Budget Optic Review: Monstrum Blackbird 3x prism

Non-PSA Products
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Every so often if I see what I think looks like a good deal out there, I’ll buy a cheap optic to review out of curiosity. Recently Monstrum caught my eye selling their 3x Blackbird prism optic on closeout for $50, so I bought one. I like prisms since some dot sights can give me issues with my astigmatism and the prism will offer me a clear reticle and some zoom without having to mess with the extra weight and complications of a magnifier.

What I will say is this: I intended to first mount it to my AK, but it didn’t work at all for that. My side mount’s rail design sits too far forward for the eye relief on the prism, that isn’t an issue that’s specific to the Monstrum, by measure the Monstrum’s eye relief is only slightly worse than it is on my Primary Arms GLx 2x, the PA wouldn’t have worked either. The height of the optic overall wasn’t great for the fixed wood stock, either. That’s just an oversight on my part.

However, I just moved some optics around. Took a Holosun circle dot off a barebones S&W M&P Sport II, moved that to the AK, and put the Monstrum prism on the AR where I can mount it further back and have an adjustable stock for proper eye relief. The standard rise was also perfect on the AR. On that, I very much like it, especially for the price. I suppose if you wanted to get into some crazy mounts (I believe it uses mini-ACOG style, btw) that bring it way back you could use it with limited rail space, but I don’t think it makes much sense to be spending a large chunk on a fancy advanced mount and slapping a budget optic on it.

Comes with a riser if you want it, extra screws, one extra CR2032, a hex wrench, and a cleaning towel. Pretty standard.

Looks? It’s clean and simple, almost minimalist. I like the design, it isn’t goofy and overdone like some other budget optics can be. There’s one small brand stamping that’s honestly hard to notice. If you’re attempting to view through with both eyes open, the illumination knob will stick out, but 3x is a little much for both of my eyes to handle anyway. Dominant eye only is no problem.

The illumination is more of a gimmick than anything, I wouldn’t describe it as daylight bright, but the red/green capability is a nice touch and I could see it having uses at dim indoor ranges or at twilight/sunrise. The thing is though, the reticle is SUPER bold which makes daylight brightness unnecessary. You can’t miss the circle dot reticle in bright light. In fact, if someone wanted to tell me they were going to run this optic without battery power at all, I’d say it’d be fine.

The elevation and windage are 1/2 MOA per click, have a nice audible click per adjustment, and are easily adjustable with the covers which is a nice touch. Really good for the price point.

Again, the eye relief is fairly short, but not horrible for a prismatic sight. It’s something you should expect as a compromise for having an etched reticle and some magnification. By rough estimate you need to be 1 to about 2.5, maybe 3" at most back from it. Not really an issue on an AR will full rail space and an adjustable stock, could be a very large issue on a pistol with a fixed brace or something with limited rail space and a fixed stock (like my AK.)

It is slightly more weighty than the PA 2x, but it’s really not a noticeable difference when mounted.

I would describe the glass quality as decent overall, but very very good for $50. I don’t think I’d have much of an issue ringing steel with this thing out to 300. The adjustable diopter works well. I don’t think it’s a great choice for CQB (not sure why you’d want fixed 3x mag for that anyway,) but if you want to shoot from about 25m out to 300 I think you’ll be fine with it.

I think it’s built pretty tough too, especially again for the money.

If your expectations are in line with the price point, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with it. If you think you’re going to be getting $400 performance from a $50 piece, then you very well may be. I wouldn’t want to pay more than about $125 for it. Overall? Good if you want a little fixed magnification for a range piece and don’t want to break the bank. If you plan on using for anything more than ringing steel or putting holes in paper, save a bit more and get something with a bit more as far as features go: more brightness, a more precise reticle with holds for ranging, and a bit more flexible eye relief.

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I missed the sale.

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No, you didn’t.

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Thanks!

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thank you for the review, and link. i may just have to give it a shot myself.

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I wouldn’t unless you have an application it would apply to. Is it good for 50 bucks yes, but is it an optic I’d recommend to many others, no.

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understandable. but ya never know. have you tested yours on keeping zzero?

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I haven’t, but I’m not in the business of beating the (censored) out of my optics that all cost very real money, so I’ve never had an issue with any of them failing to hold zero. I don’t expect this one will have an issue either.

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I have several of these. They come with a lifetime warranty too.

I also have the 5X versión. The problem with it is they advertise it as 30 mm but the glass is more like 19 mm.

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Agreed on the latter.

For anyone else who may read this, I don’t say “I don’t recommend it” because it’s a bad optic, it isn’t. It’s pretty decent, it’s just that the PA I’m comparing it to is objectively better in reticle, eye relief, and illumination. That does come with a significantly higher price, though.

Still though, if you have an AR, not a lot of cash, and want a magnified optic, I would find it difficult if not impossible to find a better option for 50-100 bucks.

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i’ve gotten in a couple of the budget optics from monstrum that i ordered after you posted up. I thank you for the referral again, as like you said, for a low budget optic its not bad. So far i like what im seeing for them, as i like prisim sights. they come with 2 batteries too, one installed, one in a package for later use. they seem well made, a bit on the heavy side, but i chaulk that up to the fact that they’re well made. I havent had time yet to get to the range to try them out, but they do come in 2 colors for the most part, so i got one of each color, and figured i’d tyr them out on my jakls to start. so far, im not upset i spent the $$ so thats a good thing to be.

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Ive seen 2 monstrums fail on their first range outing. I know i have an unpopular opinion, but optics is not where you want to cheap out.

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Maybe my opinion isn’t popular either, but I disagree. I have more than a couple budget optics on things I don’t consider serious use firearms and have yet to run into an issue with any of them. Most of my experience has been surprise at how well they compare to stuff I paid quite a bit more for.

I don’t think price correlates to quality when you’re comparing low-mid range stuff in optics just like I don’t with guns. There is a level of proven durability and a track record you pay for (along with being domestically built) with Aimpoint and Trijicon, but I also believe as a civilian the chances of you needing something that overbuilt are basically zero. A Trijicon dot I used was absolutely terrible for me as far as astigmatism, and I have an (admittedly very old) Aimpoint dot as well, I don’t believe it to be anything really special.

I think majority of these “budget” to “mid-level” pieces are all coming from the same places and some companies just wildly overcharge for them (I believe Swampfox to be one of the ones doing this. I fell for it and paid $200 for one of their pistol dots, it feels and performs more cheaply than ones I paid less than half of that price for. PA does with certain of their entry level dot sights too.)

Look at the Romeo 5. You’re gonna tell me that’s a different piece than the ones offered from Holosun, Bushnell, PA, etc that look exactly the same? I don’t buy it. Same with the entry level PA pistol dots, no different than the Swampfox, Cyelee, Viridian, CVLife, Zulisy, about 40 other different “brands”, etc. It’s all the same.

And as stated earlier, lifetime warranty on the Monstrums, so…

I’ve seen a couple Glocks break too. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna trust one.

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The differences will be small, but they will be there. PA inspects every optic they sell. That’s huge. I would need to find it, but i remember reading a comment from Marshall (owner of PA) that they use a different glass vs romeo5. Their emmiter on the inside is also different and now they have their auto live battery cap.

One of the original Swampfox guys was a guy named Mike that worked at PA, so they had the same contacts.

I agree that you can get an affordable optic that works, and that some companies over charge. But i also agree that you should set a minimim and not go below that. For me, its a reputable company with known good CS. PA is my minimum, and they now play in the $xxxx game with optics.

I wont trust a monstrum, lifetime or not, because i have seen them fail. I also dont cheap out even if a “range toy”. Bad things happen at ranges, as well as too and from, and like it or not a range toy could be the thing you need to save a life. Worth it in my opinion to spend as little as $50 more to get something a little better.

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And we disagree. You’re setting a hard limit on what’s “acceptable” and what’s not, but that’s completely subjective and, in my opinion, a bit nonsensical. You like Primary Arms and that’s fine, I do too, but to act like they don’t pull the same crap by buying a Chinese optic, making some very minor if not completely irrelevant changes, and throwing their branding on it is burying your head in the sand.

I’ve seen a LOT of brands fail between guns, optics, and accessories. You can base your opinion off your extremely tiny sample size of stuff you’ve “seen” if you want, I don’t like to operate that way. If people did, nobody would buy PSA. Imagine if someone on another forum made a topic discussing their experiences with a “budget” Dagger or PA-15 and some other guy came in and said “well I’ve personally seen two PSAs fail so I won’t buy them and I suggest you don’t either and get something more expensive.” You’d think that person was being shortsighted and unfair, no? I would, just like I think you are now.

This entire topic has been dedicated to share my experience with buying a budget optic, I think I gave a very fair take on it, I directly compared it to a very similar but more expensive product, and what I think of it overall. You come in saying you’ve “seen two Monstrums fail”, but without specifics. How is that helpful or adding to the discussion? Was it this prism? One of their other prisms? Was it a larger dot sight? A reflex? Mount? LPVO? Magnifier? They happen to make a LOT of things, and I’d wager that some may be better than others as is the case with nearly all manufacturers that do the same (Vortex, for example, makes great scopes and in my opinion cruddy and overpriced pistol dots.)

I also happen to have a Monstrum scope mount that has served me very well for years and is indistinguishable from ones that cost quite a bit more. The company has not given me personally a reason to not trust their products yet.

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that is true… but hey, they have a lifetime warranty now… so why the hell not give em a shot… it looked like fun to me… so i did. we’ll see how they do.

i have an aimpoint comp m2 that is pretty old now too, and i agree, to me it doesnt feel or look like anything special. it works, which is good, but so do my 100.00 sig romeo 5’s without issue. and the sig has shake awake, and is about 2/3 smaller than the aimpoint is.

i agree with you here as well. many i do believe are the exact same thing just rebadged. i look at the budget optics as a you never know till you try. they may be good, they may not be. but its worth a shot to me. plus it gives me something to do which may be a poor reason to some, but i enjoy messing around with th ings seeing what i like and what works best etc etc.

the monstrums i have, now, have the glass etched, so even if the illumination fails, they still will work as its etched the reticle. so i dont see a issue trying them. I’ll give them a shot like i said, and see where we end up. I agree with PA being great kit, and i’d buy PA before holosun anyday as at least PA doesnt benifit the China Peoples Republics Army … as for the emitter being different and the glass being different, that may be so but how can we know? its not like we’ve taken apart each to compare, and the fact about the glass is hard for me to discern by my naked eye, so they could really say whatever and it be believable or not. no telling… this applies to everything from PA thru Eotech who also had many issues in the past and was sued by the government for screwing over our soldiers… so theres that too… if you look hard enough you’ll find issues with any producer.

The bottom line is to each their own, and i respect whatever anyone else wants to do on their setups. As for me, I have no issue giving a new company that i’ve never heard of the benifit of the doubt and trying their products… its how i got into PSA back in the day… I also bought one of thier flashlights, and im impressed so far. heres to nothing and we’ll see how things hold up over the long run.

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It was 2 right out of the box. Maybe they have made improvements, but that was enough for me. PA was the OG with budget optics, going back 10+ years. Monstrum iirc basically started by selling on Amazon. Due to the amount of fakes and stuff out there, Amazon is not the best place to buy gun parts. Same as ebay…you truly dont know what you are getting.

Not everything has to be aimpoint/eotech. If you are comfortable using Monstrum, go fo it.

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well i chose to go to their site, not to amazon to buy them. neither have failed yet. we’ll see how well they run when we take them out to the range. Im as curious as you are to see if they’ll fail or not. If they dont, more power to me, as i get a inexpensive optic that is good to go… if they fail, well thats life, but i figure if i dont give a company a chance, they’ll never be the next PA or Holosun or Sig, or anyone else. Thats my basic logic on trying new optic companies.

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2 of what?

I don’t buy gun parts on Amazon, I bought directly from them. And for what it’s worth, their shipping was extremely fast, across the country in two days.

I like giving things a fair shake. I don’t think you need to spend nearly the premiums most of the gun industry says you do in order to have a good, reliable, and functional arsenal.

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2 of their red dots. I cant tell you which model becauer they were not mine.