Sig Sauer Romeo 7: Hands On Review

In the not so distant past we brought up the first look of the Sig Sauer Romeo 7 red dot optic. It’s an optic we also featured on our “Best Optic Under $300” article last week, but now its time to take a real first hand look at the Sig Sauer Romeo 7 red dot. We have had this scope mounted to a test rifle for a few range sessions and we felt our readers needed to hear a more complete evaluation of the Romeo 7. This full-sized red dot has many features we liked about it and some features we grew to dislike immensely. There’s a lot of technology and features that the Sig Sauer Electro Optics Division tried to pack into this 30mm red dot, and on many levels they succeeded, but on a few they fell a little bit short. It’s note a complete failure of an optic but we identified a few things. Lets start with the positive things we noticed about the Sig Sauer Romeo 7 during our tests.

Positive Attributes of the Romeo 7 :

• Great size at 30mm one of the largest on the market for its class
• Affordably priced at $299
• Easy to use controls
• Sig quality
• Long battery life over 60,000 hours
• Includes front and rear caps
• Uses AA battery
• Red dot is easy to pick up during drills even at lower settings
• Automatic on/off feature

The list of positive attributes about the Sig Sauer Romeo 7 is longer than what I listed above, but you get the general idea. The fact the Romeo 7 is a 30mm diameter optic where most red dots range between 20mm and 25 mm is a nice feature. The extra 5 mm diameter might not seem like a ton of space but I noticed the difference very quickly over the smaller Sig Sauer Romeo 5 when shooting the two side by side. That being said we have to unfortunately address some of the negative issues about the Romeo 7 that we noticed during our range sessions while it was on our test rifle.

Negative Attributes of the Romeo 7:

• Weight, at 12.6 Ounces in weight it’s not light at all
• Adjustment controls are terrible
• Base tension controls are difficult to get to and adjust
• No option to swap bases

The list of negative attributes about this optic isn’t in any way long or a deal breaker in the big picture of things, but some of them are infuriating. The lack of removable base pad is a design feature and one that the majority of potential owners should recognize before they buy the optic. It’s not a true negative attribute more than an observation but one that could make potential owners look at other optics. The adjustment control covers is in my opinion a huge issue with the optic and one that quite frankly left me baffled at how this got past the group of Sig Sauer testers.

The housing around the adjustment screw covers is very close, more so on the top of the optic than on the side. This close machining and fitting made it extremely difficult to unscrew the covers to access the adjustment screws. I have very little in the way of fingernails and grasping the raised bar on the topside of the cap proved almost impossible. Since this was a test and evaluation optic I was not going to use my Multitasker Tools Series III pliers to unscrew the aluminum covers. This would have left the caps covered in teeth marks and missing its flat black finish for sure. You shouldn’t need pliers to remove turret caps in order to make adjustments to your optics.

Not All is Lost 

Despite the annoyance of removing the adjustment caps and the equally frustrating time we had adjusting the tension on the quick detach mounting lever the optic was very sturdy when mounted and zero’d very quickly. I had the optic zeroed in under 10 rounds and part of that was operator error and just bad shooting on my part. The weight of the optic was more noticeable on my short barreled AR-15 than it was on my Sig Model 556. That most likely is because the Sig Model 556 rifle already is heavy due to its gas piston recoil system and heavy aluminum quad rail.

The controls of the Romeo 7 are as simple as they come, I installed the single AA sized battery just like the picture showed me to and the rest was was handled by the rotary dial located on the back of the optic. Unlike many other red dots the Romeo 7’s controls faced me while in the shooting position. In theory a shooter could make easy adjustments to the intensity of the red dot while not completely removing his eye sight from the intended target. This was a nice change from many other optics I have reviewed recently, even my own favorite the Trijicon MRO. When looking at the Romeo 7, it appears that the reason this feature exists is the total overall length of the Romeo 7 is much longer than the AA sized battery so tucking it along the side of the 51 mm body tube makes sense.

Bottom Line Would I Buy It ? 

After all the shooting, adjusting, and bout of frustration with a few elements of the Sig Sauer Romeo 7 I had to ask myself, would I but this optic ? The answer is yes I would if I wanted a slightly larger red dot optic. The frustrations with the removing and reinstalling of the adjustment screw covers is annoying but ultimately something you would have to go very infrequently with this type of optic. The same could be said about the tension adjustment for the quick release mounting system.

The reputation of Sig Sauer, the warranties, and all the other features packed into this optic like the 60,000 hour plus run time make this optic a real winner even if the caps aggravate me. I did after all put it on my top five list not long ago, and I compiled that list after shooting the Romeo 7 and Romeo 5 side by side and off the same rifles. This optic will be perfect for shooters with glasses, eyesight issues or just anyone just wanting a little more surface area to look through and still pick up a clear crisp red dot. When you rack and stack the Romeo 7 against other optics it should show you that what Sig provides is quality and affordability combined with a very large objective lens. What do you think of the Romeo 7? We want to hear from our readers and see what brands and models of optics people are using on their military style rifles and carbines.