The AEMS – Holosun’s Red Dot is One of the Best for Your AR

Who doesn’t love a good red dot? Especially these days when the technology has lowered drastically in price while growing in quality. Holosun, in particular, has taken the world by storm by not only producing high-quality optics at low prices but innovating. In the last few years, they’ve really taken off and designed optics that go beyond being competent and have created competition in the optics world. The latest Holosun is the AEMS. AEMS stands for Advanced Enclosed Micro Sight, and it promises to be the latest and greatest compact red dot optics for mounting to an AR.

Besides being a compact, square-shaped design, it also signals Holosun’s departure from using numbers to name their optics. At least, I hope it is because chasing all those numbers around can be a big hassle. The AEMS comes with red and green reticles, and I happily got my hands on the red variant of the optics.

Features and Design

A few distinct technologies make Holosun optics stand out. The first is the multi-reticle system which provides you with a 2 MOA dot, or a 65 MOA circle, or a 2 MOA dot, and 65 MOA combination. My favorite being the latter.

Second, a lot of Holosun optics feature a solar panel which provides a secondary source of power in case the batteries die. On the AEMS, the solar panel sits across the top and works with both actual solar power and indoor lighting.

Finally, we also get the famed shake awake system. If you set the Holosun AEMS down and it fails to detect motion, then it will shut off. When you grab it, or when any motion is applied, the optic will spring back to life, and at the brightness level you left it on.

The AEMS utilizes a square-shaped design to provide a combination of small windows with a large field of view. With the AEMS, you get a 1.1 x .87 inch window that is almost 30mms wide. However, when compared to other 30mm optics, it’s substantially smaller and lighter. It weighs only 3.9 ounces.

Holosun constructed the optic and minimized its footprint to a crazy degree. You get an optic that’s roughly the same size as an Aimpoint micro but with a substantially larger lens and a wider field of view. Utilizing a square designs helps keep the optic’s sides smaller and grants you outstanding peripheral vision.

Why The Reticles Matter…To Me

I like red dots, but I really like red dots with more advanced reticles. Sure, a simple dot will do, but a more advanced red dot reticle can be incredibly useful. With Holosun optics, I almost always utilize the 65 MOA circle with the 2 MOA dot.

At long range, the 65 MOA circle can act as a range finder with a man-sized target. When a man-sized target fills the reticle from top to bottom, the bad guy is at 100 yards.

If the target fills the reticle from the dot in the center to the bottom of the reticle, then the target is at 200 yards. It’s pretty handy, especially when paired with a magnifier.

The reticle also helps with extreme close-range shooting. At ranges inside of 15 yards, you have to account for height over bore and mechanical offset. That big reticle can do that. Use the bottom stadia to aim, and you can place precise shots at close range.

At the Range

I’ve used the AEMS on three different guns so far. I started with the S&W M&P 12 shotgun, moved to the Ruger PC Charger, and finally, it now sits on the JP5, a 9mm roller delayed PCC with tons of custom AR-15 parts. I’ve zeroed the AEMS three times on three different guns, and each time it’s been an easy task. The turrets are nice and clicky and provide plenty of feedback. Each click equals a .5 MOA adjustment, so it’s fairly easy to be precise without getting stuck in the weeds.

I fired several hundred rounds through each platform to get the gun going. As you’d imagine, each gun has a very different recoil impulse. The shotgun is brutal, the PC Charger is a blowback system, and the JP is a premium competition-grade rifle with barely any recoil. Yet, the AEMS cared not. It never lost zero throughout all of this shooting and took the use and abuse without complaint.

As a Floridian, I deal with rain daily between May and roughly the end of October. So the AEMS has also seen its fair share of rain and moisture, yet it persisted without complaint. The AEMS is IPX8 rated means it can be submerged in water without issue. A little rain certainly won’t hurt it.

Seeing the Light

The view through the window of the AEMS is quite clear, with a slight blue tint. The dot and circle both appear very clearly without a hint of bursting or distortion. Looking through the optic reveals a very wide field of view that allows you to see everything in front of you, with a nice red reticle over it.

The lens caps are a nice touch and also provide a very clear image through the optic. I don’t see a reason to pop them down unless they were to get dirty or scratched. If they do get all beat to hell, they are user-replaceable and considered disposable.

In the brightest parts of the day, the reticle is still bright enough to be easily seen with its eight brightness settings. You also get four-night vision settings for going goon in the dark if you so choose. The big buttons on the side make swapping the brightness levels quick and easy.

Rocking On

On the M&P 12, I utilized the 65 MOA circle reticle to pattern my load inside the circle. It’s a massive circle, but I was using some pretty standard buckshot. Nothing too fancy. I like the circle reticle for this purpose. I can back off a certain distance and know that every pellet falls inside that circle at specific ranges. It did well at this task and made clinging against steel nice and easy.

The Ruger Charger the AEMS provided a wide field of view that allowed me to move from target to target with ease. Using the optic at this little gun’s intended range was a ton of fun. Rapidly transitioning from target to target and putting accurate rounds on target is always fun.

I took the 9mm JP5 out to 100 yards and was able to still hit steel targets with it. The clarity of the reticle and lenses make it easy to still the target and to ring it. A 9mm round at 100 yards can be tough.

The 65 MOA and 2 MOA reticles made it easy to compensate for the ballistic drop. I placed the dot on the head of the IPSC target and knew that the round would hit between the dot and the bottom of the circle. It proved to be a quick way to compensate for range with the meager 9mm cartridge.

Parting Shots

I don’t like that the mount is proprietary. If you want to mount it lower, you’ll have to wait for Holosun to make more mounts. They are planning to, but for now, you’re stuck with a lower 1/3rd co-witness height optic.

Outside of that, I find the AEMS to be a very well-made optic that’s extremely versatile. It’s easy to use, durable compared to the competition, and affordable. Not much more you can ask for from an optic.

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