The Vortex Venom is the best red dot sight for hunters.
In fact:
It’s ruggedly durable and offers fast target acquisition when you’re out in the wild.
In this Vortex Venom red dot review, I’ll cover all of its features so you’ll know if it’s right for you.
Let’s get going!
| Features | Vortex Venom Red Dot |
|---|---|
| Brand | Vortex |
| Color | Black |
| Magnification Range | 1x |
| Reticle Type | 3 MOA red dot |
| Illuminated? | 10 brightness levels |
| Weight | 1.1 ounces |
| Length | 6.7 inches |
| Objective Lens Diameter | 26.5 mm |
Here’s my Vortex Venom Red Dot Review
The Vortex Venom offers pinpoint accuracy and clarity.
Not only that, but it’s highly versatile and works for pistols, shotguns, and rifles.
I’ve compared it to the best pistol red dot sights and I wasn’t disappointed.
Here’s why…
Glass Clarity & Reticle
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA reticle has high-quality glass clarity.
The lenses are fully multi-coated, allowing high light transmission and reduced glare.
It offers a wide field of view and the clarity rivals that of the Vortex Strikefire 2.
Similar to the Burris Fastfire 3, the Venom has a 3 MOA red dot reticle with dot intensity controls that lets you get on target fast
This daylight bright red dot reticle allows rapid target acquisition with pinpoint accuracy. It may not rival holographic sights, but it’s faster than most other red dot sight 3 MOA optics.
Unfortunately, it’s not the best red dot sight for astigmatism. You will get a blurry red dot or star if you’re not wearing corrective lenses.
On a more positive note:
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA reticle has 10 brightness levels and the power and dot intensity controls are on the left side of the sight, making them easy to adjust as needed.
For left-handed shooters, the controls are easy to reach on the left side with your opposite hand.
It also has an auto-dot intensity feature that’ll control dot intensity for you based on the surrounding light conditions using an ambient light sensor.
Eye Relief & Eye Box
As with all red dot sights, the Venom has unlimited eye relief.
This makes target acquisition a breeze, since I was able to look with both eyes open and not worry about head placement.
Although it’s not a reflex sight, the eye box offers a more than wide enough field of view so you can line up with your iron sights and get on target fast.
Durability
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA optic is ruggedly durable and can stand up to the recoil of pistols, shotguns, and rifles.
It’s O-ring sealed, making it waterproof and fogproof. It even has an ArmorTek coating to protect the lens.
It’s also super compact and lightweight, weighing less than half of other red dots, such as the Sig Romeo 5.
The Venom red dot sight uses a CR1632 battery that can last up to 150 hours on the highest setting and 30,000 hours on the lowest.
Not only that, but it’s super easy to change out with its top-load system. I didn’t even have to take it off my pistol to replace battery loads.
Elevation & Windage Knobs
The 1 MOA elevation adjustment and windage knobs are super sleek.
They were quick and easy to adjust, making it easy to get on target.
It only took me five to ten minutes max to get the Venom red dot sight 3 MOA reticle zeroed. I didn’t have any issues at all during the process.
Now that I’ve used this red dot sight for a few months, I can say that it holds zero perfectly. I’ve never had to readjust it.
Parallax & Magnification
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA reticle has a fixed magnification of 1x.
This is great for close range distances up to 150 yards or so.
If you need more than that, consider getting a red dot magnifier to increase your range.
The best part:
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA reticle is parallax free, so you don’t have to worry about any distortion.
Mounting & Rings
The Venom red dot sight 3 MOA optic comes with a picatinny mount.
This is a low rail mount, but it also comes with an optional riser for better placement on rifles.
As I mentioned before, you may want to get a magnifier for the Vortex Venom. The Vortex VMX-3T Magnifier with Flip Mount works well with it.
- The VMX-3T Magnifier and Flip Mount combo adds a 3x magnification to your rifle's red dot sight. Simple, fast, and effective, the push button design engages and disengages the flip mount allowing the...
- The lens are fully multi-coated maximizing resolution, light gathering capability, and color fidelity. Eye Relief-2.2 inches. Field of View-38.2 feet/100 yards
- The VMX-3T does not require any special sight-in. The dot centering screws can be used to help center your red dot image in the VMX-3T's field of view.
Price
The Venom red dot sight is pretty affordable for a quality red dot sight. You can get it for around $230 on Amazon.
Is the Vortex Venom Red Dot Sight for you?
The Vortex Venom is an accurate red dot sight 3 MOA optic for hunting and range shooting.
It features:
- ArmorTek coating
- Unlimited eye relief
- 3 MOA red dot reticle
- Rapid target acquisition parallax-free
- Auto-brightness mode with top-load system
- 10 brightness settings with left-side dot intensity controls
- Fully multi-coated lenses
If you’re looking for a red dot sight with pinpoint accuracy and rapid target acquisition, I’d highly recommend the Vortex Venom. You’ll be amazed at the quality for the price.
Now It’s Your Turn
I hope you enjoyed my Vortex Venom review.
Now I want to turn it over to you:
What do you think about the Vortex Venom red dot? Or perhaps you already bought it and would like to share your thoughts.
Either way, let me know by leaving a quick comment down below.
FAQ:
Unfortunately, the Vortex Venom doesn’t have the Shake Awake feature.
The Vortex Venom is powered by a CR1632 battery. This battery can last between 150-30,000 hours depending on the brightness setting.
When the Vortex Venom is left on auto-mode, it will manually power down after 14 hours or so to save the battery. The battery life ranges between 150-30,000 hours depending on the brightness setting, whether it’s in auto or manual mode.
Vortex manufactures their scopes in factories in the USA, Japan, China, and the Philippines. Most red dot sights are made in China.
I bought this sight from Amazon and when I finally open the package it was used parts not very happy but I understand it’s a very good one so I sent it back and I ordered a new one we will see what happens. I do not know how this got shipped to me this way they’re gonna replace it and I will go from there.
my vortex venom turns off upon the shot from my Glock mod. 40, 10mm pistol.
can this be because of a weak battery? or is the sight, itself, defective?
Thanks for the easy to understand, brief descriptions of the product and the photos you provided showing the sight picture and position of the scope on the hand gun.
hi i am interested to buy vortex venom red dot for my Glock 19 Gen 4 MOS . Do you have 4MOA red dot sight with MOUNTING SCREWS for Glock 19 MOS that can be installed on my plate No.1 with the special screws . what will be the price in USD ?
Just got a venom and put it on a Springfield XDM 9mm. First problem I had was battery cap would not screw on with battery installed. Second was elevation screw had to be maxed out to zero at 25yds. After checking alot of remarks this seems to be a common problem with this sight. Had to cut gasket off the cap to screw it on and am trying to figure out what to do with the second problem.
Get a delrin shim.
I am a cheap SOB and am attempting to build a budget friendly pistol with red dot. I am currently trying to send a slide back to a seller and am ordering another just to avoid the Doctor cut so I can get a slide with an RMR cut. This is due to everything I have been reading about the Vortex Venom having issues as if it is still in some Beta phase of production (I.E. having to use a shim to be accurate, numerous lemons mixed into what should be a reliable red dot, and only being an okay sight for someone that dies not shoot much as it has a problem with hard use). I am currently looking at a Holosun for a more reliable option with a slightly elevated price sticker.