First up, a confession: I am not a grizzled, all-knowing gun sage, nor a high-speed, low-drag operator. Like most of you, I’m a fairly average guy and when I do get to shoot, I want to hit what I aim at without breaking to bank to do it.
Enter Lucid.
I’d never heard of Lucid until several months ago when I noticed the name popping up in forums as shooters talked up the HD7 red dot optic. The optic itself sounds like a neat bit of kit, featuring a rubber-armored aluminum body, lower 1/3 co-witness for your AR-15’s iron sights and an integral scope mount for a Picatinny rail. I e-mailed founder Jason Wilson about his new company, and the e-mail led to a pleasant half-hour phone call.
As former optics category manager for Brunton, Wilson was convinced there was a market for simple, reliable optics at an economical price. His plan was to design a scope here in the United States, and then manufacture it overseas to keep the price reasonable. The HD7 is the culmination of his dream. I got my hands on that dream a few weeks ago.
Let me tell you what I found.
The word that pops into your mind when first handling the HD7 red dot is solid. With an integrated body and mount, there are no concerns of mounting the optic on a cant or of choosing a mount that isn’t quite right for your needs. The second thing you notice are the rugged lines of a scope that looks like it was designed to get muddied and banged up and keep truckin’ on. Lucid claims the HD7 is waterproof, fogproof and shockproof. I didn’t have an opportunity to drown or kick it, but I’m willing to accept the claim at face value.
With an integral base, the HD7 easily mounts to any rail-equipped rifle without the need of any additional mounting accessories,
The HD7 takes a single AAA battery—no exotic power sources here—that front-loads into the base of the unit and provides an estimated 1,000 hours of use. The battery compartment is sealed by a screw-on cap with a waterproof o-ring and secured to the unit by a shrink-wrapped wire cable.
The controls are a model of simplicity. On the left side of the base is the power button, shielded in rubber armor like the rest of the scope’s body. Just behind it are up- and down-arrows to manually change the brightness of the reticle through nine settings. I found the auto-brightness feature to work well indoors under incandescent light in my home, the dimmer fluorescent lights at my local indoor range and outside under the bright December sky.
Above those base-mounted buttons, on the left side of the scope body itself, is the reticle selection turret, which gives you four options: a 2-MOA dot, a “dot-in-a-donut” with a 2-MOA dot surrounded by a larger circle a crosshair or a circle with crosshairs.
On the top of the scope is the well-protected auto-brightness sensor. The elevation and windage turrets with 1/2-MOA adjustments occupied their normal positions on the top and right side.
Mounting the HD7 on my flattop Bravo Company Machine Mid-16 Mod 2 was a snap. I simply placed it on the front of the upper receiver, made sure I had room to flip up my BUIS, and tightened the two, 13 mm slotted nuts by hand. Then it was off to the range for testing.
Powering up the HD7 at the range at the default auto-brightness settings, I glanced through the scope and found all four reticles to be clear and acceptably bright. I loaded a 20-round Magpul PMag with .223 Rem., and fired three shots to zero the HD7 dead-on at 25 yards. The windage and elevation adjustments were positive clicks with no guesswork involved. A 25-yard zero meant the rifle was also zeroed at roughly 300 yards, should I need that range.
From there, it was a matter of seeing how well the HD7 went through its paces, and it offered up no surprises. As a carbine is often used a short-range self-defense option (especially when equipped with a 1X red-dot sight being viewed with middle-aged eyes), I kept all shooting at 25 yards. I threw 200 rounds of Fiocchi 55-grain.223 Rem. and another 40 rounds of Winchester 55-grain 5.56 NATO downrange without a change to the point of impact regardless of reticle selection. When shot from a rest at both the beginning and end of the session, the HD7 kept all rounds in a ragged hole when I did my part. Even though only finger-tightened, the mount stayed rock-solid throughout, and there was no change in zero.
Shooting offhand, the HD7 was well balanced on my mid-length carbine, and enabled me to shoot rapid-fire, fist-sized clusters all day long. The HD7 is a reliable, no-frills winner that simply does what you want a red-dot to do, with no concerns about its reliability. It is developing a nice reputation for itself among civilian and law enforcement shooters, and at an MSRP of $229, hits a sweet spot between inexpensive, range-only optics and professional-grade optics priced in the stratosphere.
Lucid also just announced the industry’s first 2X-5X variable power red-dot magnifier, designed to work with the HD7 and other optics on an aftermarket flip-to-side mount.
Lucid may be a new player in the optics game, but if the HD7 is indicative of the products it intends to market, I’m certain you’ll be hearing a lot more from the company in years to come.
Tags: Bravo Company Machine, Brunton, Fiocchi, Lucid, Magpul, red-dot sight, Tactical, Winchester
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Your review is right on. I recently purchased an hd7 and mounted it on my RRA lar-15. solid build and dead on from 25 to 200 yds so far. Even with the different recticals being used. Why would anyone want to spend 2 to 3 times the money for an overpriced optic that probably won”t perform any better? I have communicated with Jason also via email. He has taken care of me and responded quickly everytime. Can’t say enough about Jason as a business owner and his product!
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I LOVE QUALITY PRODUCTS LIKE THIS ,BUT THIS IS THE EXACT REASON THERE ARE NO MANUFACTURING JOBS IN AMERICA .IF YOU WANT TO MAKE IT IN CHINA SELL IT TO THE CHINESE.COME ON AMERICA LETS STAND TOGETHER ON MADE IN USA PRODUCTS BUY USA
I AGREE WITH KEVIN, BUY USA !!!
I do not care what the quality or functionality may be. It is made in China and anyone who buys it is supporting Communism while helping to destroy American Industry. Shame on Jason Wilson and shame on the NRA for supporting this sort of self destructive behavior.
I am buying my optics used now to avoid helping the Chinese buy out what remains of American Manufacturing. I’d rather buy old American products and keep money circulating in our own economy than fund growth halfway around the planet in a country that is building and modernizing their military with American consumer dollars!
Mr. Owens should stop and sort out his priorities and encourage our own economy and our own industries.
Shame on you too!
Mr. Weddle,
I am just curious, but what brand of computer do you use to access the internet? Do you you have a separate monitor? Do you own a television set? Just asking. I would be amazed if any of those things were made entirely in America. How about cars? Do you own a Ford? Any other American car would be supporting a form of communism about on par with what is practiced in China today, since those companies took public funds. Any foreign car would of course not be American. Own a microwave oven? Was it made by that stalwart of the free market General Electric, a company that has also received your tax dollars rather than be allowed to struggle? How about a cellular phone? Bet most of it wasn’t made in America, either. Just checking.
Haha get his narrow minded ass!!
Well put. This is the way America was founded and will be the way the world goes around. Semper Fi!
Informative sight, LOOKING FOR A WEBSITE;
SOGFIREARMS, CAN’T FIND. I’m told this is where my Romanion AK-47 7.62x39mm came from. (I’m wanting to replace the top stamped receiver cover with one that excepts a scope. CAN YOU HELP ME?
Jere,
This looks like what you are searching for, though I do not know of the company you mentioned.
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You have a good point, this looks like a great scope, but I will have to agree with the gentlemen suggesting that we buy American. I have lots of Chinese made products, like all Americans, however, I almost always buy American when I have the choice. With most manufactured goods there is no American option. Sometimes there is and I buy accordingly. Jeans, shoes, guns, optics, knives, tools, gear. Some things are still made in America.
Shame is made in China, I was almost convinced!, Thank’s to those who opened my eyes, Viva America! I never buy Chinese products.
Stop the Socialist Labor Unions from bringing down the American Economy and maybe we would not have to buy products that were made in China.
Politics aside, the Lucid HD7 Gen II with 2x screw in magnifier solved a lot of problems for me in finding the right magnifier/base to fit the red dot sight. I originally bought an L3 Eo-Tech model 516 Holographic for my Stag 15. It almost cost as much as the gun! Great sight but to finding a compatible magnifier to increase the 1x of the red dot sight cost as much as the Eo-Tech. Too expensive, too bulky and not for what I wanted. I needed a good red dot sight for the range and home. The Lucid HD7 Gen II solved all those problems, is durable, uses a common AAA battery, is water proof and easy to use and zero in at 25 yards. For the price and quality, it fit the philosophy of why I got the Stag 15. Affordable quality…
Isn’t the AimPoint brand made somewhere else? Maybe if labor costs were less we could export red dots to China.
Tell you what this scope is awesome and if anyone is going to cry about it being made in China, they need to do a little crying for the US manufacturing industry unions that have forces all this upon us.
Unions are destroying this nation.
Unions and they’re thug bosses are a joke,
Love the Lucid HD7. It shows that a quality optic can be manufactured at reasonable prices. I don’t understand how folks defend Aimpoint when they are more completely foreign made than an HD7( HD7 is U.S designed). Eotech is a solid product but I am not willing to pay military contract prices for civilian optics.
As far as supporting communism by buying Chinese goods goes, China is a Fascist politically and Capitalistic economically. If you want to place blame on the whole sale of U.S industry to China, it is ultimately our own fault for electing politicians who legislate to the highest bidder. Ironically , what has wiped out American skilled labor jobs is American Corporations lobbying our government for lax trade policy in order to boost their own profitability
I just bought the HD7 and love it. As for the buying American thing, I can’t afford to pay $500 for a scope. If that was all that was available, I would not have bought anything. Another thing, after this last election, I have no sympathy for union labor and will never support them as long as they support the likes of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. It has become a choice of supporting a Communist party in China or the American Communist Party, the Democrats here. I feel the one in China is less of a threat because it is on the other side of the world. The other, the Democrats, are right here in my own back yard.
I’m strongly looking at buying the Lucid here in the next week. I see nothing but rave reviews about it. Regarding ‘buying American’ speech, save it. If this sight were $500 plus, you’d be complaining that it was too expensive. We live in a global economy, and companies are going to do what they need to do in order to save money, grow and survive. If that means manufacturing in another country, then so be it. Just remember that when corps are not penalized by the GOP or Dems for the harboring of illegal workers. Big business wants them here to save billions on wages and benefits.