As gun manufacturers produce more and more models that are optic-ready from the factory, optic companies have responded with more and more options for slide mounted red dots. A while ago we took a look at the Crimson Trace Rad Micro Pro, and today we have the Sentinel, which is Swampfox's entry into this segment. Like the Rad Micro Pro, the Sentinel it comes in at the more affordable end of the price spectrum.
This version has a 3moa green dot with manual brightness adjustment, but it also comes in a 3moa red dot configuration, also with manual or auto adjustment.
MSRP for the manual adjust Sentinel is $250 dollars, but it can definitely be found for less. I got this one for a little under 200 dollars at Brownells.
The sentinel comes with an 7075 aircraft grade aluminum body with an IPX7 water resistance rating. It measures 1.61 inches long and 0.91 inches wide, and 0.94 inches tall. It uses the same RMSc footprint that the Crimson Trace Rad Micro Pro uses. Inside that body an LED that projects a 3moa dot onto the coated glass lens. The Sentinel has 10 levels of brightness, along with motion sensing power saving, or "shake awake" as I like to call it. Inside the box and in addition to the standard paperwork and sticker, Swampfox gives you in mounting screws, an allen wrench, a turret adjustment tool, a bottom plate, a rubber dust cover, a cleaning cloth, and a CR2032 battery.
Speaking of the battery, Swampfox lists the battery life of the Sentinel at an estimated 2 years of "real world" use. That battery loads from the bottom similar to an RMR. That shake awake feature should help increase that a bit, too. Based on my other experiences with Swampfox optics, I feel confident that the Sentinel will last the usual 1 year I go between battery changes.
Adjustment on the Sentinel is handled by turrets on the top and side of the unit; elevation adjustment is on the top of the body, and windage adjustment is on the right side of the unit. Swampfox throws in the adjustment tool, but I also think that a torx driver will work here as well. As with other Swampfox products, they do not give a "per-click" adjustment of the turrets, and instead tell you that you have an available 70MOA range of adjustment.
Now, for things I like about the Sentinel. The first feature I like is, as usual, shake awake. I just think this is a great battery-saving feature and it is, in my opinion, a must have on pistol optics. As with other Swampfox optics, the Sentinel passes my unofficial "table tap test" easily, and it's always been on every time I've gone to pick it up.
It's worth it to note here that shake-awake is only available on the manual-brightness model of the Sentinel; auto brightness models are always on.
That leads me into the second thing that I like about the Sentinel: the manual brightness adjustment. If you've watched any of my other videos, you already know that I prefer a manual adjustment to automatic adjustment. This is because there are certain situations, like shooting from a dark space into a bright one, that automatic adjustment fails to set the dot at the right brightness. I understand the reasoning behind automatic adjustment, but I just prefer a manual adjustment especially if it has a lockout.
The last thing that I like about this is the price. At 200 dollars street price and sometimes less, this comes in as the lower end of the price spectrum in terms of pistol optics, and in that space there isn't a lot to compete with and the Sentinel packs a lot of features into this price point.
Now nothing is perfect, and the Sentinel is no exception. I've got a few nits to pick with this, starting with the brightness adjustment buttons. I like that they're big and easy to use, but I really wish that Swampfox included a button lockout featue. On an optic this small, its way too easy to accidentally push an adjustment button and have the reticle too dim or too bright. A button lockout would let the user set a brightness and lock it in so that accidental presses won't adjust the brightness.
Another thing that I don't like about the Sentinel is the bottom loading battery. Replacing the battery in this means dismounting the optic and then having to re-zero it after replacing the battery. I know that this is common with micro reflex optics, but the Holosun 407's tray mount is definitely the superior design here.
Finally, the one thing that bugs me about basically all Swampfox pistol optics: the adjustment turrets. The one big thing for me is that there is no way to determine a per-click MOA adjustment value like on other optics. This Adding to this bit of frustration is the fact that there is very little to no tactile feedback in the turrets. Together these factors make zeroing the Sentinel more time consuming than it needs to be. A couple other minor gripes: the turrets are a torx head instead of just slotted, forcing you to carry around a tool to adjust. They're also not very tactile, and combined with the fact that there is no way to determine a per-click MOA, it can make zeroing a chore. Combined with the need to re-zero when replacing batteries, this might be a dealbreaker for me.
Overall, while it's definitely not perfect, for the 200 dollars I paid I think that the Sentinel is a decent micro pistol optic.