Video Transcript
The EOTECH G33 magnifier has been the gold standard of flip-to-side magnifiers for your fighting carbine, your DMR, even your PDW for many, many years now, and it is still our favorite magnifier on the market today. Now, why might you want a magnifier? Well, if you have a red dot, like what's on this gun, and you wanna be able to shoot out a little bit to a little bit farther distance with a little bit more precision, a little bit more confidence, that's where a magnifier is gonna come into play. So if I have, again, just a red dot that has no magnification, I can throw a magnifier on there, flip it to the center, and I can have up to three by magnification if I'm getting the G33. So what this magnifier does is, again, it doesn't magically increase the range of your rifle, like video games like to suggest. What it does is it allows you to see farther, it allows you to identify targets a little bit easier out the distance, and that's going to increase your hit probability at farther distances. So that's exactly what magnifiers are for, is if you wanna shoot your red dot a little bit farther.
So let's go through what comes in the box when you buy an EOTECH G33 magnifier, and then after that, we're gonna go through the different model options, because EOTECH does have a couple of different options when it comes to buying their magnifiers. So what we get in the box, is when we open it, we have this nice cardboard box, it's not plastic or anything like that, but we're gonna have some foam to help protect the optic during travel or during shipping. We have a little quick reference guide, a product warranty card, you're gonna get an EOTECH sticker. Now what also comes in here is obviously the magnifier itself, but as you can see, it does not come mounted to anything. So you're gonna have your flip the side mount, these are very, very rugged and durable, there's some aftermarket ones out there that you can buy, but I really don't think they're worth the money, because this one does the job very, very well.
You're also gonna get a spacer, so this will the magnifier up a little bit, and when I show you guys these mounted on guns, I'll explain that in a minute, and then you're also gonna get two sets of screws, one for mounting the magnifier directly to the mount, and then one for mounting the magnifier to the mount with the spacer. So let's get into the features of the magnifier itself. So what we have on the top and on the side are two big knobs. So when you mount this guy to your rifle, you're going to adjust these knobs. One is windage and one is elevation just like a red dot or any other optic out there. And what these knobs do is they center the reticle of whatever you're trying to magnify, whether it's an Aimpoint red dot or an EOTECH holographic sight. And these center that reticle into the center of this glass. Now if your reticle is off slightly or if it's all the way to the top of the window, all the way to the bottom, left, right, whatever the case may be, that does not affect your zero whatsoever.
The reason why you want to center the reticle into the window of this is one, your brain wants to see the reticle centered and two, the glass clarity for every magnified optic out there, including magnifiers is best at the center of it. So for obvious reasons, you want to center it just so it's easier for you to see and for your best optical clarity. Now speaking on glass clarity magnifiers, it's never really all that good, especially if you compare it to high end LPVOs or medium power optics or anything like that. Magnifiers don't have the same light transmission as those optics do. However, the glass is still pretty, pretty decent on these. Now on the rear of this guy, we have an adjustable diopter. So this is going to be what you use just like you would on an LPVO or any other magnified optic. You adjust this to your eye. So what you do is when you have this set up on your gun, you get behind it, you want to adjust this so that when you're looking at the reticle, it's as crisp as possible. And generally when I do this, I'm looking at the sky or something very far away. I don't want to do this while looking up close.
And basically as I adjust this, I'm just looking to see the magnified reticle and whatever I'm looking at get as crisp as possible. You're going to notice on the outside of this magnifier is a rubber shroud and this is just a protective shroud to protect the optic. You can take this off if you want. It's going to look a little goofy, but that's all it's doing is just protecting the optic itself. Now, like we already mentioned earlier, this is the flip the side QD mount for the magnifier, but what it comes with is the spacer. So the question is, when do you want to use the spacer and when do you not want to use it? And that's going to depend on what optic you're using in front of the magnifier.
Now, just because this is made by EOTECH doesn't mean it has to be used with an EOTech optic. However, these were made to be used behind EOTECH. So the spacers, whether you use it or not, are going to line up perfectly with EOTECH optics. Like I said, it's going to work with any other optic out there. So if you're running an absolute co-witness optic, so that means you don't have it on a riser, it's not lower one third, you don't want to use the spacer. So if you're using an Aimpoint Duty RDS or an EOTECH XPS series, so basically the EOTECH that doesn't have the QD mount, that's where this guy mounted directly to the mount is going to work best for you.
Now when you want to use the spacer with the magnifier mount and the magnifier is when you have a lower one third optic or possibly even a little bit higher than that, like a 193. So if you have an EXPS series EOTECH, so one with a QD mount or an Aimpoint on their factory OEM mount, that's where this spacer is going to come into play. Now if you have a 193 mounted red dot, this plus the spacer won't wind up perfectly, but it'll still magnify the reticle and you'll be good to go. If you have an optic that's mounted at a weird height or you just have kind of a cheaper optic and you for some reason decide to put a very expensive magnifier behind it and neither the magnifier mounted directly to the mount or the magnifier directly mounted to the mount with the spacer perfectly lines up with your optic, that is perfectly okay.
As long as majority of the optical window is lined up with this magnifier, you're gonna still be able to magnify the reticle and you're still gonna be a see-through it just fine. Just the less that is centered to it, the less glass clarity and the less light transmission you're gonna have through the G33. Now, let's look at the other models of EOTECH magnifiers and we're also gonna show some examples of how this should be mounted on your gun. What we have here is the G33 magnifier. This is a very, very old one. This one's been around the armory for eight, nine years now at this point. It's actually so old, it's still labeled L3, back when L3 was involved with EOTECH. But all I have to say, it still works. It works perfectly fine. It's still just as clear as it was when we bought it.
To the mount behind a duty RDS. And as you can see, it lines up perfectly. So again, if you're using an optic, that's absolute coat windiness or lower than lower one third. The magnifier mounted directly to the mount is gonna be the way to mount it. We have the EOTECH M33. So this is actually the exact same magnifier as the G33, except that the elevation and windage adjustment turrets are capped. So they don't just free turn. You have to take these off and you have to adjust them like you would like any other optic where they click, well not, and this is the contract version. So this gets a cool part number on it. But other than that, it's basically the same magnifier. Now this is mounted with the spacer. And as you can see with an EXPS series EOTECH, it lines up perfect. So again, lower one third optics or something similar, you're gonna wanna use the spacer for the magnifier. Now, if you don't use a spacer with a taller optic, like this EOTECH EXPS series, and it's lower one third, it's gonna be low, but it'll still work, like I said earlier, as long as some of the optical window, preferably majority of it, is in line with the magnifier, you're still gonna be able to magnify the reticle.
The last magnifier that we sell on our website from EOTECH is the G45. Now EOTECH does make the G43, it's shorter, it's stubby, we don't recommend it. There's just nothing really we like about it. So the G45 is another option for you. Now, as you can see, the G45 on a spacer with a lined up with a 193 Aimpoint T2 looks perfect, it lines up great. So if you have a 193 optic, yes, the G33 will work if you use the spacer. However, I recommend just going to the G45 because it just lines up a little bit better because of how much bigger this guy is. So this is a 5x magnified optic. All the other features are about the same. The eye relief is a little bit bigger. However, with this being 5x, you're gonna get a little bit less field of view and this magnifier weighs a little bit more compared to the G33. So like I mentioned earlier with glass clarity and light transmissions with magnifiers not being the greatest even with these high end ones, pushing the magnification to 5x has not been my personal preference of magnifiers. I think 3x is really pushing the performance of the glass in these things. So I still recommend the G33 over the G45 for most applications, except when you're using something like this 193 Aimpoint because it lines up perfectly and it looks quite nice.
Something to keep in mind when you're mounting the magnifier on your gun is how it was designed to be used on a rifle. So it was designed to be behind an EOTECH right in front of a rear sight. So all that to say is if you have all three of those things on there, as long as you have an EOTECH or something smaller, you can have the optic, the magnifier, inner rear sight, and it will all fit onto your upper receiver. Now, if you have something bigger than an EOTECH like a Romeo 8T, you may run out of real estate and the magnifier, rear sight, and the optic may not all fit onto the upper receiver. So all that to say is it's okay for these things to be butted up right next to each other. In fact, that's what it was designed to do. So I have the Knight's Armament rear sight on the far back picketinny slot with the magnifier as close as I can get to that and the EOTECH as close as I can get to the magnifier itself, and it all works just fine.
When you're mounting this onto your upper receiver, onto your rifle, you want it to be as close to your optic as possible because of a bunch of nerdy science stuff. It'll just help things line up and you're gonna get the best light transmission through the magnifier itself. Now, when you're mounting this guy, how you mount this guy is pretty simple. So it's a QD lever here. So when I want to release or take it off, I'm just gonna press this little knob and flick this guy out and it'll come off. Now, when I put it on, I just clip it on and then pull this guy down and it'll get nice and tight and it'll be good to go.
However, if you put this on and it's too tight or it's too loose, just take the magnifier back off and you're just gonna adjust the screw left to right. So lefty loosey, righty tighty, that sort of thing. And you can actually turn this with your fingers and there's just a little ball-biring in there to adjust it. So this guy was a little tight. So I'm gonna just crank it back one notch there and it's good to go, that's perfect. It's not gonna move back and forth. Now, if I have this guy too loose, so let's just loosen this up a couple clicks, about two, maybe a little more. Just wanna show you guys something real quick.
And I clamp this guy down, it'll move back and forth. It'll be a little bit of loosey-goosey and we don't want that. So when you guys are tightening this down, all you wanna do is just make sure it's nice and snug. You don't wanna have to mash this down. You don't really, it doesn't need all that. It just needs to be a little bit of resistance here. So right here, it's gonna take a little bit of effort and then I'll be good to go and it's not gonna move around on me.
Something that may surprise you about these is the shorter eye relief. Now it's not as short as an ACOG that's around half an inch to three quarters of an inch. It's gonna be closer to an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters. And if you get the G45, the 5x magnifier, it's gonna be closer to two inches, but it's just something to note. And especially, it's really not that big a deal, especially since you're not shooting through this all the time. It's kind of the point of the flip the side part. You can flip it out of the way when you're not using it. And when you do flip it over to use it, you just kind of suck into the gun and kind of deal with the shorter eye relief. So if you guys have any questions regarding magnifiers, how to mount them, help with picking one of the models, which one would be best for you and what you're trying to do, go ahead and shoot us an email at team@trex-arms.com.