don’t train with it.
A red dot doesn’t magically fix fundamentals. It exposes them. It will show you every problem you’ve been hiding, trigger control, grip inconsistency, presentation issues, poor visual discipline. That’s why I preach structure: measure performance, build a plan, dry fire with intent, then validate in live fire.
That’s also why tools like The Firearms Training Notebook exist, to turn training into a system instead of random range trips.
A Quick Word on Incentives
If you’re in the market for an Aimpoint Red Dot Optic, use the coupon / discount code WarHogg25 to save with Aimpoint. Use it if it helps. But don’t miss the bigger point: no discount replaces quality, and no optic replaces training.
Bottom Line
Aimpoint didn’t become “Aimpoint” by accident. The company launched the first commercial red dot sight in 1975, and 50 years later they’re still pushing innovation with real-world end users in mind.
The COA and A-CUT are a serious move for concealed carry and duty reliability. The ACRO C-2 extends the enclosed-emitter advantage to carbines. And if you’re honest about performance, if you care about repeatability, durability, and trust, this is exactly the kind of evolution you should want in your equipment.
Train hard, stay safe, and I’ll see you "On The Range" - Rick
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