Review: Leupold DeltaPoint Pro 2.5 MOA reflex sight

The Leupold DeltaPoint Pro reflex sight is a small, strong and smart red-dot with features that make it highly desirable for pistols, rifles and shotguns — but that’s not enough to stand out from many other reflex sights these days, so it has a list of other good reasons to be elevated high on your shopping list.

In a nutshell, it has simplified controls, protective shock-absorbing armour, good power management, easy battery replacement, simple controls and, naturally, top-shelf optical quality.

Let’s get straight to the action before we discuss all that. Zeroing the DeltaPoint Pro is simple using the two adjustment screws that can be turned using the rim of a shell, a small screwdriver, a 5c piece (Google it) or anything similar.

Each little click moves the reticle’s aiming dot 1 MOA, through a total of 60 MOA in elevation and windage (or 175cm at 100m) — fine enough accuracy and plenty of variation for what a reflex sight will be used for, no matter what the firearm.

I found it very easy to dial it in for pistol shooting, first at 10m with a rest and then further out based on my two-handed point of aim.

There’s a hint of parallax error at close ranges — detectable at about 7m, for example, but not enough to shift impact outside a decent size 10-ring — but it appears to settle by the time you’re at 25m distance. That’s typical for most red dots, in my experience, even when they claim to be parallax-free.

The 2.5 MOA dot is clear and crisp if you don’t over-brighten it, and it reflects from a lens that enhances contrast and fine-tunes colour to present a really sharp image that’s just a poofteenth darker than the view outside. There’s no edge blur, nor anything else to detract from it.

You might think the aspherical lens would distort the view but it creates only a very small effect, widening the view in the horizontal plane to make target acquisition a little easier, but you have to look carefully to see the effect. In other words, it’s a benefit without any really noticeable drawback.

That dot size is ideal for precise bullet placement, and while I only used the Leupold on a pistol I know it would be the perfect reticle for a rifle, too. There’s a 6 MOA version for those who want speed against larger targets at closer ranges.

First time out in competition, I had no trouble taking quick aim with the dot on screen; there was never a shot where I had to search for it, which was probably helped by the fact that the optic sits nice and low, so my hold was almost identical to when I use iron sights.

My scores were certainly better than with open sights on the same pistol. The sight held zero through hundreds of rounds.

You can by an optional iron sight to mount on the back of the DeltaPoint Pro, but you’d also need a taller front sight post to make it possible to co-witness with it. If you’re paranoid about electronic failure, fair enough, but to me it seems pointless.

Leupold took into account the importance of battery replacement when designing the DeltaPoint Pro. The CR2032 button-type battery is top-loaded into a sprung hatch, so you never have to dismount the optic and then re-zero it when the power dies. Just slide the release out of the way and the hatch pops up with the battery. Battery replacement takes seconds.

You need to do it often. Leupold claims between 300 and 1600 hours of battery life (far longer than I had the sight), depending on how brightly you keep the red dot lit up, and the DeltaPoint Pro also has an auto-off function which shuts it down if the sight hasn’t moved after five minutes.

The instant you move it, though, it wakes up, ready to go before you can taken aim.

The DeltaPoint has a single control button, touted as a convenience. And it is, but not in all ways.

The good thing is you can turn it on, adjust the brightness, and turn it off with just the one button, certainly a good thing. And that single rubberised button is placed on top of the battery hatch, bang in the middle of the well behind the lens, so it is almost impossible to accidentally activate it.

The aiming dot has eight brightness settings and you adjust it one push of the button at a time. From minimum, it steps up to the maximum and then, as you continue to hit the button, it starts stepping down again.

That’s simplicity and smart design at its best. There are two things that aren’t ideal, though.

If you go past your desired brightness setting, instead of going back one step, you have to scroll through the full range until you come back to the one you want, and hope you get your count right before stopping.

Second, when your finger is on the button, you can’t see the illuminated dot, so you have to press, move you finger, check the brightness, then repeat.

These things make it slower and more fiddly than a two-button system on the side of the optic, becoming a potential irritation on a hunting firearm. Considering Australian handgun competition shooters should never have to make quick adjustments mid-shoot, it isn’t a big deal for them. In testing the Leupold, I had tons of time to set it before a timed stage.

The Leupold is probably far stronger than a typical club shooter needs, too, built to easily survive being dropped on concrete if you’re clumsy at the range. It’ll withstand almost anything it might cop on a rifle or shotgun in the field, too, or in the hands one of the few of us who can carry a handgun on a primary production licence.

Aside from its inherent strength, the DeltaPoint has an external skeleton, a spring-steel roll cage that bolts to the sides and sits slightly proud of the aluminium frame around the lens.

This extra armour is flexible enough to bend a tiny bit under impact, absorbing the shock that would otherwise be transferred directly to the optic. You could, of course, damage or break the lens with a frontal hit if you’re unlucky.

However, I didn’t torture test it. That’s been done elsewhere and there was nothing to be gained by me damaging the test unit, which wasn’t mine.

The DeltaPoint has its own mounting footprint, one that’s been copied by a few other optics makers now. Leupold makes a number of mounting plates to suit different pistols, pic rails, etc, and the aftermarket has a plate for almost everything. For the test, I used my recently purchased Springfield Echelon with its multi-adaptable footprint, so the DeltaPoint went straight on.

If I were in the market, I’d be sorely tempted to leave it there, too, even with its near $1000 price tag. I know the value of good quality optics in the long run and have no doubt, after testing it, that the DeltaPoint Pro sits in that category.

Its robustness is reassuring, as is the fact that it’s a Leupold with good warranty backup here in Australia (no, you don’t have to wait for the Americans). It’s certainly tougher than most of us need, but some of us will be thankful for.

And it works. Optically, it’s terrific, and the minor drawbacks of the one-button design are far outweighed by the positives of its simplicity, the sensible battery replacement setup and all the rest.