Riton MPRD

I’ll never forget the first time I read the words “The Aging Defender” it was the title of an article that went into detail on what else to expect later in life besides more frequent bathroom visits and the occasional unscheduled underwear change. These functions aren’t the only ones that won’t be as crisp when you get older, your eyesight starts to go too. Yes, it’s true that while those words could only be referring to guys much MUCH older than I, I found the parts about eyesight to hit a little too close to home.

Although there is no perfect medical remedy for correcting short-range vision, it doesn’t have to affect our pistol shooting. Pistol-mounted optics are commonplace today and as with most things optical, Riton has found the formula to making a solid, affordable red-dot that fits even the smallest of handguns, the MPRD. I have been waiting for the MPRD or Micro Pistol Red Dot ever since I started carrying the Canik SC. When this little double-stack came into my life I wanted nothing more than to make use of its optic-ready slide but I decided to hold out for this little number because I have been so impressed with the larger version (the PRD).

The MPRD starts life as a block of 6061 aircraft-grade aluminum. Through its use, the body of the optic achieves a negligible overall weight and a durability that allows it to be also be used as a racking point. At just six-tenths of an ounce, it isn’t noticeable on your belt or even in your grip, other than for the fact that you can acquire and reacquire a target faster than you could when you used to stay up past 10 pm. Once milled out, the MPRD is completed with Riton’s HD fully-multicoated glass and an electronics suite that features 10 levels of brightness, 12-hour auto shutoff, and a whopping 50,000 hours of battery life off of a single CR2032 battery. Any optic that doesn’t have a silly long battery life is essentially worthless to me. I feel this way because you won’t have time to turn it on in an altercation, so it better be on already. At 50K hours that’s enough juice to power it up every day for more than 10 years. The 12-hour run time keeps it on for a typical roundtrip commute and work shift and should shut down right before bedtime (for us old guys). Now if I had one suggestion for improvement, I would like to see a model that NEVER shuts off. Hey, I can live with 5 years of battery life if it means never having to remember to turn it on in the morning. I’m lucky if coherent enough to turn on the coffee maker and get half my piss in the bowl.

Installation of the new optic was simple, as I literally handled it in the driver’s seat of my car at the range. The MPRD is built with the very common Shield RMSc Type Footprint that aligned perfectly with the Canik’s factory slide cut. Canik even included the necessary mounting screws so there was next to no effort involved with getting this package together. The battery is installed during the mounting procedure and is secured between the optic and the slide. I know a lot of folks balk at this setup but there is no denying that it is the industry’s most secure method of keeping a battery in place and the LED lit during firing. Besides, is it really that much of a hassle to remove two screws every ten years? After zeroing the optic out, I tested its retention by removing and reinstalling the optic five times. There was no discernable change in impact at defensive distances. In other words, I’ll probably be dead before I’ve changed the batteries as many times as I have during testing, and the overall time to do so was less than 15 minutes; including the five-shot groups to re-check my zero each time.

I found the 3 MOA dot to be a great fit for this optic. It’s doubtful that I’ll ever use the gun outside of 25 yards, and even at that distance, it’s plenty small to keep on the head of an IPSC target. I tested the gun with a variety of defensive ammunition, including a few boxes of +P to ensure that it got its fair shake of recoil. Throughout our 500 round test, the gun retained zero and didn’t experience any failures to feed or eject. Compact pistols can be picky, especially when mass is added to the slide as the added resistance retards the rearward force required to cycle the action. All in all, I am very satisfied with Riton’s MPRD and it has remained on this pistol ever since it was installed and zeroed.

For more information visit Ritonoptics.com