Earlier this year at SHOT, SIG SAUER announced the ROMEO-M17 red dot sight. It’s in enclosed emitter, gas purged sight with a selectable reticle (2 MOA dot, 32 MOA circle or both) that’s designed for the military for use on M17 and M18 duty pistols. SIG SAUER calls it the best pistol red dot sight ever made.
The ROMEO-M17 isn’t for everyone. First, it’s expensive, retailing at about $800. It’s US-made, has 15 brightness settings, including three night vision settings, and it’s tougher than a $2 t-bone. It also uses SIG’s proprietary SIG-LOC mounting system. That means it doesn’t screw onto the slide from above, it attaches from below. As a result, it won’t mount on your garden variety P320 or other pistols.
When SIG officially announced the ROMEO-M17 in April, they made it clear that the sight isn’t made for your P320, and it’s “designed specifically to fit U.S. Military Modular Handgun System M17/M18 pistols, M17/M18 Commemorative Special Editions and M17/M18 Surplus pistols with a single hole in the slide to secure the sight plate.” They also promised commercial compatible pistols and slides would be coming in the future.
The good news is, SIG will begin selling the ROMEO-M17 in an M17 slide slide/red dot bundle with the ROMEO-M17 pre-mounted later this year (they’re targeting August).
Price will be about $1200. You’ll be able to mount those to the P320 pistol frame and fire control unit you already own and be good to go.
The ROMEO-M17 and the work that went into developing it have also become the basis for a new line of commercially available (conventionally mounting) red dot sights that SIG announced today. They’re calling them ROMEO-X and they’ll come in two sizes. The full-size version is the ROMEO-X Pro and the smaller P365-sized model is the ROMEO-X Compact.
Both ROMEO-X sights have the same basic feature set. They mount in the standard fashion from above, and are open emitter designs, but are made using some of the same parts and technology that goes into the ROMEO-M17.
Like their big brother, both new sights are made in the USA of 7075 aircraft grade aluminum with 15 brightness settings (including three NV settings) and will have the same selectable reticles as the ROMEO-M17.
Like the ROMEO-M17, the ROMEO-X models’ batteries mount on the side of the housing. That allows for a lower mount and co-witnessing with standard height sights and more than 20,000 hours of use. The Compact will MSRP at $409 and the Pro at $459.
I got my hands on all three including a ROMEO-M17 pre-mounted on an M17 slide and both models of the ROMEO-X.
While we haven’t had a chance to put them through the full review process yet, they’re very impressive. All three use aspherical glass lenses, something a lot of other red dot makers don’t do. That means you get absolute edge-to-edge clarity. If you compare it side-by-side to standard mangin lenses that are in most pistol optics, you can easily see the difference.
Here’s are the specs for the two new sights . . .
