My take on the LaserMax after using one for awhile...the good and the not so good.
I got mine free. Its a dept.issue for my Glock 21. I always thought that if I were gonna have a laser on my pistol, the LaserMax would be it. Its simple, it doesnt clutter up the gun and you dont need a new holster for it. It seems to be fairly robust...at least I havent broken it yet. I'm really not crazy about hanging stuff off of my guns. Its just more stuff to break off. The LaserMax is pretty protected.
I had to tinker with it to make it meet the point of impact. That meant taking it out,looking at it,and putting it back in. When the dept. armourer installed it, it was printing about the a foot to the right at 15 yards. I took it out and simply rolled it in place to cure the problem. It is dead on now and seems to be holding its position.
Most of the other Deputys experienced the same problem. Most of them chose to take it off and leave it off. Some complained about the point of impact, although that seemed easy enought to me to fix, they didnt want to mess with it. The on/off switch, which in the case of the Glock is the takedown latch, dosent really have a "click" to it, its rather mushy and its hard to determine if you moved it far enough to activate it or not. I wish they had a little ball detent in there or something that you could feel.
Several of the guys had the switch activate themselves in the holster. This isnt a problem other than the fact that if you are riding around all day in a patrol car and you dont know that its on, then you will kill the batteries pretty quick. As for the switch coming on, we think that it may happen when putting seat belts on and off. An inadvertant bump on the holster may do it.
A few of the guys that arent gunpeople complained that the increased tension on the spring may it harder to cycle the action by hand. It is a little harder, but should only be a problem if you are a total wuss.
It does seem to add to the recoil somewhat, as the spring dosent soak up near as much of it as the stock spring does. In actual application, the added recoil had no effect on my accuracy and rapid fire drills. On the other hand, I dont think that my .50 BMG kicks too much so my judgement may be quite different than most folks.:image035:
When I put it though its paces, it was apparent that it was a valuable tool to have even in spite of its shortcomings. At 25 yards with contolled fire,I was using complete cover and sticking the gun up over a table and shooting it without any sights other than the laser on the target. I was able to put all of the shots in the 9 and 10 rings with little effort. If the dot in on the target, and its still on the target when the shot goes off...the bullet will be there.
It will bring to ones attention just how unsteady a handgun can be. It will accent and magnify poor shooting habits. If you have a hard trigger on the gun you will be able to see just exactly how far off target you are when the shot goes off. It can be used as an educational aid for that aspect.
The pulsating dot is easier to see than a fixed dot. Expecially at night during live fire exercises when you exit the vehical and the target is lit only by flashing headlights and rotating blue lights and strobes. There is enough light "clutter" there that the pulsating dot seems much easier to pick up than one that doesent.
I dont "depend "on the Laser dot at all but still prefer to bring the gun up to eyes level while keeping both eyes open...Im more of an instinctive shooter when it comes down to it. It did serve to confirm that I was on target when shooting steel plates for time. I dont think it made me any quicker, but it did serve to verify that I was on target.
I think that when used in its proper context, it can be a valuable aid...more so if you are shooting from cover with a less than ideal postiton.
Well...thats my 2 cents.
Im interested to hear of other experiences...
