Burris AR-332™ Prism Sight Review
August 27, 2017

Burris AR-332 Review

At the end of last year, Burris was offering a promotion whereby purchasing an AR-332 or AR-536 prism sight would allow you to submit a rebate form to get a free FastFire 3 red dot reflex sight.  I immediately started checking on prices and was able to find the AR-332 for a bargain price of $270 from Walmart.com and thought this deal was too good to be true.  I was amazed that I could get two quality Burris sights with Forever Warranties for such a low price and told many of my friends of the deal and we all purchased these sights.  In all cases, filling out the paperwork and getting a FastFire 3 a couple months later in the mail was no big deal.  Since that promotion, Burris has offered it once again and my hope is it will be offered again in the future because it is a GREAT deal.

As the title described, this review is for the Burris AR-332 Prism Sight.  I decided on the 3x power sight because I wanted to setup a hunting rifle that could be used at closer ranges.  At some point I may review the FastFire 3, but until then I just want to say I'm a fan of the FastFire 3.  I also want to elaborate some more on the Forever Warranty that comes with these Burris products.  A few years back, Burris switched to this warranty and included it on their optics that have electronics.  In my opinion that was HUGE!  Other companies are also doing this and I will be honest that I'm now very biased towards purchasing an optic that has this type of warranty.  Hopefully I will never have an issue, but if I do, Burris will make it right for the rest of my life.  AND... this "warranty is automatically transferred to future owners."  Think about that.  My grandkids could potentially be getting a great sight and if there is ever an issue then it would be resolved at no cost.  I think you get the picture.

 

This next video covers most of the the points in this review.  I say most, because this webpage version of the review allows me to focus on details that I may have not covered in the video, so make sure you continue reading further.

During my reviews I like to compare my results to the manufacturer's claims where possible so the following text in colored italics was taken directly from the Burris Optics website on 8/13/17 and gives the Key Features and Specifications for the Burris AR-332 Sight.  The , and are my way to keep up with details that I have covered in this review with either photos, commentary or both.

Key Features

  • The AR-332 is designed for lawmen, military personnel, and competitive shooters who want additional range from a compact, fast-acquisition optic.
  • The rotary, 10-position power selector allows quick changes from red to green powered reticle, or clear, crisp black reticle when power is off.   With five red and five green power levels, all lighting conditions can be quickly matched.  A CR2032 battery powers the reticle.
  • The Ballistic CQ™ reticle features holdover dots good out to 600 yards. They work best with 5.56 or 7.62 ammunition.
  • Picatinny rails allow piggybacking of additional sights, lasers or lights.
  • The entire, rugged design is backed by the Burris Forever Warranty™.
  • The perfect AR Scope for quick target acquisition, coupled with a bit more range.

Specifications

  • Item Number: 300208
  • Magnification: 3x
  • Reticles: Ballistic CQ™
  • Reticle Color(s): Black, Green, Red
  • Clear Objective Lens Diameter: 32 mm
  • Finish: Matte
  • Field of View: 32 ft. @ 100 yds.
  • Mount: Picatinny Rail Base
  • Close Focus: 9 ft.
  • Eye Relief: 2.5 in.
  • Click Value: 1/2 MOA
  • Height Above Rail to Optic Centerline: 1.6 in.
  • Elevation Adjustment, Total Capability: 80 MOA
  • Windage Adjustment: 80 MOA
  • Length: 5.3 in. (without sunshade or flip-up covers)
  • Weight: 14.2 oz.  weight shown must be without mount because my measured minimum weight came in at 15.7 ounces without the lens caps or sunshade and 17.1 ounces with them
  • Illumination Control: Rotary dial
  • Illumination Settings: 5 red settings; 5 green settings; off is black
  • Battery: CR2032

The Burris AR-332 came boxed as shown below.  The box photo shows the basic configuration where the flip-up covers and sunshade are not installed, but those items are inside the box.  The actual item number for this sight being reviewed is 300208.  There are two other item numbers that represent either a combo package with a FastFire or a sight with a different reticle style.

Figure 1
Burris AR-332 Box

The sight includes their Ballistic QCTM Reticle which appears black when not illuminated and red or green depending on which way you turn the illumination knob (more later).

Figure 2
Burris AR-332 Reticles

I already mentioned about the warranty, but it is worth you reading the details directly from Burris which is on the bottom of the box.

Figure 3
Burris AR-332 Warranty

The contents were packaged as shown below.

Figure 4
Burris AR-332 Packaging

The contents included:

  • AR-332 sight with the sunshade and two flip-up end caps installed
  • Thumb screw for installing the sight on carry handle
  • Allen wrench for removing the rail portions if desired
  • Users Guide
  • Lens Cloth

Figure 5
Burris AR-332 Contents

The sight came in perfect condition, but these photos were taken later after range testing, so if there are any imperfections they have to do with my use and not how it arrived.  The sight measures 7.45" in length with the sunshade and lens caps installed.  Without these installed, the length is 5.55" to 5.30" depending on the position of the fast focus eyepiece.  The sunshade adds 1.50" inches to the length.

Figure 6
Burris AR-332 Top View

The sight measures 3.03" in height above the Picatinny rail and total height is about 3.23".  The sight has a black matte finish and the right side shows the "Burris" name in white letters.  The lens caps pops open easily yet still has a nice snap when closed.  The main body of the sight appears to be an aluminum forging.

Figure 7
Burris AR-332 Right View

You can clearly see I have already had this sight mounted on top of Picatinny rail because of the marks on the mount.  Both cross bolts act as recoil lugs.  As the sticker shows, the sight is "Made in China."

Figure 8
Burris AR-332 Bottom View

The left side shows the "Burris" name, logo and model number "AR-332".  The sight come with three two-slot sections of Picatinny rail mounted at the 9, 12 and 3 o'clock positions.

Figure 9
Burris AR-332 Left View

The objective end (left below) has a 32mm lens diameter which is represented by the last "32" in the model name AR-332.  The first "3" in the model number is for the power of this optics which is 3x.  This large lens and relatively low power gives an exit pupil diameter of light at just over 10mm which helps give the sight a comfortable eye box with regard to later or vertical position of your eye.  The eyepiece lens measures about 28mm in diameter.  Overall eye relief is advertised at 2.5" and I believe it.  Personally I would have been much happier with something closer to 3.5", but I can make the 2.5" eye relief work.

     Figure 10                                                            Figure 11
Burris AR-332 Front View  Burris AR-332 Rear View

One of things that you will notice as soon as you take this sight out of the box is that the AR-332 is not a light weight sight.  The basic sight weighed in at 15.7 ounces and 17.1 ounces with the lens caps and sunshade.  To be fair, this seems to be the going weight for this style sight because the Vortex Spitfire 3x weighs in at 15.4 ounces and the Primary Arms 3x Compact Prism Scope at 16.8 ounces.  In my mind, I feel that when you purchase this style of sight, you are looking for maximum durability and weight may not be the greatest concern.  That being the case, I feel the weak point (if you can call it that) may be the two screws holding the base to the carry handle mount interface.

Figure 12                                                              Figure 13  
Burris AR-332 Min Weight  Burris AR-332 Max Weight

In the photo below you can see the heads of the two screws that are used to mount the Picatinny rail base to the bottom of the sight and how the base interfaces with a carry handle.  I didn't remove my screws because they seemed very tight and they have some type of thread locking compound according to the Users Guide.  You can also see there is a hole down the mount to allow you to use your iron sights if needed (I didn't verify).  Both of the cross bolts in the Picatinny mount act as recoil lugs with their square shape on the body of the bolt.  A single clamp bar is used and you can see the nuts have a hole which could be used for safety wire after torqueing if desired.

 Figure 14
Burris AR-332 Mount 

The ends of the clamp bar bolts are flared open so that the clamp bar nuts will not fall off if loosened too much.  This is something that I think should be standard on all clamp bar bolts and something I would expect from a manufacturer like Burris.  The sight comes with a single Allen wrench which fits the screws holding the three Picatinny rail segments in place. 

Figure 15
Burris AR-332 Mount

I removed one rail segment and the screws were installed with some type of thread locking compound.  If you wanted to reduce the weight, you could remove all three segments for a total reduction of 0.9 ounces.  My guess is that most people will keep the rail segments installed so they can piggyback something on this sight in the future and the weight savings is not significant.

Figure 16
Burris AR-332 Rails

The eyepiece has a fast focus ring.  Changing focus was stiff on my sight, but I consider that a good thing.  I was able to obtain a very sharp reticle image.  On the bottom of the eyepiece housing is the serial number for the sight.

Figure 17                                                            Figure 18
Burris AR-332 Fast Focus  Burris AR-332 Serial Number

The sight comes with a rotary illumination knob and you can see that the knob is marked with the off positions at "0" and numbers in red or green indicating red or green illumination intensity levels  of 1 through 5 with 5 being the highest.

Figure 19
Burris AR-332 Rotary Switch

These next photos show the knob rotates 180 degrees.  I wish Burris would have configured the sight so that you could rotate the knob from "0" to 1, 2, 3... on each side. I found that the 5 intensity level is very bright and in most cases you will probably use the 1 or 2 setting for either red or green illumination.

Figure 20                                                            Figure 21
Burris AR-332 Illumination Levels  Burris AR-332 Illumination Levels

The sight has a standard style battery cover that can be removed using a coin.  The cover has an O-ring to seal the compartment and the sight uses the standard CR2032 battery.  I didn't check battery life myself, but the specs say the battery "delivers 200 hours of life at the highest power settings, and approximately 500 hours at medium settings."

Figure 22
Burris AR-332 Battery Compartment 

The sight comes with the Ballistic CQTM reticle shown below.  The details of the reticle are relatively small and they look better when looking through the sight than in the photo on the left.  I zoomed in with my camera and the photo on the right does a much better job at showing these details.

Figure 23                                                              Figure 24
Burris AR-332 Reticle  Burris AR-332 Reticle Zoomed In

This image below was taken from the Burris website and shows the hold over and subtension details for this sight.  Burris does not give much detail on the ammunition used for determining these drop levels other than stating "the Ballistic CQ™ reticle features holdover dots are good out to 600 yards and work best with 5.56 or 7.62 ammunition."  Because of this, I feel these values are a general average and the right thing to do is chronograph the ammunition you plan to shoot and using some type of ballistics program determine yourself what the dots represent.

Figure 25
Burris AR-332 Reticle Subtensions

These next photos show the intensity level for each illumination color.  I tried my best to capture the true changes in illumination level with my camera, but at the highest levels, the photos either look too white or orange.  Looking through the sight, all levels had either a green or red appearance.  As already stated, in most cases you will probably use the 1 or 2 intensity levels.

Figure 26                Figure 27                 Figure 28                 Figure 29                 Figure 30
1                            2                             3                             4                             5
Burris AR-332 Green Intensity 1 Burris AR-332 Green Intensity 2 Burris AR-332 Green Intensity 3 Burris AR-332 Green Intensity 4 Burris AR-332 Green Intensity 5

Figure 31                Figure 32                 Figure 33                 Figure 34                 Figure 35
1                            2                             3                             4                             5
Burris AR-332 Red Intensity 1 Burris AR-332 Red Intensity 2 Burris AR-332 Red Intensity 3 Burris AR-332 Red Intensity 4 Burris AR-332 Red Intensity 5

The elevation and windage turrets have aluminum caps that are secured to the side of the sight via a stainless steel cable that thread through a lug in the side of the sight which I feel is a very good feature.  The cable does make unscrewing the caps a little finicky at times, but it is worth the trouble.  The caps are sealed by a rubber washer at the base of the turret housing.

Figure 36
Burris AR-332 Turret Caps

Burris states that the elevation and windage are adjustable to 80 MOA total travel or +/- 40 MOA from the center.  Each click of adjustment is equal to 1/2 MOA.  The clicks were positive and had audible clicking sounds.  Each turret is marked with the direction to move the point of impact either UP or Right.

Figure 37                                                              Figure 38
Burris AR-332 Elevation Turret  Burris AR-332 Windage Turret

I installed the sight on one of my home built 300 BLK rifles shown below and I'm very pleased with this overall configuration.  The sight height above the barrel centerline is about 2.82".  Burris states the sight height is 1.6" and the height of my flat top over the barrel is about 1.22".

Figure 39
Burris AR-332 Installed on AR Rifle

One thing worth noting is that since the clamp bolts on the mount act as recoil lugs, the farthest back you can mount the sight is in the position shown below.  With this sight having a relatively short eye relief (2.5"), the sight is about 1" forward from my preferred position.  I'm 6' 2" and typically shoot with the buttstock fully extended.  If I position the buttstock one adjustment forward then it is not too bad.

Figure 40
Burris AR-332 Installed

All my range testing was done with this 300 BLK rifle and I was able to zero the sight at 100 yards without issue.  Since this rifle was not a 5.56 or 7.62 caliber rifle, the bullet drop yardages were not applicable for my caliber so I didn't spend any time doing a range verification of these values.  For the purposes of this review and showing what you get from a 300 BLK rifle, I have provided an estimated number of yards for each MOA drop in the reticle based on shooting Hornady 300 Blackout 110 gr GMX®  Full Boar® ammunition.  This supersonic ammunition would provide a great bullet choice (expanding monolithic coppery alloy) for hogs or deer (medium game) and provides a good velocity (2350 ft/sec) and ballistic coefficient (G1 0.305) for minimal drop at common hunting distances.  The table below gives two potential zeroing scenarios for this ammunition; 100 yards and 50 yards (1.0" high at 100 yards).  After punching these numbers, most likely I'm going to go re-zero with a 50 yard zero which will probably cover the majority of my hunting needs in Georgia and Alabama where most of my shots are less than 200 yards.

Dot Location MOA 100 yd. Zero
Yards
50 yd. Zero
Yards
Center 100 50 & 150
Bottom of Center Dot 1.1 155 187
1st down 3.3 223 247
2nd down 6.1 290 310
3rd down 9.6 360 377
Bottom 13.6 428 444
Values shown for yards are theoretical and based on a ballistics program using Hornady 300 Blackout 110 gr GMX®  Full Boar® ammunition with a sight height of 2.82".

If for some reason I find these values in the table above to deviate significantly during my further use of the rifle, I will update this review and potentially add more range testing video. 

 

Bottom Line:

The Burris AR-332 Prism Sight appears to be a quality made product that has the potential to be very durable.  It is not a light weight sight, but it's weight is comparable with similar sights from other manufacturers.  I wish the sight had a longer eye relief for me, but what it does have is manageable.  Purchasing an electronic sight with a Forever Warranty is a huge benefit, especially from a brand like Burris which has been around since 1971 and should be around for many years to come.  The basic price of the sight is reasonable, but if you can get a promotional deal like I did, the price is fantastic.  If the promotion comes through again, I will most likely take advantage of it again and make another purchase.


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