Holosun HE403 Review
I remember when holosun came onto the scene and people were questioning its reliability as a budget-friendly red dot. The price point was relatively low, but what you got seemed to be a red dot that was sturdy, well-built, and didn’t seem like it would fall apart after a couple of magazines. Once people started to trust Holosun more broadly, red dot variations started pouring out.
My favorite from Holosun currently is the HE403. It’s simple, reliable, and efficient. I’ve used this red dot as a primary sighting system on AR-15’s, as a secondary on my AR-10, and it was great on a 300 blk pistol. It was very easy to use with just two buttons for power/brightness, two adjustment knobs in half-MOA increments, and a battery tray. Across each platform that I’ve used it on, it has held zero. The battery life on it is up to 50,000 hours, so I just change it once a year to be safe and I’ve never had one die early.
Having used this for hunting, range training, instruction, and edc, I can say I’m quite confident in Holosun. I know even some police agencies and even some foreign military service members have used them on their duty weapons.
The Holosun HE403 is a closed emitter red dot that comes in a couple variations. The HE403B is the one I have that is button-operated. The HE403R is the same thing except that it is dial-operated. The HE403C is button-operated but it also has a small solar strip on top to help extend battery life.The HE403R comes in a red or gold dot, and the others come in red or green. Being a closed emitter means that the light emitter that creates the dot is housed inside the tube instead of being exposed, so you don’t have to worry about dust or mud blocking the light.
As I said, the Lithium CR2032 battery life is up to 50,000 hours. I’d bet it’s even longer than that now, because the new models feature shake-awake, a technology that automatically powers off the unit when it is left idle for a certain amount of time, and has motion-sense technology to immediately return to the last brightness setting when you pick it back up. Speaking of brightness settings, it has 12. The first two are night vision compatible, and then the next ten are daylight compatible. The HE403 is parallax-free with unlimited eye relief, and comes in a 20mm tube. Lastly, the HE403 is IP67 rated, so it’s okay with dust and can be submerged up to 1m for 30 minutes.
It also comes with some good stuff like the option to use the absolute cowitness mount or the lower ⅓ cowitness mount. Adding to its versatility, it works well at both top-mounted or canted, and Holosun’s HM3X magnifier works with both mounting options as well. The only thing I would change if I could would be that it isn’t threaded for an anti-reflective device, so you have to get a friction-fit one. That’s not bad at all considering that you can commonly find an HE403B in the $130-$150 ballpark.