Holosun hasn’t been shy about innovating in the red dot optic space. At Range Day 2022, they unveiled one of the more innovative red dots on the market. The new Holosun SCS is new in a lot of ways. First, like the AEMS, it ditches the numerical moniker and adopts an acronym. SCS stands for solar charging sight. Holosun’s always been a big fan of solar power on their optics, but the Holosun SCS takes it to new levels.
The Holosun SCS is entirely solar charged. The optic contains a battery that’s entirely charged by the sun or ambient light. That battery comes fully charged from Holosun and will last 20,000 hours on a full charge.
I don’t know much about batteries, but according to the Holosun rep, the battery charges somewhat slowly through the solar panel. This preserves the battery’s life long term. It takes seven days to fully charge the battery from a completely dead state.
For the mathematically challenged, twenty thousand hours translates to over two years. That’s a hefty amount of time for a solar-charged battery.
The Holosun SCS – The Power of the Sun
The Holosun SCS red dot sight uses a big solar panel planted to the rear of the optic, and it’s nice and large. I imagine it has to be. The optic only has a single button. It turns the optic on and off and swaps reticles from the 2 MOA dot to a 32 MOA circle with 2 MOA dot. The intensity and brightness of the reticle are determined by the ambient light.
I typically don’t like red dots that automatically adjust their brightness, mainly for the fact that they suck when using weapon lights. In a dark environment, the dot will be dim by automatic adjustment, and a bright white weapon light will wash the dot out.
They don’t tend to adjust to the light ahead of them. The Holosun SCS utilizes multiple sensors that ‘talk’ to each other. This allows the dot to adjust to a weapon-mounted light without issue.
Since the optic lacks buttons and a battery, it sits super low. Low enough that you don’t need suppressor height sights. Drop it on your Glock or PF940V2. On the Glock 45, the stock Glock sights sit high enough to cowitness with ease. It’s rather nice not to have to spend 100 bucks or so on suppressor height sights.
Boom, Bang, Pow
The Holosun SCS worked well in my limited time with it so far. The big green 32 MOA circle and 2 MOA dot shine brightly and are nice and crisp. They’re easy to see and crystal clear.
The footprint varies by weapon and matches the universal footprints used by systems like the GLOCK MOS. The optic’s footprint will match the gun with plans for the GLOCK MOS series, the S&W, CZ, Masada, and more in the future. Holosun even ensures the SCS housing matches the serrations of the gun.