Sightmark First Look: Volta and Element Mini Solar Red Dots, Citadel 1-10x and Wraith 4K

What’s up channel fans and family, and welcome to Slav Guns. This is another one from my SHOT Show 2020 coverage. I’ve done a number of videos on Sightmark, a company that makes solid optics for just about every budget, from the Citadel line up to the Pinnacle series. This year I caught up with Blake Johnson from Sellmark, Sightmark’s parent company, to look at four products: the Volta and Element Mini Solar red dots, the Citadel 1-10×24 LPVO, and the Wraith 4K digital night vision riflescope.

Quick note: this is a SHOT Show booth walkthrough, not a range test and evaluation. Prices and availability below are what Sightmark quoted at SHOT Show 2020, so check current pricing before you buy.

Sightmark Volta

The Volta is a solar-powered red dot that also runs on a battery, so it’s dual power. It also has what Sightmark calls the Eclipse light management system, which auto dims or brightens the reticle based on your environment. Step out into the sun and it brightens up, walk inside into low light and it dims, so you’re not messing with the adjustments yourself.

You can run it full time on solar or full time on battery. Blake quoted battery life of 400,000 hours on a AAA on low power. That also answers a question a lot of people ask about red dots versus scopes with illuminated reticles: if the battery dies, the scope still has an etched reticle. With the Volta, if your battery dies and you’re outdoors in daylight, the solar panel keeps you in the fight, and it switches between the two seamlessly.

It’s a closed reflex sight with a full metal housing. Sightmark had done some drop testing but didn’t have exact ratings yet. The dot is 2 MOA, which covers about two inches at 100 yards and four at 200. That’s actually my personal preference for shooting plates. For faster action you might want a bigger dot or crank up the illumination.

Quoted price was $299, with dealers expecting them a couple of months after the show. Having played with it at the booth, I liked the glass coating. A lot of red dots have tinted coatings. I like Trijicon, they’re bulletproof, but the greenish coating on a lot of their dots drives me up the wall, especially when shooting with both eyes open.

Sightmark Element Mini Solar

The Element Mini Solar is in the same family as Sightmark’s battery-only Element red dot, but with the same dual power setup as the Volta. Inside it works the same way, with the Eclipse auto-dimming system, but it runs on a CR2032 instead of a AAA and uses a 3 MOA dot.

My favorite part: one SKU comes with both a low-profile mount and a high AR riser mount that co-witnesses on AR-15s. The low mount is perfect for an AK or a shotgun, so you don’t have to buy mounts separately if you change platforms. Quoted price was $199, with dealer availability a couple of months out, and you still get the lifetime warranty.

Sightmark Citadel 1-10×24

One of the trends lately is optics for ARs and other modern sporting rifles that start at a low magnification. We’ve seen 1-4x, then 1-6x, and now the Citadel 1-10×24. It’s great for close-up, CQB-style shooting, and the 10x top end lets you reach out further. I think it’s a good fit for 3-Gun, where you’re running and gunning up close and then transitioning to a target at two, three or four hundred yards. Honestly, I’d say it’s even good for ringing steel out around 500 yards.

The 1-10x is a second focal plane scope with an illuminated reticle. At $399 retail it includes the lifetime warranty, flip-up lens covers and a throw lever. Magnification rings can range from smooth to stiff depending on the brand, so a throw lever helps, especially for 3-Gunners making rapid changes on the run, and you don’t have to pay extra for it. Unlike the others, these were already available at the time of the show, including on Amazon and at big box stores.

Sightmark Wraith 4K

Sightmark, and Sellmark even more so, is known as one of the leaders in affordable and effective night vision and thermal. The Wraith 4K follows the Wraith HD from the year before. It has a 4K sensor, records in 4K, and can record in slow motion.

A lot of people hear night vision and think you have to be a commando, but these are very popular with hog hunters, predator hunters and really any kind of hunter. It has daytime color modes, so it works as a regular scope during the day, then two night modes, green and black and white. Blake called it a 24/7 hunting scope: deer hunt during the day and transition to hogs when it gets dark.

Think of it like a digital camera that uses an infrared illuminator to see at night. It records stills and video with sound to a microSD card, which I like versus internal memory that you’d quickly run out of in 4K. With the stock IR, Blake said you’ll see about 300 yards at night, which is about as far as you should be going for responsible hunting. You can also add a more powerful aftermarket IR to extend that, so you’re not locked into one system.

Quoted price was $799, with availability expected a couple of months after the show. When the original Wraith launched, people went nuts and it was tough to find for a long time.

Bottom line

Four new products from Sightmark, all aimed at good, affordable optics that the company stands behind with a lifetime warranty on its daytime glass. The dual power red dots are the ones I’m most curious about, and the included riser on the Element Mini Solar is a nice touch. If you want to see current pricing on Sightmark optics, check slav.li/amazon, and if you want to support the channel, join the channel.

Keep squatting.

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Solar red dot or battery only? Which one would you trust on your rifle? Let me know.

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