The Israeli arms market is one that has grown exponentially in a number of ways over the last couple of decades. Much like other Israeli-based companies, Meprolight works very closely with their home military, the Israeli Defense Force, to develop and battlefield test their products to provide customers in the 134 different countries worldwide that they support with optics that are not only durable but full of features and specifications that are actually useful out in the field. Meprolight recently sent me a T&E copy of their Meprolight TRU-VISION red dot sight. The TRU-VISION is intended to be a durable, compact, lightweight, and energy-efficient red dot that can serve every need ranging from casual range use and training to night vision operations out on the front lines. Today we’re going to take a look at the Meprolight TRU-VISION red dot sight to see how well it performs out in the field, and how well the optic adheres to its stated claims on the Meprolight website.

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TFB REVIEW: The Meprolight TRU-VISION Red Dot Sight

The TRU-VISION is the latest red dot entry from the guys at Meprolight. While the company has been making red dots in various configurations for years, the TRU-VISION represents a definitive step in the direction of durability and utility. The IDF last adopted the Meprolight TRU-DOT RDS which was plagued in performance by relatively short battery life, limited windage, and elevation adjustment range, and poor implementation of pulse width modulation technology leading to a sometimes negative user experience. The TRU-VISION remedies a lot of these negatives

Specifications – Meprolight TRU-VISION Red Dot

• Weight: < 285 gr.
• Dimensions: (L x W x H) < 73 x 56 x 68 mm
• Display Window Dimensions: 25 x 20 mm
• Aiming point diameter: 2.0 MOA
• Reticle Pattern: Dot
• Reticle Color: Red
• Click Size: 0.5 MOA (0.14 mRad)
• Brightness levels: 12 Day + 4 Night + Automatic Adjustment
• Power Supply: 1x CR123 Battery
• Weapon Mount: Picatinny Rail Quick release (Mil-STD 1913)
• Environmental: MIL-STD-810

While the TRU-VISION might appear to have a much smaller window than the TRU-DOT’s 33x20mm window, you’re really not losing much in the way of sight picture and in fact, you’re gaining a lot of other benefits as a byproduct of the reduced size. The TRU-VISION still features the same 2MOA dot size as the TRU-DOT, and the same NVG capabilities, but now has a much longer 10,000-hour battery life from a single CR123A battery which is mounted perpendicular to the direction of your rifle which should make the battery contacts much more durable than the parallel design of the TRU-DOT.

The TRU-VISION is sold for a standard price of around $550 online but they’re regularly available for about $450 or so depending on the distributor. In stark opposition to other red dots in its class, the Meprolight option gives you a near-perfectly clear set of glass to look through which is not only great for regular shooting but perfect for passive aiming under night vision.

Range Testing

We obviously want to know a couple of things about the optic. How easy is it to use, does the battery actually last, is it durable, do the windage and elevation adjustments hold zero, does it actually work under night vision? You can easily test all these things in a clinical lab setting but I felt that with the TRU-VISION being from a company that regularly supplies the IDF with battlefield-ready optics, I’d take the TRU-VISION to a couple of competitions in addition to my regular range sessions to test out nearly all of these factors.

Ease of Use

The optic features some relatively simple controls that you’d expect from most red dot optics as well as an additional control purely focused on the night vision aspect of the optic. The three-button design features an NV button and two power buttons for controlling the brightness of the dot as well as handling the duty of turning the optic on and off. All of the optic’s different modes can easily be controlled from these three buttons including the optics’ automatic brightness, as well as the duration of the optics’ auto power-off function and sleep functions.

If the 10,000-hour battery life is a concern for you, then you might have some of your fear alleviated by the fact that the TRU-VISION comes standard with not just one low battery indicator, but two of them. When your optic’s battery has about 50 hours of life left, the dot will blink on and off every couple of minutes until you reach the optic’s “Critical Battery Alert” phase. It’s at this phase the optic will start to continuously flash indicating that you have about 5 hours left before your optic turned from a red dot into an angular paperweight mounted to your rifle.

Durability

Over the last several months, my TRU-VISION optic has been subjected to drops, bumps, knocks, and wild temperature variations. For this review, I chose to mount the optic to my Angstadt Arms 9mm upper receiver, and Hop and I got to work testing it out. The optic was easy to zero with its 1/2 MOA clicks. Initial box testing revealed that the elevation and windage adjustments track very well. While it might be beneficial to have a more refined adjustment per click for use with a magnifier, I think that 1/2 MOA is pretty much standard for red dots at this point and it was certainly accurate enough for my purposes.

Even though a two-gun competition isn’t exactly a one-to-one representation of hard use seen on the battlefield, you’d be surprised just how much V-TAC barriers, barrels, and dump bins can scuff up and scratch an optic. If you do happen to damage the outer polymer top cover shroud it seems that there is a quick and easy way to replace it using just 4 Torx screws. However, I can’t find any information online regarding where you can find actual replacement covers for the TRU-VISION.

The TRU-VISION was dumped in snow, and left out in the rain, as well as my range bag after a particularly swampy range session – I have yet to see any moisture-related issues from either the electronics or even inside of the enclosed window. I haven’t gone scuba diving with it yet but when I do, I’ll let you guys know.

User Experience

The TRU-VISION is giving you a clear aiming window, a durable package that can survive some hard use, and a battery that’ll last you quite a while when paired with the auto-brightness and auto-off functions. I found that the auto-on/auto-off functions worked perfectly which is great for days when you inevitably forget to switch off all your optics before heading home from the range. Additionally, the optics auto-brightness settings work fairly well in terms of speed. On the brightness side of things, turning on the auto-brightness settings will get you a good overall adjustment range, but on particularly bright days you’ll still have to manually force the optic into its higher brightness settings which could prove to be troublesome for those frequently transitioning from indoor to outdoor locations.

While the viewing window is quite large, about as big as an EOTech XPS2, the effective area in which the dot can be viewed is narrowed down to a circular area within the square viewing window that covers about 80% of the available space. This is because the TRU-VISION uses a different method than traditional red dot optics to project the circle onto the window. The TRU-VISION is a “Collimator Red Dot” which uses an emitter placed below a spherical lens through which the dot is projected onto the front window – due to the circular nature of the lens, the dot can’t reach all the edges of the 25x20mm rectangular window.

This means that when the dot “moves” from the center towards either side of the optics viewing window, it’ll disappear from your vision even before the dot has reached the end of the glass. This issue only cropped up a handful of times during the competition when I thought I had a good sight picture, but was actually just a hair off to the side meaning I had to take a few precious moments to hunt for the dot within the window. This might simply be a training issue but I do think it’s worth knowing that despite the fact that you get a 25x20mm window, you’re only able to use about 20mm of that 25mm width.

Night Vision

While this is normally Nick Chen’s area of expertise, I have my own night-vision unit and I took a little bit of time to mess around with the optic while using the TRU-VISION. The light transmission is really good coming from the optic and the night vision settings feature enough adjustability to make the reticle useful in a few different low-light situations. If you find yourself needing to switch back and forth between using night vision or your natural eyesight, the optic can easily be switched between modes by simply pressing and holding the NV button for 3 seconds.

Final Thoughts

I’ve tested a lot of red dot optics over the years and the TRU-VISION seems to be a capable option that hovers around the $500 range in price. While you won’t get anywhere near the durability of an ACOG, or the battery life of an Aimpoint CompM5s, you also won’t be spending anywhere near what you would with either of those options if you select the Meprolight. If your goal is night vision shooting, this might stand in as a nearly identically featured albeit much less expensive EOTech XPS3 night vision capable of a holographic sight. While the TRU-VISION isn’t a holographic sight, its red dot nature means it has inherently better battery life while still maintaining the clear viewing window that so many people flock to the EOTech line of holographic sights for.

If I had to pick out a handful of things that I wish I could change about the TRU-VISION, it would be first to add additional reticle options. With the simple 2-MOA dot, you’re limited in terms of accurate holdovers even with a magnifier. Adding a few holdover dots or perhaps even an optional segmented circle might be prudent, even if it does reduce the overall battery life. I’d also like to see the top covers available online for those who do wind up damaging their outer shell and need a replacement. At the present time, I can’t find them anywhere online.

Overall, the Meprolight TRU-VISION is a solid red dot sight that offers reliable performance, good durability, and a simple user interface. However, its limited battery life compared with other night vision-capable red dots, and lack of reticle options might leave some wanting for more and those are both serious considerations you must take into account. For someone who is just getting into the night vision scene, I’m looking forward to using the TRU-VISION more over the coming weeks and months as the weather clears up. For now, I’d like to hear what you guys think! Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

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