Votatu Green Laser Sight

This sight fits nice and is low profile. The laser is very bright and a good size dot. The button is can be easily accessed by my thumb. I like that it’s rechargeable and the strobe feature also. Personally, I rather it be a flat matte black finish rather than the glossy black. I had mine for about a year and the adjustment screws were becoming loose somehow, such that after shooting a few shots the laser would lose it's 25 yard zero. Apperantly this isn't common, and as soon as I informed the company they immediately sent me a replacement free of charge. Talk about great customer service! Since I had bought this when it was a new product on Amazon, I assume I got a laser in one of the early manufacturing batches, so I'm sure the issue has been resolved since then. I highly recommend, especially since the company stands behind their product and rights any wrongs that may arise!

I love this Votatu M4L-G green laser sight. You can mount it right on any firearm that has an M-lok system. It's very easy to mount. Took me about 5 minutes. It takes about an hour for it to charge up. It is very powerful and accurate. I'm not sure how far the green dot goes in distance, but a long way. It comes with a small Allen wrench so that you can zero in the laser. I like my Votatu laser so much that I am going to buy another one for another firearm that I have.

Worked Great, Holds charge a long time and super bright.

I got one of these because I saw someone using one on the range and got curious. I use lasers on my defensive firearms, brands like LaserMax and Crimson Trace and Veridian. The stuff that's proven with traceable standards of quality and testing. This Votatu laser has none of that, however, that doesn't mean its necessarily bad. Reviews, well, on Amazon for the reviews you never know for a budget firearm item if the people posting reviews actually know what they are doing and how extensive their 'testing' really was, then there are the random thoughts from the 'airsoft' crowd that has absolutely zero to do with real firearms in real defensive uses, and it seems there are a few fake reviews as well, then there are the 'influencer reviews'. Youtube reviews, yeah I've seen dozens of them on this laser but with the exception of a few you only get a worthless unboxing video or a 'hey, I mounted it and can turn it on. Look at the dot!" video's - a box doesn't really thrill me, yes things come in a box I get it, and I'm not a cat so watching someone shining a laser dot around their house going on and on about it doesn't tell me anything - these don't really tell you anything you can use to make a 'reliability purpose use' decision and its mostly people just talking on and on and on. Well, I'm a little more serious about my firearms having actually used them in actual defense encounters so when I put something on my firearms I tend to look at it from a real life defensive use aspect and not a range toy or unboxing or cat toy aspect. Then you have those review videos where the 'supposedly experienced or expert' person is clearly an idiot, For example, one person claimed this laser had an 'auto shut off' feature to conserve battery power and demonstrated that by showing the laser being on and five minutes later it went off. This is 100% false...there is no auto shut off battery conserving feature for this laser, its suppose to be 2 hours continuous run time and ya might get more if its on storbe. This person either had a defective laser or the thing needed to be charged and was too dumb to realize that so really how 'experienced or expert' was this person? 1. The first thing I did to test this laser was verify the claim of charge time and run time. From a complete discharge to a 'full charge' (indicated by the green charged light on the side showing) it took right at 1.5 hours as claimed. For run time, it ran with a nice steady bright beam for 2 hours and 8 minutes before it started to dim and and become intermittent at 2 hours and 15 minutes it turned off completely and needed to be recharged before it would turn on again. Granted, this was a new just out of the box laser so the battery life over time might change some but for the claims made it did as claimed, and they all might not do the same. Run time for this laser is completely suitable for a defensive use, but of course you are not going to have your laser on for 2 hours in a defensive use anyway and the average is about maybe a minute so tun time is more than adequate and 2 hours is more than enough for any range use practice. Even most of the big name brand civilian grade more expensive rifle lasers have less run time, plus the auto shutoff feature of those lasers is irritating if you are on the range and want the laser to stay on. 2. The next thing I did to test it was mount it and go fire the rifle. Standard AR, 13 " free float aluminum hand guard, mounted on left side parallel to bore. The laser aperture center is 1.15 inches from center bore. I set it up for a parallel zero to have a constant offset at any test distance, I hate converging zero on a rifle as the offset constantly changes with distance before and after the zero distance point. I fired 300 rounds, one mag right after the other, not a frantic mag dump but until the mag was empty using just the laser. I did 50 meters and 100 meters. I know the distance between center bore and the laser aperture, I know the ballistic characteristics of the ammo I used so I know out to at least 200 meters with a 50/200 zero that the bullet POI is going to be within +/- 1.5 inch (vertical) maximum of POA between 50 meters out to 200 meters with being right on the zero point at 50 meters and 200 meters. With the rifle mounted and locked down in a locked down sled the laser dot remained to the left of the POI the distance of the laser aperture to bore center of 1.15 inches, in other words, the beam remained parallel to the bore and stable in the horizontal and vertical axis and provided a stable constant offset aiming point that did not move meaning the laser zero did not change. I then fired another 500 rounds after this and the laser zero did not change. This was conducted in twilight to darkness, I had no trouble seeing the laser dot at 50 or 100 meters, but it was easier to see at 50 than it was at 100 until it got dark enough. 3. The overall claim of distance for the laser is 200 meters during day and up to 2000 meters at night - well, just shining the laser around I hit a spot at a known 200 meter distance in twilight before I took it to the range and although if you look close you can pick out the laser if you have good eyes but at those distances the color of the surface matters a lot more if its not really that reflective of light you will not see it very well or at all and of course the dot is going to become larger the more distance involved because this is not a collimated laser with a constrained tight beam but the thing is only $50.00 so I did not expect it to be collimated. But yeah, the claim of 200 meters is true. 4. Then after firing on a free float hand guard AR I put it on a non-free float AR hand guard AR. After 10 rounds the zero started to shift slightly but then settled down a bit but by 100 rounds after that the zero had shifted again. Put it back on the free float, re-zero'd, and fired and the zero remained constant. So, based upon this, and already expecting this because even big name brand or not rifle lasers with screw zero adjustments instead of click will shift zero on non-free float hand guards and its just a matter of how long before they do it - so based upon this the laser is better suited for a free float hand guard. 5. Will it take abuse? Maybe you do not purposely abuse your firearms and neither do I (except maybe some in training) but sometimes accidents happen, and believe me having been in defense encounters its entirely possible you just might smack that rifle laser, for example, against a door frame and if you are using a laser for those very quick shots where ya don't actually aim (its actually rare for a person to actually aim in CQB like in, for example, in the maybe a second at best you might have in a self/home defense situation - over 90% of people in such situations never even saw their sights or red dot when they fired in such situations). So I didn't smack the laser on a door frame, but I did beat it some with a soft plastic water bottle like you see in some video reviews for firearms optics and it held zero. But, here's the thing about those plastic water bottle 'abuse' things you see - its mostly a trick of deception (even if the person may not realize it) because the force of the water bottle striking the thing is not as great as its implied because the plastic deforms a lot and that causes most of the force to be spread out along the water bottle instead of being focused on the item being hit. So I smacked mine with a block of hard polymer, the stuff that, for example, Magpul polymer rails are made from, smacked it several times with moderate blows. Then I fired the gun again (free float hand guard), the zero had shifted some. Re-zero'd and continued firing and zero remained constant until 130 rounds and started to shift zero a little. So re-zero'd and it remained zero'd through the rest of the 500 rounds I was doing then. I expected this to happen - the zero screws when you first start to zero have a little looseness to them, not a rattle/wobble around looseness but a very easy turn looseness but there was a point in the zero where they seemed to have tightened up in doing the parallel zero adjustment and its at that point where the zero did not shift again. 6. So, today I've put the laser in a zip lock bag with the air removed and put it in a plastic container filler with water and its in the freezer where it will remain for a few days frozen in a block of ice. Then I will see if it still works. Then after that I will subject it to heat, not much, range temps on a hot summer day in full sunlight type of heat for example - gets up around 100 degrees here in the summer - and see how it works then. Then I will subject it to most physical abuse. But although my very brief and initial firing and zero tests showed some promise for use with with a free float hand guard 5.56 AR rifle, like most China made budget firearms lasers and optics stuff, I expect it to fail in some or all aspects after heating and freezing and if it doesn't it will be a pleasant surprise. The worst that can happen is I've lost $50.00 and maybe have a laser pointer I can give to my cat owning neighbor to use for a cat toy. UPDATE HERE: I've completed the freezer test and the heat test - laser still works and held zero after freezing, but it seems a little sensitive to heat and had a zero shift and the laser dot was dimmer for a bit until it cooled down - but, it still turned on an functioned. The heating was actually at 110 degrees and that is somewhat out of the norm anyway. So overall the freezing and heating - the laser withstood those and although there was a little zero shift due to the heating it wasn't enough to put it off target with a parallel zero with its 0.3 inch shift and was still useful and this is on par with the shift experienced with my Olight weapon light lasers and my Crimson trace lasers when subjected to the same heating test. But, the dimming due to heating indicates the laser could fail if it gets too hot, like for example, what can happen with heat radiating off a gun with a barrel that hot due to extensive firing. It might not fail completely, but part of setting up a rifle for defensive use is also taking steps to mitigate potential failure possibility as much as you can. Because of the heating test I would not recommend this laser be placed on the hand guard at the 11, 12, or 2 o'clock positions on the hand guard. 7. NO! this laser is not suitable for a 12 Ga defensive shotgun. I tried it too. It kept working but the zero was all over the place and changed with each shot. I would not use it on any defensive shotgun. The recoil energy from a shot gun is greater than a 5.56 AR and the laser does not seem to take the shotgun recoil energy very well. Yeah, someone is gonna claim "I use it on my home defense shotgun and its perfect." - No, it isn't. Part of setting up a firearm for defensive use is also taking steps to mitigate potential failure possibility as much as you can. So for right now my opinion: A. Based upon the brief and initial usage as I've described, this budget laser is fine for what it is and the price. B. Its housing and quality for that is really nice and meets a need for very low profile closer to bore laser which is a need that has been around for a while for a rifle laser that the big brand companies did not fill. C. I see some need for improvement in the zero aspect. Moving away from the screw method used to a higher quality true click zero adjustment retention would probably improve the reliability of this laser for real firearms use as far as zero hold. Although the screw method held zero mostly here on a free float rail on an AR, its prone to not remain stable and then again it might like it did for me - in short its not as reliable for zero hold because it can't be expected to hold zero under all circumstances for long term, like for example, LaserMax lasers do with holding zero for at least 5,000 or more rounds due to their click MOA adjustment mechanism. D. I have no complaints about the brightness. It is very bright as one might expect for a quality green laser internal module so I was a pleased at that so at least there is a quality green laser internal module inside most likely. Its brightness was on par with my LaserMax and Crimson trace and veridian lasers, and seemed a little brighter than my Olight weapon light lasers. The dot its self was a tiny bit larger than my LaserMax and Crimson trace lasers but was the same size as my Olight weapon light lasers. E. Would I trust my life to this laser? The simple answer based upon my own experience is No and the reason for that is its lack of traceable quality and testing standards for overall reliability like that from companies like, for example, Lasermax and crimson trace and veridian. Its got a ways to go before it can meet the market for a reliable home/self defense rifle laser. But that being said it is a decent introductory budget laser and may very well last a while and may serve as a 'range' use thing or even serve in a pinch as a 'reliable' thing home/self defense rifle laser. F. Votatu is not really a 'tactical' equipment company in terms of what the word implies for 'reliability'. They have some nice ideas, they filled a big need with this laser with its low profile and closeness to the bore and the mounting. But, they are in the lower tier of 'budget' and seem to be also trying to appeal to the airsoft market which is not a good thing in terms of real firearms optics and lasers reliability. A few reliability based changes here and there for this laser might raise the price a little but for the form factor and what looks like a decent foundation of a quality rifle laser for the civilian market those few changes would probably produce a more reliable rifle laser. Just saying basically "it works" and 'held zero on my rifle after 10 rounds' and 'hey, the dot is bright' is not an indication of reliability especially for a home/self defense role. But, I can see them possibly, if they will do it, using their ideas and improving upon them, even if the price goes up a little, producing a good decently reliable quality rifle laser with this. G. The fact they are made in China isn't really a detriment here. For example, 100% of all firearms red dot optics and weapon lights and lasers, even if they say made in USA by a USA company, use parts, to some extent, that originated in China and rely on a loophole in the law to claim 'Made In USA' because the parts were imported by a US company and then sourced from that company in the U.S. - its a loop hole in the law that allows them to be 'legally' truthful in the 'Made in USA' claim. So yeah, things like this in the budget and airsoft areas made in China have a much deserved bad reputation but Votatu seems, so far, to be a little above that level.

Excellent customer service!! 1 year warranty was honored very quickly. This has been a very reliable unit for the price. It has held zero. Two days shy of the 1 year mark the laser brightness began to fade. I contacted the company via email, provided a video, and they promptly sent me a replacement unit.

Remarkable Item

I bought this for an AR that I'm building for my grandchild. Because it's for a child I didn't want to spend a lot of a laser so this looked like it fit the bill. First off I love that's it's not plastic junk. It's a nice aluminum body which shows an attempt at building a quality product. It fit nice a snug to the rail and I loved that. However as I finished up the rifle and started testing everything I quickly seen that the on/off button was getting stuck on A LOT. I thought it might just need a better charge so I charged it again and it seemed at first to have solved the issue, but within 15 or 20 on/off test it stuck again. I had Amazon send out a new one which they done promptly and that's where I'm at as of this time. I have charged the replacement until the little green light shows it charged and I've left it a bit more for good measure. What I have noticed already before ever mounting the replacement is this. Even with a fresh charge after testing the button just two or three times in rapid on/off test I notice that when I attach the charging cord it already shows it needs charged again. That's not very impressive in my book. So I went back to Amazon and read the specs again. They claim that it takes 1.5 hours to fully charge and a full charge will last 2 hours of continuous use. Well, I can't say but if 10 seconds of use already requires more charging I don't see this lasting anywhere near that length of time. I haven't opened it up to see what size battery is inside but my guess due to size is that it has button cell batteries which should be fine it's just a 5w laser and we have all owned laser pointers that use those small cells that last forever being used daily. I'm hoping it will prove to be a good laser but at this point I'm not very confident. It's a shame because it really is a very nice design that fits tight to the rail and won't get knocked about easily. I'll post a follow up in a few days after testing again.

To start this review I would give this unit high marks for brightness and distance. It is very effective especially at night. I can easily hit a target at 200 yards with a very bright green dot. The laser is can also be seen at a half mile although I dont know a use case for shooting something that far away using a laser. But if you were trying to show someone something by pointing to it this would do the trick even past a half mile. In terms of being rugged it does not have the feel of something that can take extreme abuse but at the price point I am not expecting something abuse proof either. This unit is very much worth its price point.