Has anybody else had a chance to use an MPS, if so please let me know your thoughts in here.
I have been T&E'ing a Steiner MPS for Steiner for the last few weeks. I've only had a chance to shoot a few hundred rounds so far, however I am teaching a two day pistol/carbine class tomorrow in the snow and mud which will give me a great opportunity to really beat this thing up.
I currently have it mounted on my duty gun, a Glock 45 MOS, with the stock mount (ACRO footprint) and MOS #1 Plate. I have a Forward Controls ACRO MOS Plate awaiting install, but I wanted to test out the stock plate first. My classes involved a lot of one handed/injured shooter work and VTAC barricade work, so the optic tends to get smashed around buried in the mud and dirt quite a bit.
(Holosun 509T pictured for reference)
Install was straight forward, with everything needed being included in the box from Steiner. You'll need to convert NM to Inch Pounds as the instruction booklet recommends NM for torque. I googled the conversions and found a conversion that made this relatively easy. Until now, I have never seen NM as a torque rating on optics, I am assuming this is a euro thing. A little blue loctite, torque driver, and some impact rated torx bits made this install complete.
The battery is a CR1632, which is a battery I have not encountered before amongst my T2, Holosun 507k, 507, and 509T, and many RMR's. It top loads, which I really like for duty guns as battery's can fail and the need to be able to change them at work without zeroing is huge.
There are two buttons on the side, + and -, which change the brightness from NV levels to very daylight bright. I recently transitioned to dayshift for the first time in five years, which means I work in a few hours of darkness, 9 hours of daylight, and have to clear buildings that range from pitch black to fluorescent bright. As such, I tend to set my dots on daylight bright, and then back down one level, which tends to work in all settings. Pressing both buttons locks the brightness in place. The buttons offer positive clicks and require enough force that they likely will not be accidentally bumped one way or another.
Elevation and windage adjustments are no different than any other optic. I do not like that RMR's generally do not have a tactile click when adjusting your windage/elevation, so I was pleased to see the MPS does. The MPS adjusts in 1 MOA clicks.
While window size and glass clarity is not the most important thing in pistol RDS shooting, it was very nice to use an optic with bright and mostly clear glass and a huge window size. There is no color tint to the glass which is also a nice change from other optics. Dot size is 3.3 MOA and very crisp when adjusted correctly.
The optic itself is obviously and enclosed emitter with what appears to be a beefy and well-protected housing. After tens of thousands of rounds on open-emitter optics in every condition imaginable, I have come to greatly appreciate the enclosed-emitters and am in the process of transitioning to them 100 percent. Time will tell if the MPS is as tough as it's 509T and ACRO competitors, though at first glance it appears to be stout.
Let's talk about the bad: The first version of the MPS, of which I was loaned by Steiner, has an auto shutoff feature after 13 hours. I despise this feature, and would like to slap the engineer who designed it with a wet noodle. I carry an RDS pistol every day of the week, often for about 12-16 hours a day. I work 12 hour shifts, which when stuck on a hot call or with a trainee can turn into 14-16 hour shifts. I need my optic on all the time until I decide to shut it off. I recently had a robbery in progress at the end of my shift, and when I returned to the PD to type the report I was 14 hours in. I checked my MPS and it was off, which means it turned off sometime during the robbery investigation. There is NO WAY to turn off this feature.
I contacted my rep at Steiner who advised me that they received a lot of flack for this feature and are no longer selling auto-shutoff Steiner MPS. I received an email on 1/25/22 stating that the second version sans auto-shutoff is available for purchase. If it holds up this weekend, I will be purchasing the newest version.
Holster fitment: The MPS did not fit in my Safariland 6354 DO, which is fine because it wasn't made for this optic. A little heat to the holster allowed me to fully seat the MPS, and a little heat the the wing at the top near the ALS nub allowed me to bend it slightly outwards. It fits just fine now. No issue with fitment in my duty Safariland 6390 RDS.
I will report back with picks and another review this weekend. I have high hopes for the durability of the MPS, we'll see how it performs.
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Originally Posted by mebiuspower
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