Holosun 509T ACSS Vulcan: Worth your time?

 I did a video:

Here's the transcript:

Holosun 509t ACSS Vulcan is a primary arms exclusive. It's got a very different reticle setup than anything else you've seen in a pistol-mounted optic. In this video, I'm going to explore whether it's going to be worth it to you, if it's going to be helpful or hurt you. The answer to all those questions is probably 'it depends,' but stick around. I did a real interesting study.

All right, my good friend Kyle took this off of his gun recently. He put on a Holosun SCS instead. There are plus and minuses to both, but he said, 'Hey, do you want to test that out?' I said, 'Yeah, I'd love to.' This is just a standard Red Dot and installing it on a gun, all those things you guys have seen, so I'm going to fast forward through some of the install. I've got an interesting idea for a test on this if it pans out, we'll find out. But anyways, so let's fast forward some through this install.

Side note about the ACSS version of this, guys, is it won't fit the standard footprint for the 509t. You need a specific plate. You got two choices. By the way, Holosun has one that comes with it that will work for MOS so that makes life a little easier, or you can get one from so if you don't want to use the included one, you do have options. The standard 509t footprint won't swing it; you need to use something a little different. So, I don't know if you guys can see in the camera, but there's the reticle. We've got the Chevron in the middle and the ring around the outside and it is selectable. You can turn off that ring and just have the reticle, just that little Chevron. I know my friend Kyle, who loaned me this bad boy, said that this thing ate batteries. I am guessing that it really eats the batteries with that ring. I'm going to probably turn it off when I'm not going to be running it, but like I said, I have some tests in mind, so we're going to see what we see. I'm going to zero this tomorrow, and then we will start the tests. I'm not going to spoil what those tests are, but I have some thoughts, so definitely stay tuned for that.

So, I put a call out on Facebook. I figured I could shoot this gun, but that's just me, it's one subjective opinion. What probably would be better is if I got multiple people to test out this gun and get their thoughts and feelings as well as some objective data in terms of what they were doing. So like I said, I put a call out on Facebook. I asked for people who had shot a bunch with iron sights but had little or no experience with a DOT on a handgun or an optical on a handgun. I got a bunch of responses, but unfortunately due to the time constraints I had, I really could only get six people and to get them going. So, I really appreciate those guys. In the future, maybe I could do more. I know there were a couple people who through scheduling conflicts couldn't really make my time window, but six people, and the test was as follows.

Okay, so the object is this: I'm going to have you start with the iron sight gun. It's going to be on the table when the buzzer goes off. You're going to pick it up, you're going to fire one round, put it somewhere on that Bullseye paper at five yards, and then the next buzzer, I'm going to have you go to the middle gun, which is just a dot gun, do the same thing, and then the third time, you're going to go to the Vulcan reticle gun, do the same thing, and we're going to go round robin, ten times. So you're going to get one round on each, one round on each, one round on each. And the deal is, you've got to see the sights before you press the trigger. So the iron's gun, you have to see the front side on the target before you press the trigger or the dot gun, you got to see the dots somewhere on the target before you press the trigger. I understand that your current level of skill, you probably could at five yards, relatively rapidly, just index the gun without using the siding system, but I want that to be part of the variable. Like, I need you to have some level of sighting on target before we press off the shot. So, I don't want you to go wildly fast, but I don't want you to go wildly slow. I want you to go at, you know, 90 to 100 of your normal speed. Like, don't don't burn it down. Like, don't do that hero or zero [__] where maybe you hit, maybe you don't. Like, I want you to guarantee your hit, but don't don't move like molasses. Okay, so does that make sense, understood? And like I said, we'll do it, you know, grand total is going to be 30 rounds, 10 rounds, out of each gun, and we'll do a round robin style, so we'll see if we get any noticeable data one way or the other. Good to go. Anyway, once I told them that the only real standard was pick up the gun, shoot the target for each one of those guns. I wanted to make sure they weren't Point shooting. It was critical that wasn't just an index shot, but that they did see the irons or the dot or the triangle before they shot their round each time. Now obviously as the times go on, everybody gets better right, because they get more and more kind of used to what they're doing, but nevertheless, there were some interesting things, and I graphed them all out. Stand by for that, and I'm going to talk you through it. 

So my first test case is Rob S. Rob has been shooting for something like two decades. He's a pretty accomplished shooter and he is a Firearms instructor. Despite all that, he had no real time with Optics on handguns, so he was an ideal test case. If you look at the graphs, you can see that his regular dot, that's the blue line, was always faster than the Vulcan, but in almost every case, he was faster with the irons, which would be that tan line. When I was done, I asked Rob like what did you think, and he told me that he liked the dot better than the Vulcan. The Vulcan with the circle and the Chevron, he said, was just too busy for him and it kind of distracted him. I apologize, I didn't actually film that interview with him or much of his shooting. He did seem to acclimatized pretty rapidly to the dot. I think with a little bit of formal instruction, he would probably crush with it, but for this test, just right out of the gate, you can definitely see that that red line, that was the Vulcan, and it never really got much better. And there were a couple of outliers, you see like shots eight on both of them, there was a little bit of searching for the optic reticle before he got his shot off. Like I said, overall, Rob said he liked the dot better. 

My second test case was Christopher B. He had a lot of time once again on irons, probably about 13 or 14 years worth, if my recollection is true, and it may even be more than that. Now, one thing I did notice with Christopher is that, while all these lines seem somewhat the same, he moves his head around a lot when he is bringing his sighting system up into his sight line. That seemed to cause him some delays. I didn't do any coaching at all during this, so what I could have readily corrected, I let go for the purposes of this test. As you can see, the dot really wasn't his friend, except on I think shot nine, maybe a little bit on eight, but in general, his irons time was right in the middle. The Vulcan Tom was almost dead on. The dot was the thing that he struggled with the most. When I talked to him after, he said he preferred the Vulcan reticle, that it was much easier for him to find the sight and get it on target each time.

My third shooter was Keith. Keith, once again another firearms instructor who's never spent much time on a dot. And if you look, you can really tell on that first shot, he struggled, struggled, struggled to find the dot, but pretty rapidly acclimatized once we got into shots two through ten. And if you really want to not make a mountain out of a molehill, they really all kind of flatten out at that point. The Vulcan reticle for shots four, five and six kind of goes up. The dot is almost dead even with his irons the entire time. And this is kind of the same thing. I want to talk to Keith at the end. He said that the Vulcan reticle was too busy, so for him, he much preferred the dot, and he enjoyed shooting the dot.

My next case is Dex, a long-time shooter and someone who is more of a "primitive weapons kind of guy." He spent a lot of time doing musket work and shooting black powder matchlocks and flintlocks. If you look at his times, everything was pretty even, except for the first three shots with that dot. For those, he really struggled to find that dot, but once he got acclimatized to it after shot four, you can see it's right in there with the rest. Now, Dex did a consent to an on-video interview, so rather than me telling you his thoughts, I'm just going to have him interject and tell you his thoughts. So, here's Dex:

"So, Dex, now that you shot all three, what did you think about the Vulcan reticle, that's the one with the circle and the Chevron? What'd you think about that? The uh, it could use a little bit smaller circle. The uh, I was having to wobble it around a lot to find the Chevron, and quite frankly, I would say that's probably where most of the flyers on the target are, is because as soon as I saw the Chevron, I was touching it off. Compare that to one that was just a DOT, which one did you like better? Once I figured out where the dot was, the dot works a little better. So, hypothetically, if you were going to go put an optic on one of your pistols, which one do you think you'd go with? I'd probably go with a DOT. Okay, just curious. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. 

My next case was Ace. Now, Ace is a bit of a ringer in that he's got a bunch of time on the dot, but he was a little bit rusty, so it was an interesting control. If you look at his irons, Tom, once again, pretty flat. There were on shot four for the dot, and shot five for the Vulcan. Uh, kind of some outliers where there was some hunting for it, and even shots eight and nine you see that a little bit with the Vulcan. Once you get rid of those outlying shots, everything kind of falls into that nice middle streamline line. But Ace had a couple of issues when it came to the dots, and I don't want to put him on blast, but he was moving his head around a little bit as well when he was bringing the gun up into his sight line. 

Once again, Ace considered for an interview, so here's Ace talking about his experience with the Vulcan reticle: 

"All right, Ace, tell me what you thought about the Vulcan reticle, the circle in the Chevron. Uh, the circle on the server, I kind of honestly kind of liked it. It kind of reminded me of the reticle that the Predator had in the movies, and I was using the tip of the triangle, yeah, as my reference point. Okay, it's like my front side tip, but on the reticle. Okay, did you, so did you like it more than a dot? Um, honestly, I'm gonna say I like both, but if I had to pick one, I think I would probably skip it, a dot. Okay, why? Uh, I've had more time with the dot versus the Vulcan reticle, but if I had maybe the equal amount of time, I probably would like, I could say both, but right now, I would say the red dot for now. Okay, curious. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you."

Lastly, I've got Dan. Dan has been shooting for a long time, but unlike some of these other guys, Dan doesn't make it to the range as often, so and he'll tell you this in his own words when he gets to his interview. It's interesting if you look at the averages between iron shots, ton, Vulcan, his final average, 2.11, 2.4, and 2.1 for the Vulcan. Really, when it comes to irons, and that Vulcan, he was kind of dead even and the dot was a little bit of a lag, and that held true almost entirely throughout the entire set of shots. So for Dan, that Vulcan really kind of paid off, and once again, here is Dan talking about his experience with that optic: 

"Dan, you shot all three of those guns, including just a regular dot and that Vulcan with the Chevron, what did you like the best? I was leaning toward the uh, the Chevron version, why? Because I was having an easier time getting that lined up than the Red Dot, especially initially when I was not really familiar with red dot at all. Okay, so I got the idea of getting the right level and stuff more quickly, I think on that one, okay. Um, after you did the test, you went back and played with them some more, did that just reinforce your feelings, or did it change them? Uh, I started doing much better with the conventional red dots after I'd used it a few more times. I used it about 20 times total, I guess, during the course of his shoot. So, I was definitely improving as I went along. Okay. Um, lastly, are you inclined to put an optic on any of your pistols at this point, I'm more likely to than I was before. Okay, I knew the theoretical value before but I'd never actually seen the value and yeah, compared to the iron sights, I feel like I'm in a previous century. Okay, fair enough.

Would you put one of the Vulcan ones on if you did, or a regular Dot? Like the Vulcan was the one with the Chevron, you think you'd put the Chevron on or do you think you'd go with a regular Dot? I might try this Chevron for the first time, to be my first if you will okay and then see how that goes because yeah, I probably still would need that extra edge of having a quicker time picking up where the dot is when I'm not necessarily getting to the right place. Also, the frequency with which I shoot means that I would probably benefit from having that extra edge. Uh, okay, compared to just finding the Red Dot in a hurry if I needed to.

Okay, all right, hey Dan, thanks man, I appreciate you." 

That's a lot of numbers and a lot of shooting. So, now the question is, this the right optic for you? That ACSS reticle, is it the right one for you? I've got some thoughts, but in general, it depends, obviously.

But first, if you shoot a lot and you dry fire a lot and especially if you can knock out like a test, a 10-10-10 and get between 90 and 100 every time, probably that additional reticle is going to be too busy for you, it's going to be too much and I don't think that's going to help you out. If you already have a substantive amount of time behind a red dot and you're super comfortable with it, then once again, I think that reticle is not for you.

Now, the whole world besides that starts to fall into a couple of different categories. If you don't shoot very often, because of time, circumstance, other things like I get it, this starts to make sense if you're that person. If you can't get to the range very often, you don't get a lot of dry fire in, too much family, too many obligations, work, whatever, this is probably not a bad idea. If you move your head around a lot when you draw, and the easy way to see this is just use a little bit of dry fire in the mirror, if you are ducking or turning your head or all these things in order to try and find the sighting system, then I think that the Vulcan reticle is super helpful for shooters who do that. And then lastly of course, it comes down to personal preference. If you think that you would really enjoy this, then I think that you should give it a shot.

Har, har, but nevertheless guys, that's my general thoughts, I enjoyed using this. I didn't find it to be detrimental in shooting Bullseye, I did a couple of Bullseye runs with this at 25. I didn't find it to be any worse than using the dot, it was probably a little slower because I had to remember to use the tip of the Chevron and not just use the whole Chevron at 25 yards, that Chevron covers the entire 9 and 10 ring on a B8, at least with my eye relief with this at my arm's length. So, the Chevron seemed pretty darn big once we start to get that distance, whereas with the normal dot, it's like a three minute dot, a three MOA dot, it still seems pretty nice and precise at that range. So, if you're doing a lot of long distance shooting that may also preclude you from this particular reticle, it may not be your jam at that point either.

Guys, that's all I've got. I enjoyed testing this. Thanks to Kyle for letting me borrow this. That was super nice of you. And don't worry Kyle, I didn't hammer any nails with it or drop it. Everybody else has been doing that, I don't need to repeat that. We know this is a durable optic. Also, to my six test subjects, guys, thank you all. I really appreciate you. For the extra two or three who volunteered but we couldn't make it work, I still appreciate you. Maybe I'll catch up to you for another test at some point. I'm probably going to do more videos after this, so God only knows on what. In general, guys, thank you very much for watching this video. I know it went a little bit long, a lot of numbers, and I know numbers get a little boring for some people. If you've enjoyed this, guys, I'd really appreciate a like, a share, and a subscription if you haven't already. If you hated the heck out of this video and you're still watching at this point, I appreciate you. Take care, stay safe, and I'll talk to you soon.